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Thread: Bass to Mandolin

  1. #1
    Registered User red7flag's Avatar
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    Default Bass to Mandolin

    After a week of pretty focused bass playing, I pulled out a mandolin. I noodled for a minute or so and found the tone thin, trebly and unappealing. As I played more, the tone gradually improved. As there is nothing wrong with the Ellis, i must surmise the problem is my lack of playing. Within ten minutes or so, the tone was back to normal. Just thought I would share the experience.
    Tony Huber
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  2. #2
    Worlds ok-ist mando playr Zach Wilson's Avatar
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    Default Re: Bass to Mandolin

    I get the same experience with my Weber. It takes a while (10-15 min...) for it to warm up and sound right.

    I am unsure if it's the Weber warming up or the player though. I suspect it's me re-figuring how to pull tone again.

    I play bass too and if I'm practicing something for long periods of time to get ready for a gig my mandolins get neglected.

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  4. #3
    Moderator JEStanek's Avatar
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    Default Re: Bass to Mandolin

    I bet it had more to do with what your ears were accustomed to hearing you make after a week on the bass rather than some structural change in the mandolin itself. Imagine if your first impression of a fine Ellis on first playing it after it came to you had been thin, trebly and unappealing. You might not have kept it (you've been through many instruments ).

    I'm not entirely sold on the whole instrument wakes up phenomena vs, you get back in the grove as a player to work better with the instrument for optimal (for you) tone. I'll qualify this with, I'm not a very good player technically and my mandolin sounds amazing in competent hands. The one time I got to handle a Loar signed mandolin it sounded exactly like me playing. Later that afternoon when the REAL player was using it it sounded like one would expect.

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  6. #4

    Default Re: Bass to Mandolin

    I play bass and guitar in addition to mandolin and go through long phases playing only one of the three. When I switch back to mandolin after a lengthy hiatus, there is usually a brief period of re-orientation of my hands and ears to the smaller fretboard and the shifted range of frequencies. I expect that my pick technique is readjusting during this transition to better pull tone from the instrument as my ears become reacquainted with the audio spectrum they haven't heard for some time.
    "Well, I don't know much about bands but I do know you can't make a living selling big trombones, no sir. Mandolin picks, perhaps..."

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  8. #5
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    Default Re: Bass to Mandolin

    (laugh) Whenever I do the bass-to-mandolin switch, the tone sounds fine . . . but the mandolin is so small that it seems like a toy - like somebody put sewing thread on a Popsicle stick, and said 'Here, play this!'

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  10. #6
    Registered User Tim N's Avatar
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    Default Re: Bass to Mandolin

    I used to play e bass - and my back problems seemed to start at the same time... It was quite a few years later I arrived at mandolin, having picked up bouzouki and tenor guitar on the way - a sort of progressive downsizing into the world of fifths tuning, and I don't have the old back problems any more! But surely your experience really is more to do with your ears and your moving between extremes? Why should a mandolin lose its tone when not played (apart from dusty/dirty strings)? I hear what is said by others about pick technique, but that is not to do with the instrument itself.
    "What's that funny guitar thing..?"

  11. #7
    Mando accumulator allenhopkins's Avatar
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    Default Re: Bass to Mandolin

    Quote Originally Posted by Tim N View Post
    ...Why should a mandolin lose its tone when not played (apart from dusty/dirty strings)?...
    A question I've often asked myself. Yet there are quite a few on the Cafe who insist that their instruments "open up" after being played for a few minutes. The empirical physical rationale for this escapes me, but who am I to doubt others' experiential impressions?

    It would be one thing if the mandolins in question had sat for 15-25 years unplayed, but some claim leaving them overnight lulls them into a state of tonal slumber, needing to be awakened by fifteen minutes' vigorous strumming. Hasn't been my experience, though I do admit that when I pick up any instrument I haven't played for awhile, it takes a brief "re-familiarization" for me to get my bearings. (Watch me finger banjo chords on my mandola!) But that's me, not the instrument.

    Different strokes for different folks, I guess. Or, YMMV.
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