Let's have a hypothetical discussion: Can we improve mando design

[Charlieshafer]

Big given.

I think we have not a technical problem but a philosophical one. The Loar F5 is perfect by definition. It is not at the top of a list, it is the bulls eye of a target. Nobody can make something better, not because its the best, but because its the criterion.

Same situation, to an even greater degree, with the Stradivari mandolin.

That said, this is an interesting topic.

Very good point! If we assume that the Loar is the best, then the question is moot, it can't be improved upon. If you throw all the design history of Gibson out the window, pretend it never happened, what would modern builders come up with? I've no idea, but by the nature of infinite choices and evolution, materials and engineering, anything and everything can be improved upon.

Kerman, Brian Dean, et al have tried to throw the design book out the window and have had great success, so tradition here doesn't seem to be necessarily the best answer. The most comfortable, but not the best.

[Jstring]

Bear with me if this is long-winded.... I think the prevalence of MAS is proof that mandolin development isn’t finished. Yes, there are people out there who own a million guitars or whatever instrument. But MOST of my musician friends think it’s insane whenever I buy/sell/trade a mandolin every six months looking for something better.

For example:
-The musician I play bluegrass with has ONE banjo. It’s a Stelling, it cost $3500 and it does absolutely everything you could want a banjo to do... sounds amazing. He’s played it forever (20+ years)
-The guitarist in my jazzy trio has ONE guitar (plus a beater, I think, but he never uses it) It’s a Collings, it cost $4000 and he plays jazz, folk, standards, bluegrass, etc on it. It sounds awesome in every context. He never talks about getting something better.
-I have one fiddle.. it cost $1500 and I have no desire to even try another fiddle. Its sound is deep, dark, growly, clear and loud. I love it every time I play it. Actually, I play it every single day just to hear it...

Mandolins?
-After owning more than a dozen, I feel blessed to own the THREE listed down below. None are “perfect”, but they’re all pro-grade instruments. When I get frustrated with one, I just switch to one of the others for a few weeks. How much $ have I spent on mandolins? Don’t want to think about it.

I think mandolin development will be complete when you can plunk down $3-5k and get an instrument that does everything you could ever want, like my friends who play fiddle, banjo, guitar, etc.

I want that mandolin to have:
1. Volume like a National resonator so I can just play smooth n’ easy like a fiddle or banjo player...
2. Warm, rich deep low end like the Ellis A I used to own...
3. Crystal piano-like trebles like a good Collings...
4. Complexity that you hear in a good Gilchrist...
5. The undefinable “mandolinny” character that only an old Gibson F4 has...

Yep, that’s all I want in an instrument, lol! I don’t care what it looks like either!

[allenhopkins]

Violin bridges are NOT glued in place.

Awright, awright, all you guys -- my bad.

Still not sure why a fixed bridge wouldn't be a good idea for mandolins. Ovations have 'em -- not that I usually hold them up as templates for luthieric excellence, but I'm just not sure what the advantage of having a floating bridge is. Yeah, it can be relocated, but are there really several options for its location, so it needs to be movable?

Seems to me that a large number of the issues raised about improper intonation on the Cafe, are addressed by moving the bridge around. What if the bridge were fixed in the "right place?" Or isn't there a "right place?"

[catmandu2]

Violin bridge is very light, thin, fragile. If it were affixed, there is great liklihood that it would eventually break. Also, a free bridge allows for easy modification per player preference.

Or, are you talking about mandolin bridges I guess. Still, I see no reason to fix the bridge. Correcting intonation is like tuning - no big deal. I see no advantage in affixing bridge.

[allenhopkins]

...Correcting intonation is like tuning - no big deal. I see no advantage in affixing bridge.

1. Well, we spend an awful lot of time talking about how mandolins need to be set up; we offer e-books, suggest that first-time mandolin buyers take their instruments to pro repair shops for set-up, tell them "the most important thing is to have your mandolin properly set up." Which is true -- but one of the major components of set-up is bridge location and height adjustment. What if the bridge were already properly located, and fixed in place? How would that be worse? Then we'd just have to monkey with the bridge adjustment wheels.

2. "Easy modification per player preference" -- are you referring to those mandolinists who prefer to have their bridges in the wrong place -- so the intonation's incorrect? Am I missing something (probably true)? Is there more than one acceptable bridge location? I'd guess that there would be some very small adjustments related to the height of the strings -- with higher action, would the bridge need to be located further from the nut? I don't grasp the relationship, but there may be one.

Banjos, mandolins,* and arch-top guitars all have floating bridges -- as do violins, I've just been educated to understand. Flat-top and solid-body guitars, and ukuleles, have fixed bridges. i'd guess that floating-bridge instruments are more demanding to set up, than fixed-bridge instruments. So, what is the advantage of the floating bridge?

And don't tell me, "Well, you can adjust it for proper intonation." If the bridge were in the right place, and fixed there, you wouldn't have to adjust it for proper intonation.

* Except for resonator mandolins. And Ovations.

[Toni Schula]

One reason comes to mind...it would be hard to squeeze 8 holes and pins into the space available on a mandolin.

We have some terrific luthiers in the Cafe. Maybe some of them would share their attempts to improve the mandolin and what has or hasn't worked. In any event,this should be an interesting thread.

I recently baught a 10 piece pack of single e-strings and these are ball ends. They work perfectly with an allen style cast tail piece. It simply leaves the hook unused.

[Toni Schula]

One thing I've noticed: no one seems to suggest that the traditional floating bridge might not be optimal. Would a fixed, compensated adjustable bridge be an improvement? It would reduce the mis-intonation issues caused by badly located bridges. The violin, which is similar to the mandolin in having the strings attached to a tailpiece, has a bridge glued in place.

I someone could invent a lightweight floating bridge which allows the adjustment of the intonation for individal courses without removing wood, he'd be my hero!

[Toni Schula]

Very good point! If we assume that the Loar is the best, then the question is moot, it can't be improved upon. If you throw all the design history of Gibson out the window, pretend it never happened, what would modern builders come up with? I've no idea, but by the nature of infinite choices and evolution, materials and engineering, anything and everything can be improved upon.

Kerman, Brian Dean, et al have tried to throw the design book out the window and have had great success, so tradition here doesn't seem to be necessarily the best answer. The most comfortable, but not the best.

Even if we assume that Loar did a very very good - near to perfect - job, there is still the possibility that requirements changed over the past century.

E.g. I would like an accoustic mandolin which can be easily amplified without the risk of feedback even when played together with electric guitars. Neither mics nor electric guitars were common in 1920

[DavidKOS]

Seems to me that if the F5 style is made by most builders, company's included like Collings, Weber etc. etc. they make it like the Loar F5. If another design was copied all these years by so many then that design would be the winner. More have copied this mandolin than any mandolin.
.

Improve on a Kerman, if you can. LOL

I would suggest that the Europeans would have a significantly different view of mandolin history and significance than we would, just as they have a different view of World War II.
To suggest that Lloyd Loar has been crowned king of mandolin design is simply patently absurd. The popularity of the f-style is as much a product of provincial American musical tastes and Gibson's marketing prowess as it is of some mystical "history". This is not to deny the popularity of the Loar design here in the US, but popularity is not greatness, nor is it definitive.
The Kerman, the Stradavarius (mandolin), the Brian Dean, the Sorensen, the Loar, the Lyon and Healey, and so many others are all part of a process which is indefinable and unending
Bill

I really like this comment.

"provincial American" taste indeed!

You would have a hard time convincing Italian mandolinists to switch to F style instruments.

If Bill Monroe played on another style of mandolin, would THAT would be the "standard" for most people? What if the other later BG mandolinists had not used F style instruments?

Thank God other makers still make mandolins that are NOT carved archtop long scale instruments!

[pops1]

Fixed bridge, what gauge of strings do you use. With lighter or heavier gauge strings the intonation will need to be adjusted. How high is your action, low or higher, the bridge will need to be adjusted.

[catmandu2]

1. Well, we spend an awful lot of time talking about how mandolins need to be set up; we offer e-books, suggest that first-time mandolin buyers take their instruments to pro repair shops for set-up, tell them "the most important thing is to have your mandolin properly set up." Which is true -- but one of the major components of set-up is bridge location and height adjustment. What if the bridge were already properly located, and fixed in place? How would that be worse? Then we'd just have to monkey with the bridge adjustment wheels.

2. "Easy modification per player preference" -- are you referring to those mandolinists who prefer to have their bridges in the wrong place -- so the intonation's incorrect? Am I missing something (probably true)? Is there more than one acceptable bridge location? I'd guess that there would be some very small adjustments related to the height of the strings -- with higher action, would the bridge need to be located further from the nut? I don't grasp the relationship, but there may be one.

Banjos, mandolins,* and arch-top guitars all have floating bridges -- as do violins, I've just been educated to understand. Flat-top and solid-body guitars, and ukuleles, have fixed bridges. i'd guess that floating-bridge instruments are more demanding to set up, than fixed-bridge instruments. So, what is the advantage of the floating bridge?

And don't tell me, "Well, you can adjust it for proper intonation." If the bridge were in the right place, and fixed there, you wouldn't have to adjust it for proper intonation.

* Except for resonator mandolins. And Ovations.

My error for skimming and erroneously thinking we were talking violin bridges there.

But wrt mandolin bridges, I think you have a point - with so many photos I've seen of mandolins with bridges improperly positioned, they probably *should* be affixed. However, an argument for having them free-floating is the ability to change bridges per player preference. I wouldn't want mine affixed simply for the reason that adjusting intonation just isnt an issue (maybe from playing banjos and fiddles for so long).

I've also played instruments with fixed bridges that intonation needed correcting, and would have been better served with a floating bridge. Those had to be corrected by saddle filing.

*WRT #2 (modification per player preference), I'm referring to shaping bridges per one's liking: thickness, feet, saddle, etc. Or swapping out entirely, etc.

[fscotte]

A fixed mandolin bridge would act as a transverse brace. Perhaps making the top too stiff.

Now I don't know if an unglued bridge, as per the standard, acts as a brace per se. I don't "think" it does, but not entirely sure. If the top wants to implode, the unglued bridge wouldn't stop it. But a glued bridge would certainly help.

[fatt-dad]

I suspect a glued bridge would have a composite effect structurally.

. . . if only Bill. . .

f-d

[allenhopkins]

Catmandu2 makes one very good point; mandolin players often want to replace bridges, in search of a better sound. A fixed bridge would make this a major project -- although, guitarists sometimes replace saddles, with the same intention. So we could have a fixed bridge base, on which one could install a variety of saddles.

Mandolinists also can have issues with the fit of the bridge feet to the curvature of the mandolin top, another potential problem that might be addressed by a fixed bridge.

Now, I'm just "spitballing" here, with no expectation that mandolin builders are going to switch to fixed bridges, except in rare cases. But, as stated, it's a "hypothetical discussion." And I'd still like to have someone explain what the advantage of a movable bridge is, in terms of sound, playability, esthetics, whatever. "It's always been that way," true, and there is wisdom in centuries of tradition, but it does seem that the movability of the mandolin bridge is a source of intonation issues -- possibly a fixed bridge, if properly placed, would reduce that problem.

Just sayin'...

[catmandu2]

Mandolinists also can have issues with the fit of the bridge feet to the curvature of the mandolin top, another potential problem that might be addressed by a fixed bridge.

Well, that's one of the aspects I was addressing. Considering the variability of set-up (relative to the bridge) coming out of factories, some liklihood of poor/improper bridge fitting exists. I want to be able to fit a bridge properly, without having to rip it off, remove glue, clean surfaces, etc. A floating bridge eliminates this problem scenario. An arched top may be subject to more movement (say, between here and Asia) than a flat top.

Bridges, and fitting - and indeed set-up - are just too vitally important to be left to the vicissitudes of manufacturing (by current evidence) - at least for my money, anyway.

But as mentioned, I suspect the structure of arched tops are better served (physically, acoustically) by floating rather than fixed. That's just my hunch. The rationale that scott provides there may be ample reason. *So, maybe carbon fiber, or other as yet undiscovered process, mandolins? - whose shape doesn't change, then.. hey, maybe - a flexible yet proper conducer that automatically calibrates and adjusts (perhaps like GPS or satellite inflection something- definitely techy...mando 2050).

[derbex]

But it does leave me wondering....the octave mandolin exists, and so does the tenor nyckelharpa, but has anyone made an octave-scale mandolin with 12 resonance strings below the plane of picking? Sort of a hardingfele/nyckelharpa-inspired take on the OM, with 4 strings you pick, and resonance strings that are just there to ring and chime along? That's a design I would personally find exciting.

Well there are harp guitars and harp mandolins, someone must have built a mandola. They are not quite the same idea as I think the drone strings are designed to be struck rather than just ring sympathetically, but I guess they do that too.

Much as I like the nyckelharpa, one obvious design improvement would be to get rid of the clacking -even more annoying than pick click.

[catmandu2]

@allen, my *spitball* is a notion that there's just something about that arch-top belly just needs to be able breathe! (Maybe being in the gym right now influences that )

But interesting stuff...resonance, sympathetics, tradition... makes me think too of the debates in woodwinds - a plastic sopr cl body seems to be sufficient, but ebony is traditional...even though it's a bear outdoors. I wonder what the pipers say.

[JeffD]

For example:
-The musician I play bluegrass with has ONE banjo. It’s a Stelling, it cost $3500 and it does absolutely everything you could want a banjo to do... sounds amazing. He’s played it forever (20+ years)

What!?!? I know more than a few banjo players, and not one of them has fewer than three banjos, and many of them bring two to a jam.

-The guitarist in my jazzy trio has ONE guitar (plus a beater, I think, but he never uses it) It’s a Collings, it cost $4000 and he plays jazz, folk, standards, bluegrass, etc on it. It sounds awesome in every context. He never talks about getting something better.

Huh?! I know a lot of guitar players, and even the money conscious ones have more than three. I remember going to a jam and bringing along a non musician friend of mine with whom I had discussed this very issue. So she went about asking the guitarists how many they had. The one guy asked, "how many have I owned or do I own" and then confessed to owning five, the other said he owned sixteen, but only played six of them regularly.

-I have one fiddle.. it cost $1500 and I have no desire to even try another fiddle. Its sound is deep, dark, growly, clear and loud. I love it every time I play it. Actually, I play it every single day just to hear it...

Now my experience with fiddlers is they only play their best, but in their house are the three, or four, that at one time were their best.

I think mandolin development will be complete when you can plunk down $3-5k and get an instrument that does everything you could ever want, like my friends who play fiddle, banjo, guitar, etc.

I want a lot of contradictory things from a mandolin - for bluegrass and varients I like an arch top. For classical a bowl or my L&H, for old time I am loving my flatties.

The very best mandolin is the one with a switch that turns it into the exact mandolin you need at that exact moment.

[JeffD]

If Bill Monroe played on another style of mandolin, would THAT would be the "standard" for most people? !

Of course it would. No question in my mind.

[catmandu2]

Now my experience with fiddlers is they only play their best, but in their house are the three, or four, that at one time were their best.

Fiddles. They're so easily acquirable. I picked up an old Breton yesterday for a c-note..hadn't been played in a very long time, brought it back to life.. .someone gave me one last year, which I since gave to someone else...and another as I recall I gave last year as well. They seem to just kind of *grow* around..

[Randi Gormley]

Well, i swapped out the bridge on my Eastman for a Fischer bridge pickup. Since i know practically nothing about guitars, i'm sure there are comparable things done, but i'd think it would be a real pain to go electric by simply switching the bridge if you had to dig out the saddle and re-finish the top to do so. But for the guitarists out there -- are there fixed bridges on arch-top guitars? The one I've seen had a violin-like tailpiece but i can't remember if the bridge was fixed.

[Bob A]

Violin bridges are 9re)moveable because they are cut individually by a luthier to produce the tonality the player requires. New owner, different setup. Being fragile, they need to be replaceable without harming the top of the violin.

Archtop guitar bridges are moveable.

Archtop instruments produce sound by a different mechanism than fixed bridges, and require far different design parameters.

Moveable bridges allow for adjustment when humidity varies by a significant amount over time. This is accomplished in fixed bridges by varying saddle height.

Regarding "provincial" aspects of mandolin design, a decade or so ago a poster noted that when he took his F5 to Italy and was playing on the beach, a couple young ladies happened by and asked him what his instrument was. When he told them it was a mandolin, they laughed at him.

The concept of "improving" mandolin design is sort of pointless; otherwise we wouldn't suffer under the richness of playing an instrument with literally hundreds of different styles.

[fatt-dad]

getting back to glue. . .

It could also be related to temporal shrink/swell. With a glue joint there could be an unnecessary stress concentration, easily avoided by just not gluing it at all!

f-d

[jimmy powells]

I think the body size just a bit bigger could be an improvement. The F5 shape is loved by all (although arguably not as beautiful as the Gibson F4 shape with checkered rosette) but The Northfield BigMon with an extra 5% is the tip of the iceberg for me. My own one sounds great. I had a custom F5 made by Tom Murray of Scotland and the body depth was a bit deeper and the graduation to the carved top started a little bit nearer the rim. That mandolin had a BIG voice. So what I'm saying is that perhaps if someone tried 10% bigger body all round including depth, they may have a more versatile mandolin. That's my thought after 45 years of handling hundreds of mandolins of all qualities. Too many sound too thin.

I would also say that we have all got used to the two body points and it would be difficult to look at variations on that but I have to say that when playing seated in my 'normal mandolin position' the body point sticks into my leg and before anyone days change your position, it is for me the 'natural position'. Just wish it wasn't there at all. It would still be a fabulous shape. Of course I could get an A model but I've been in love with the F shape too long now.

Jimmy
UK

[JeffD]

I think one of the great recent improvements to the mandolin is the fan fret with five courses. The fan frets give mandola spacing to the bass side, so the C string doesn't get floppy or have to sound dull, and mandolin spacing to the treble side so the e string doesn't have to break. A true mandolin/mandola instrument.