Do great looking mandolins have to sound better?

[maxr]

Most here like to see some mandolin porn with fancy flame maple neck tops and backs etc - it looks great and it's all part of the art of making musical instruments. However:

* Do you think that bearclaw spruce and/or highly figured maple neccessarily sound better than plain good quality wood worked well?

* To what extent do players you've met assume fancy instruments sound better?

* Are there makers who made/make great sounding mandolins out of plain wood - or do they tend to bow to player demand for looks?

[yankees1]

Good questions ! I don't have exact answers but I imagine there are some people who justify in their mind that a beautifully made mandolin sounds better than another plain made instrument. Percentage of people I don't know ! I am sure that great makers can build great sounding instruments out of plain looking wood however ! I have always said that it would be interesting for players to conduct a blind folded test of playing many instruments from lesser known builders to top end builders. There could be some real surprises in which instrument sounds better to their ears !

[tmsweeney]

Well most that I have had or played look at least as good as they sound. The one exception would be the Michael Kelly F style Octave, which looked totally cool but was toneless ( or I at least could not coax tone out of it).
I have a "less than attractive" mandolin someone treated very poorly, but the tone is not bad.
Mike Marshall's beat to hell F5 is still cool to look at, and sounds awesome even if you close your eyes.

The choice of materials and Wood "quality" is very important as is the skill of carving, fitting, joining and finishing. All contribute to tone, and lets face it mandolins just look cool.
Can a good luthier make a pine box sound good? I'm sure it happens.

[poul hansen]

I don't expect a fancy mandolin to sound good but the looks normally follow the quality. Builders of good sounding(expensive) instruments, also tend to make them look good.

I do want an expensive instrument to sound good but also look good. You can't play all the time, but then you can enjoy looking at the instrument.

I have on the other hand, a couple of well made and good sounding but plain looking instruments, that were cheapish, where I set sound above looks.

[Frankdolin]

I think the old addage " You can't judge a book..." Certainly applies to instruments as well as thier players.

[MikeEdgerton]

Bill Monroe's mandolin didn't look all that great. The back was a little mismatched and as the years went by it didn't get any newer. If you pay a bunch for a mandolin I'm of the opinion that it should look and sound great but in the end it's the sound that matters. Well, I guess that and the playability.

[DavidKOS]

Bill Monroe's mandolin didn't look all that great. The back was a little mismatched and as the years went by it didn't get any newer. If you pay a bunch for a mandolin I'm of the opinion that it should look and sound great but in the end it's the sound that matters. Well, I guess that and the playability.

There sure are some beautiful looking and sound mandolins out there.

But as you point out not all great sounding instruments look perfect. Many of the world's top master-made violins sought after by concert violinists would not pass the prejudging round of a modern violin making contest due to rough scroll carving, asymmetry, less than ideal finishes, etc. - but they are the best sounding instruments.

I've also worked NAMM and the Messe and seen many guitars and mandolins made of the finest woods, with flawless finishes that left me musically cold, since they looked way better than they sounded.

[UsuallyPickin]

Hmmmm .... quality craft work comes first and foremost ... quality materials are also a must but pretty always seems to sell better than plain. For me it is Tone first , then playability and lastly looks. Playability can usually be adjusted or repaired but if the tone isn't there to begin with it is likely not to show up ... ever. Beginners are likely attracted to "pretty". Indeed F style instruments have a certain visual cache` it's true. Then that's just how it goes . . . . . first your money then your clothes.

[Pittsburgh Bill]

Good questions, but difficult or perhaps impossible to answer. I think all builders start out with the desire to build a great sounding/playing mandolin. I also think that the materials the builder starts with determines a desired "look" and selling price if built for resale. I also think that there is a surprise factor when the mandolin is completed. The more experienced the builder and the quality of components used are both factors that contribute to a lessor chance of surprise of having built a dud.
I'm not sure if I am adequately expressing what I am trying to convey, but simply put, I think surprises happen. Turds sometimes sound great and beauties sometimes don't.

[EdHanrahan]

Absatively!! After all, don't clean cars always run better than dirty cars?

[Richard Mott]

Beautifully figured wood typically costs more than plain, but any connection to the sound of the instrument likely derives from economics—i.e., a builder whose instruments are sufficiently well-regarded to command a higher market price is more likely to be able to absorb the higher cost of fancy materials. (And of course buyers who are paying top dollar typically want the appearance to match the investment.) One possible exception to this, albeit a controversial one, is bearclaw spruce which many builders (certainly European violin makers, etc.) believe is often stiffer than straight-grained and thus may be physically correlated to better sound.

[Richard Mott]

Just as a coda to this, I know of an absolute top guitar builder who had a customer come to him and say “Build me an instrument out of the best-sounding piece of spruce in your shop that you could never use because of its appearance, and then finish with black lacquer on the top.” The customer got an absolutely incredible instrument.

[Caleb]

Pretty wood might not always sound better, but it seems to me that most people paying top dollar for a good mandolin expect it to look beautiful.

[Bob Clark]

To the OP's question, in a word, no.

[Bob Buckingham]

The ones that sound good, always look better to me.

[CES]

We’ve had several luthiers through the years comment that they can (and sometimes do) build instruments out of plain looking wood that sound just like their other builds, but people paying for premier instruments will pick the more highly figured instruments almost every time, so that’s what they build.

My personal example of this was the Flatiron 1N I owned for about a decade and sold during a downsize move recently. It’s back was a very plain flatsawn maple, but, man, that little guy had A++ volume and tone from a flat top perspective. Someone got themselves a good ‘un there. I’ve also had the good fortune to play 2 Loars, and neither had terribly figured or matched backs, but the tone was there for both.

[maxr]

Can a good luthier make a pine box sound good? I'm sure it happens.

I think that's called a fiddle

[Dale Ludewig]

The difference in cost of "fancier" woods compared to plainer woods in a mandolin are minor in the grand scheme of things. They usually do take greater care to work with. Anyone that's ever tried to bend highly curly maple up around the neck on an F5 will know what I mean. And carving the more figured woods also is more challenging. Do the fancier woods necessarily sound better? No. That's up to the luthier. But it does take more time to work the figured woods and that will necessitate a higher price if the luthier wants to stay in business.

[maxr]

We’ve had several luthiers through the years comment that they can (and sometimes do) build instruments out of plain looking wood that sound just like their other builds, but people paying for premier instruments will pick the more highly figured instruments almost every time, so that’s what they build.

That's interesting looking at some of the Chinese workshop ranges like Eastman. I picked Eastman because I think they're all made in one shop, and the whole range is carved solid woods. It looks like a top of the range of each Eastman mando style has the same basic design and workmanship as the base model of that design - at about 40% of the retail cost. Fittings and finish improve as you go up in price. However, it looks like no or slight flame maple is only used for the base models, and they don't make painted back mandos. That suggests that a no flame back with good sound potential will still end up one of the base model mandolins, which could be good news for the impecunious musician.

[Bob A]

No, they don't have to sound better.

I've had Italian bowlbacks made by the same luthier, one extremely ornate and the other rather plain; they both sounded just fine, and both had the characteristic tonality of the maker.

Seemingly the culture at that time and place was geared toward producing fine-sounding instruments for players; adding ornamentation and fancier woods increased the price for those players who preferred such things, but the quality was uniform throughout the line. (Of course there were truckloads of "souvenir" instruments made for the tourist trade, basically "mandolin-shaped objects". I've noted thesame phenomenon in the violin world.)

[allenhopkins]

I've gotten a lot of mileage out of Strad-O-Lins that were "ugly ducklings" compared to some of my fancier instruments. Ditto for a whole bunch of Regal run-of-the-mills that did the job -- uke, banjo, Octofone, etc.

Generally, the cost of a more expensive mandolin reflects the amount of expertise and work that went into making it. If you're going to hand-craft an instrument, and spend many hours doing so, you want to be compensated in line with that skill and effort. And you realize that you're more likely to get a high price for an instrument that has highly figured woods, immaculate fit and finish, etc. So you put out the additional funds needed to get figured woods, and the additional time needed to make sure there are no finish flaws.

Taylor Guitars, a few years ago, made some "pallet guitars" out of wood (oak, I think) from shipping pallets. Here's one for sale for $17K. Leaving aside the "gimmick" nature of the experiment -- and the flashy inlay work -- one could conclude that "looks ain't everything."

[sunburst]

* Are there makers who made/make great sounding mandolins out of plain wood - or do they tend to bow to player demand for looks?

Not usually. Fancy (relatively) wood is just as easy to get and it sounds just a good, so why build with plain wood?

Some things:
It has been said that "perception is reality". Generalizing here, but when many people see an instrument that they think is great looking it will sound better to them. In other words, if someone thinks it sounds better it does sound better to them.
It has been shown through double blind playing/listening tests that, when people know what an instrument is, they perceive it to sound better or not as good as they perceive the same instrument when they don't know what it is.
It gets complicated because it gets into the realm of human psychology and lots of other human traits. Also, people are individuals and perceive things differently, are influenced differently, are subject to change, and so forth. There are no cut and dried answers.

If you prefer plain wood and you think it sounds better, fine, but it may be hard to find because, as I said, fancier wood is just as easy to find and use.

Whatever you think of points and scrolls, I can't count the times I've heard someone say: "that sounds really good... for an A-style".
Obviously there is a persistent myth that "F"s sound better than "A"s. Surely there is some similarity when it comes to fancy wood.

[maxr]

Taylor Guitars, a few years ago, made some "pallet guitars" out of wood (oak, I think) from shipping pallets.

Come to think of it, the sadly departed English luthier and guitar maker Norman Reed (who did some really ornate work) made a number of 'basic' acoustic guitars which sounded and played really well, but had the most basic finish possible - the idea was to get good affordable guitars to players. Unfigured woods, their tops and back sometimes had toothed plane marks visible, with just a coat of oil finish. Then the Chinese workshops upped their game to where we are now...

[108 Mile]

Bob Givens made some very fine and excellent sounding instruments, but they were not made of the fanciest woods

[Sue Rieter]

It seems like in the mandolin world, "looks good" very often equates to "looks fancy". Maybe not universally true, though. I personally am a big fan of simplicity. I had emailed Mike Dulak about the finish on my Mid-Mo mandola, which is a very understated looking instrument. One thing he said is "I don't inhibit the wood with excess finish". I like that.

That mandola sounds good, too.