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Thread: ToneGuard Question

  1. #26
    Registered User sblock's Avatar
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    Default Re: ToneGuard Question

    Quote Originally Posted by Jeff Mando View Post
    OK, been riding motorcycles since I was a teenager....over 50 years at this point...FWIW. Here's the deal, the reason you ride a motorcycle is to look cool, right? Part of that is to play the role of a bad mutha -- black t-shirt, boots, sunglasses, leather jacket, etc (last time I checked that was called fashion???) -- anyway part of all that posturing is the mounting and dismounting of the bike, as you show up to your favorite watering hole, event, etc.......

    that requires swinging your right leg over the rear fender when getting on the bike in one sweeping motion, popping the starter, and riding off into the sunset with all the "non-biker world" watching in feared amazement while holding their ears at the deafening sound of the straight pipes........

    well, UNLESS you are an NBA player you aren't tall enough to swing your leg over the sissy bar in one sweeping motion -- you have to instead awkwardly lift and tuck your right foot over the seat between the gas tank and the sissy bar to get on the bike -- IN EFFECT -- totally blowing your cool! The whole reason for being part of that elite club in the first place!

    Maybe fashion is an offensive word to some, maybe mandolin decorum would be more accurate....

    At any rate, just having some fun, but fully admit getting sidetracked at this point from the OP's question.....

    But, then again............
    W-w-w-w-w-w-wait. You're claiming that if you have to bend your knee slightly as you pass it over the saddle while mounting your motorbike, this act makes you appear so awkward and unfashionable that you shouldn't even own a Harley, whereas if you can manage to keep your leg straight, that somehow makes you "look cool" and "part of an elite club?!?" OMG, what desperately insecure, shallow thinking.

    You have given us all one more reason to dislike biker mentality. I had no idea you supposedly tough guys were such slaves to fashion!

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  3. #27
    Dave Sheets
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    Default Re: ToneGuard Question

    These things are all tools, if they work well, use 'em, regardless of how little they cost.
    -Dave
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    Way too many other instruments

  4. #28
    Registered User Frankdolin's Avatar
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    Default Re: ToneGuard Question

    As a lifelong motorcyclist and mandolinist. IMHO. ToneGuards are definitely "un-cool". I mean really? Don't get me wrong to each his own. I wave to all bikes even scooters and trikes as long as you ride. Same with music , I don't care how you get there, Just get there.

  5. #29
    Mando-Accumulator Jim Garber's Avatar
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    Default Re: ToneGuard Question

    Wow a strange derailment of this thread! Somehow we got to macho motorcycles and lawn equipment.

    I can say that I don't use any internal combustion engines anywhere near my mandolins. What I don't get is why anyone gives a flying doodad what anyone else does. I buy $35 picks and use $13/set strings on my mandolins and I have a Tone-Guard and like it when I use but it doesn't fit in my case so I forget to use it. I don't care what anyone else does, I just do what works for me. Sometimes I am enticed to try things that others mention and sometimes I don't who cares what anyone else does and, for that matter, who cares what I do. Just me and sometimes I don't care either.

    ... and now, I will step off my hand-carved, f-style soapbox with custom Tone-Guard...
    Jim

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  7. #30
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    Default Re: ToneGuard Question

    Quote Originally Posted by Jim Garber View Post
    Wow a strange derailment of this thread! Somehow we got to macho motorcycles and lawn equipment.

    I can say that I don't use any internal combustion engines anywhere near my mandolins. What I don't get is why anyone gives a flying doodad what anyone else does. I buy $35 picks and use $13/set strings on my mandolins and I have a Tone-Guard and like it when I use but it doesn't fit in my case so I forget to use it. I don't care what anyone else does, I just do what works for me. Sometimes I am enticed to try things that others mention and sometimes I don't who cares what anyone else does and, for that matter, who cares what I do. Just me and sometimes I don't care either.

    ... and now, I will step off my hand-carved, f-style soapbox with custom Tone-Guard...
    This says it all !

  8. #31
    Registered User Frankdolin's Avatar
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    Default Re: ToneGuard Question

    Quote Originally Posted by Jim Garber View Post
    Wow a strange derailment of this thread! Somehow we got to macho motorcycles and lawn equipment.

    I can say that I don't use any internal combustion engines anywhere near my mandolins. What I don't get is why anyone gives a flying doodad what anyone else does. I buy $35 picks and use $13/set strings on my mandolins and I have a Tone-Guard and like it when I use but it doesn't fit in my case so I forget to use it. I don't care what anyone else does, I just do what works for me. Sometimes I am enticed to try things that others mention and sometimes I don't who cares what anyone else does and, for that matter, who cares what I do. Just me and sometimes I don't care either.

    ... and now, I will step off my hand-carved, f-style soapbox with custom Tone-Guard...
    That's us! Gotta have "some" fun...

  9. #32
    Innocent Bystander JeffD's Avatar
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    Default Re: ToneGuard Question

    Quote Originally Posted by Frankdolin View Post
    As a lifelong motorcyclist and mandolinist. IMHO. ToneGuards are definitely "un-cool".


    The mandolin, just by itself, is So. Very. Uncool. in most of the musical gatherings where cool really matters. When I think of the social opportunities that passed me by just for playing "that little banjolookie thing". Oh my goodness. Its like saying that the polka dots on your bow tie make it uncool. Or that yodeling is uncool sitting down.

    That said I think wearing a bow tie is real in yer face transgressive cool, and you don't have a XXXX on your XXXX if you don't yodel in public.

    Though I do think this is changing. Slowly. I do hear more yodeling all the time.
    A talent for trivializin' the momentous and complicatin' the obvious.

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  11. #33
    Mando-Accumulator Jim Garber's Avatar
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    Default Re: ToneGuard Question

    This thread is fast becoming one of my favorites following the collective unconsciousnesses of the denizens of this lovely virtual community. Motorcycles, Marandola s, coolness, yodeling, bow ties! Yes! Yes! Yes! Hah!
    Jim

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  13. #34
    Registered User Frankdolin's Avatar
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    Default Re: ToneGuard Question

    I yodel! Did it in the school hall 5th grade, The history teacher went nuts trying to figure out who it was. Ha.

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  15. #35

    Default Re: ToneGuard Question

    I seem to recall reading something about Hank Snow learning how to yodel as a boy and the need to find a place to do it with plenty of space around him....

  16. #36
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    Default Re: ToneGuard Question

    Quote Originally Posted by JeffD View Post
    ... I do hear more yodeling all the time.
    Yes, I've heard there's a real re-awakening happening among yodelists. Predictions are that yodeling will soon elevate into the place of alphorning in popularity.

    Woe, those poor alphornists.




    Edit: Maybe I'm just in the wrong circles, but I've never seen any hint that mandolins were unpopular. Rare and unusual, yes, but not unpopular.

    Now banjos, that's a different story. Their popularity has made them unpopular.

    [Added alphorn links for Jeff ]

    On-Topic Comment: Regarding ToneGards, yes, they are.
    Last edited by dhergert; Dec-24-2019 at 3:59pm.
    -- Don

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  17. #37

    Default Re: ToneGuard Question

    Don, you could have saved me a google search by saying those long horns used in the Ricola commercials...........

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  19. #38
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    Default Re: ToneGuard Question

    Quote Originally Posted by Jim Garber View Post
    This thread is fast becoming one of my favorites following the collective unconsciousnesses of the denizens of this lovely virtual community. Motorcycles, Marandola s, coolness, yodeling, bow ties! Yes! Yes! Yes! Hah!
    And now, even alphorns (aka those long horns used in the Ricola commercials). Who would have dreamed?

    Hmmm, I wonder if there is a ToneGard or similar device for alphorns...
    -- Don

    "Music: A minor auditory irritation occasionally characterized as pleasant."
    "It is a lot more fun to make music than it is to argue about it."


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  20. #39
    Registered User T.D.Nydn's Avatar
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    Default Re: ToneGuard Question

    sissy bars on Harleys are cool,,they are functional and add to the overall lines of the bike,,,I wouldnt own one without one,,but I'm old school ,from a time when every bike had one..

  21. #40
    Lurkist dhergert's Avatar
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    Default Re: ToneGuard Question

    I had a sissy bar with a bag in back, and I had crash bars and saddle bags and windshield and the works after I restored my '78 shovelhead. It was a nice ride, I had to keep reminding myself that I wasn't in a parade. But I didn't have a ToneGard on it, it was plenty resonant without it.
    -- Don

    "Music: A minor auditory irritation occasionally characterized as pleasant."
    "It is a lot more fun to make music than it is to argue about it."


    2002 Gibson F-9
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    [About how I tune my mandolins]
    [Our recent arrival]

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  23. #41

    Default Re: ToneGuard Question

    Quote Originally Posted by T.D.Nydn View Post
    sissy bars on Harleys are cool,,they are functional and add to the overall lines of the bike,,,I wouldnt own one without one,,but I'm old school ,from a time when every bike had one..

    You are probably old enough to remember that the name "sissy bar" is the whitewashed version of what bikers actually called them in the 60's -- a not-so-politically correct name referring to the gender of the bike's passenger, FWIW.

    I mention this for those who are a couple generations too young to have read Hunter Thompson's "other" book.......Hells Angels. A glimpse at an outlaw era before lawyers rode Harleys...

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  25. #42

    Default Re: ToneGuard Question

    Yeah, well, when the lady (or man) you’ve been with for 30 years tells her friends you play the banjo-something, you have a reference point.
    But when I named my (sort of) mandola, Nelson, everybody seems to remember. Marketing.
    Anyhoo, about toneguards. I wondered about how much sound comes out of the back of a bowlback, as I would have thought it was much more of a ‘dead’ component than on the other shapes, so I experimented a little, and was surprised that it does radiate sound. What I could use is something that gives me a better grip on the back of this thing since it’s hard to clamp with a forearm. Is there such a thing, that maybe even is toneguardish?
    Happy holidays, friends. A time for music in the dark part of the year.

  26. #43

    Default Re: ToneGuard Question

    You might be able to set the bowl into a bucket or pail to act like a banjo resonator and isolate the back from your belly. Experiment with plastic or metal buckets? It may alter your playing position.

  27. #44
    Mandolin user MontanaMatt's Avatar
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    Default Re: ToneGuard Question

    I gotta chime in (chime, cuz my mando has great sustain, partly due to using toneguard). Check yourself Jeff. You cast aspersions on many fine musicians making great music(Sierra, CT, and Ronnie to name a couple elite players). Go tell someone driving a boss truck that you think their brush guard makes them a foolish follower.
    I wear my strap over my left shoulder so I can high five my band mates while chugging a beer between songs!
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    Default Re: ToneGuard Question

    ...

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  31. #46
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    Default Re: ToneGuard Question

    Glad that previous post was removed. Absolutely vile.

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