X bracing vs Tone bars

[CES]

One of the other ideas propagated regarding X vs TB bracing is that TB braced mandolins "open up" or change more over time than their X braced counterparts. HSBanjo, what was your experience with your two Gils?

[sblock]

I was just trying to explain my opinion as best I could although it may not be the easiest subject to delve into while not in the same room with a bunch of mandolins. Patronizing folks from behind a keyboard is a pretty easy stuff. Hope that made your day better.

Yow -- Pretty snarky response. But yes, I suppose it did make my day just a little better to point out another little bit of linguistic nonsense. I guess I'm trying to keep the world more honest, one post at a time.
Peace, bro.

[GProulx]

Yow -- Pretty snarky response. But yes, I suppose it did make my day just a little better to point out another little bit of linguistic nonsense. I guess I'm trying to keep the world more honest, one post at a time.
Peace, bro.

I honestly wasn't going to write anything back to you, but I just went to the classifieds and the first ad I looked at described a Gibson F9 as DRY and powerful in tone. I'm starting to think that maybe I'm not alone in this assumption that there is such thing as dry tone. But maybe Fiddlers Green has no clue what they're talking about either...

[Bill McCall]

The fact they state that doesn't mean there's any agreement as to what that means sonically. There are many old threads about this here, typically ending in disagreement.

And the overtone profile is something that could be reasonably measured at least between 2 mandolins. I'd be curious to see that test of a known 'dry' versus a 'non-dry' instrument.

[sblock]

I honestly wasn't going to write anything back to you, but I just went to the classifieds and the first ad I looked at described a Gibson F9 as DRY and powerful in tone. I'm starting to think that maybe I'm not alone in this assumption that there is such thing as dry tone. But maybe Fiddlers Green has no clue what they're talking about either...

Truth be told, I really wish there were a well-established, consensus vocabulary to describe the musical tone of an instrument. But there is not. Some people throw around words they have heard others use in a type of hopeful repetition, not really understanding what the other person meant, and sometimes not even knowing what THEY themselves mean! (The same goes for describing fine wines, where a better-established and larger array of terms borrowed from standard English is used to describe odors and tastes by experts, but where there is little agreement or even understanding among the rest of the wine-drinking public. There is also a lot of pretense and snobbery in the use of these terms, as we all know.)

Most of us do have some reasonable sense of what "bright" and "dark" mean with respect to musical tone, with more trebles/high overtones in a "brighter" sound, and possibly also more tonal complexity, but fewer such high overtones and possibly less complexity in a "darker" sound.

But "dry"?!? Well, if a musical tone can be "dry", then can it be "wet"? Or what about "focused"?! As opposed to what, "diffuse?" Linguistically, these type of words do not adapt themselves especially well to describing tone, in my opinion, and few folks actually agree on what they truly mean, when pressed to describe them with greater care. If "dry" only means fewer overtones, then why is it any different from "dark," one might well ask?

Words like "dry" and "focused" are by no means self-explanatory -- not even by metaphor or analogy. And unlike "bright", they seem to have no useful antonyms -- or range. That is not to say that SOME folks haven't found a small circle of consensus for their usage of these words in describing tone. It is only to say that this agreement is not widespread, and it gets awfully confusing.

Confuse at your own risk.

[Larry Simonson]

Until we can find some objective measures of instrument performance we will be stuck with the undefined or subjective terms, my favorite being "woody". I thought I had some idea of what a mandolin should sound like, then I got hearing aids, now I have no idea of whats coming out of the instrument or into my ears. The best line I have often heard is that the sound of a given instrument is pretty much determined by the player.

[MontanaMatt]

I grow and sell organic vegetables for a living...try describing flavors of heirloom tomatoes! Yummy is subjective

Check out the tone vocabulary list from Mike Marshall and Northfield...
"Tonal Terms
Immediate - responsiveness, jumps off the top, Engelmann, "pop!, the lip smack.

Knock knock - The percussive rap behind the note. the same sound/pitch as knocking on the bridge/top with knuckle? not as warm and rich as hickory nut

Hickory nut - related to knock-knock, compression, tongue clicking, warm and rich.

Openness - headroom, not tight, not new, played in, free harmonics, lightly finished

Sustain - Unhindered notes, efficiency, energetic, effortless

Rich - warm, buttery, evenness of tone, creamy, lush, round top end,

Toughness - compression on the double stops, bon-bon - inner-ear compression, growl, bones, holds together, does not breakup/distort

Complex Harmonics - wide open, omni-directional, rich, airy, full spectrum

Bone structure - the power behind the note, the meat in the middle, a hard substantial mid, toughness, focus, strong mid-frequency signature

Puff of air - the sound movement from inside the box out the f-holes, a light chop that has responsive bark, I perceive this best at lighter playing levels, swell of sound out of the mandolin.

Thick glass - The clear, clean, strong, focused up the neck stuff

Parchment - a warm airiness, complex harmonics, crinkling paper.

Bloom - the note has a seeming swell in amplitude immediately after the string is plucked, some left-hand technique involved, Engelmann

Evenness - The presence of balanced fundamental frequencies across the range of the instrument. Very important in the studio when tone is a lot more important than perceived volume.


Negatives

Hollow - lack of mids, no definition, tubby, weak, no bones,

Edgy - new, tight, stringy, distorting, brassy

Unfocused - no bones, no strong sonic space, washed out

Thin - too small harmonic signature, weak, overbuilt, lack of bottom end"

[fscotte]

Actually dry and wet are musical jargon, found on effects units as well as digital recording software. Relating that to tone, dry equals very little sustain, and wet as more sustain. I think its standard terminology most everyone should understand.

You can have a dry tone with lots of overtones that dissipate quickly. I think that is the tone most everyone likes to hear when referring to bluegrass tone. You can also have a dry tone with no overtones. Is there a standalone term for overtones? I don't think so. We either say it has overtones or not... Maybe complex may be an accurate term?

[sgarrity]

All of these words do have meaning. If you don't know what a dry mandolin sounds like then you haven't played enough of them. Is there room for interpretation within that definition, sure. But a dry mandolin is pretty easy to pick out. Stop trying to assign scientific objectivity and go play as many mandolins as you can.

As for bracing patterns, the differences are much starker between instruments of the same builder than between instruments of different builders.

[AlanN]

I was on the IIIrd Tyme Out bus once. Wayne and I were on our old F-5 mandolins, trading off back and forth. He used the term 'dry' to describe mine. I used the term 'dark' to describe his. I agreed with him and he agreed with me. Did we really know what each of those terms meant? I submit 'no', but they sure sounded good when we said them

[GProulx]

All of these words do have meaning. If you don't know what a dry mandolin sounds like then you haven't played enough of them. Is there room for interpretation within that definition, sure. But a dry mandolin is pretty easy to pick out. Stop trying to assign scientific objectivity and go play as many mandolins as you can.

As for bracing patterns, the differences are much starker between instruments of the same builder than between instruments of different builders.

I was starting to think I was going bonkers...I tend to agree completely with all this^^

[sblock]

Ah yes, a knock-knock almost bordering on hickory nut, leading to an immediate lip-smacking, dry bloom with hints of parchment, followed by a puff of air and a thick glass as the open sound travels upwards, indicative of real bone structure -- and toughness. Yup, that describes perfectly the sound of my mandolin! I'm sure most of you know exactly what I mean.

[Mandoplumb]

In sound reinforcement, as was alluded to in a previous post, dry means less effects used. Wet is also used if effects are used. The signal sent to the amp is " wet" if effects are added. I have heard many pickers talk of a dry sounding mandolin but I don't know that they are using it as in sound reinforcement, in reality they can't be because no acoustic instrument can have any effects used. I have never heard anyone describe a mandolin as wet unless it was left out in the rain. It is impossible to accurately describe a sound characteristic with a word, maybe you could come close with a sentence or a paragraph.