The Loar LM-310F

[Billkwando]

Hello Kitty Neck rest! That is great. I am a closet fan... My wife has a fair amount that I secretly admire. haha

It is always difficult to judge by pics, but in this case, it appears that the action is on the high side and there is too much relief. If this is truly the case (and not just an optical illusion), then removing some relief will also bring the action down.

The very basics of setup would go..
Set relief
Set Nut height
Set bridge height
Set intonation

There are many things this basic setup does not address. Such as, checking the height of the first fret before setting the nut height. It is not uncommon for the first fret to be high since frets are often leveled with the nut on and the first fret does not get enough leveling. Set the nut height to a high first fret, and your action ends up higher than it should be on every fret after the first. Moving the bridge for intonation, changes the string height, string height changes intonation... You go back and forth through these two, until it comes together. Many of the adjustments can be standardized with excellent results, but as you get down to the bleeding edge, everything becomes a factor and you may need to do multiple minor tweaks.

With high action, minor fret issues go unnoticed, if your relief is close, that is good enough, etc... as the action comes down, all of those minor issues, become major issues.

Everything is a compromise. Want a low nut height and little to no relief. Get the frets completely level and dressed, everything seems perfect, but what is this terrible buzz? It is the string buzzing behind the fretted note. You are fretting the 7th fret, and the string is lightly buzzing at the 6th. Arg! Your seemingly perfect setup needs more relief, which means lower the bridge, adjusting the intonation, maybe the bridge is bottomed out and needs to be recut.. All fun stuff, and precisely why it is very rare to get lower priced mandolins with top level setups. It is not the quality of the instrument that is the problem. It is the lack of profit from the sale to cover the level of setup needed to get an instrument playing great. A select handful of dealers do this, but it is probably less than 1%.

I recently had my 310 professionally set up - the whole 9 yards; bridge work, fret leveling, nut cut, intonation, etc. Including the original cost of the mandolin, I am now into the Loar for $300. While it does not play as well as my Eastman (which cost more than double my 310 investment), the Loar does have better tone - so, for those who are still thinking about buying a 310, in the end, it is all a matter of budget, and personal preference.

The Hello Kitty neck rest! I made that myself and covered it with my wife's HK duct tape (she has quite the collection herself, including a Fender Hello Kitty electric guitar). It seemed like it would be a good conversation piece.



So anyway, I took a stab at setting mine up, since I do all my own guitars. Adjusted the truss rod, and now you can only fit a business card under the 7th fret (when you're capo-ing 1 and hold down 12) if you shove it under there. Lowered the action as low as I could get it, and fitted the bridge to top. I actually had the neck flatter at first, but had this mysterious buzz on the G string (only sometimes) when I'd strum really hard on chords, down around the 1st and 2nd frets.

As a result, I ended up introducing a bit more relief back, to try to allow room for the vibration of the string. I swear it felt like it was buzzing against the upper part of the fingerboard. Still, it plays great (and it already did before, in my opinion, but then learned there was room for improvement).....but I figured maybe I was missing out by not getting it to play even better. I have no problems using my pinky, but again, I didn't before either.

Also, the aforementioned bit of buzz I'm referring to happened when I strummed pretty hard....we're talking Luka Bloom "Delirious" or Indigo Girls' "Land of Canaan" hard...which is maybe harder then you're even supposed to play on mandolin. I've certainly never heard Thile "hit it 'til it goes BONG", but I also have only seen random bits on YouTube. Maybe poor technique on my part.

I did make a video covering how to fit the bridge feet (much like the frets.com article, minus the pocket knife) because I couldn't find anything that specifically covered that on YouTube (unless I missed it somehow), and went ahead and covered intonation as well.

This way, if someone's a visual learner and only feels comfortable doing something after they've seen it done, they will be able to take this video and run with it.



I did notice that my nut is way taller than the slots, as my understanding is that the strings should be half in/half out of the grooves, whereas my strings are buried deep in the grooves, but it doesn't seem to be affecting the sound any.

Maybe the next time I change strings I'll try grinding the top of the nut down, but I didn't know if it was different for a bone nut (which I don't think I've ever had to work on before), and since it didn't seem to be affecting the sound I figured I'd leave it alone.

Man, new strings sound HORRIBLE (D' J74s), totally unlike a guitar.....where for the first few days you get that nice "piano-esque" sound from the wound strings. On mandolin, it's just overtone city....mad tinny. I can already tell it's starting to pass, but I seriously almost reconsidered my usual habit of washing my hands every time I'm going to play, in hopes that the strings might go "dead" sooner......but I didn't.

Also, I didn't think to ask Rob for his setup guide until AFTER I set mine up, but it turns out I'd already picked up 95% of the useful bits from reading the forums, or knew from past experience (plus the few bits that probably aren't detailed enough, or I didn't completely agree with, like where it seems to have folks sanding bridge feet freehand).

[p.crane@sbcglobal.net]

Recently bought a The Loar lm310f and the action's a bit clunky/stiff, i.e. if you don't finger some of the frets precisely (especially the first) there are "dead spots" or buzzing. Because it wasn't set up when I got it, I suspect/hope that's the reason. Mando vets with experience with this instrument, can you help?Thanks.

[Chris Daniels]

Recently bought a The Loar lm310f and the action's a bit clunky/stiff, i.e. if you don't finger some of the frets precisely (especially the first) there are "dead spots" or buzzing. Because it wasn't set up when I got it, I suspect/hope that's the reason. Mando vets with experience with this instrument, can you help?Thanks.

Yes! Regardless of brand/model, this is exactly why a good pro setup is recommended. Frets leveled/dressed, neck relief set (if there's a truss rod), nut and bridge slots filed to proper depth, bridge set to optimal height, etc. The LM310 can be a great beginner/intermediate instrument, but they definitely require some work to play to their potential.

Of course, if you're handy and have basic tools, Rob Meldrum's e-book will get you most if not all the way there. Send him a PM and he'll hook you up.

C.

[mondoslug]

Well, no playing mando player me is sorta on a quest for an instrument.
There's so many factors that go into the sound, not the least of which is having no chops on the thing and I am definitely a snob as far as the next person concerning laminate vs. solid wood instruments go... but I played a 520 at GC today that I really wanted to like and and a 310 at a local mom & pop store & the 310 won. The 520 was shiny, the top end is possibly a little sweeter but not much low end, the 310 just felt and sounded good. They both had similar action. Maybe it's not having the extended fretboard causing me to play a little more towards the body. It was just a warmer sound. Of course I realize that this is a super low sample size. I dunno...I might do it.

That is all!

[Good Vibrations]

As a re-entry instrument I bought it a couple of months ago. And I looked for a good beginner mandolin. So this is the cheapest with a hand carved top. Although I'm not able to compare I'm very very happy with it. We haven't a lot of dealers here but maybe I'd like to find a better one in some years.
For the price I couldn't expect more. Great deal!