An Update On Rosalie

Gentle Readers, I promised you an update on my new mandolin as soon as I've had her for a while and since it's been almost 30 days exactly since she arrived (and I've played her for about half of those days, I'd guess, somewhere between 15-20 days of practice), I have decided it's time to give you an update.

Dear folk, Rosalie is turning out to be a better instrument than anybody could have guessed. While she's not in the same class as a mandolin in the 4 digits for price, she's really pretty damn good, all things considered. So far, everybody who's heard her has been both surprised and impressed, and apparently (having never seen any other mandolins live and in person, at least, not close up enough to examine) Rosalie looks better than she 'ought' to for a $100 instrument, everybody who has seen her has asked me how much she was and when I say, they give me a look that says clearly that they don't believe me, so she must look pretty good.

I did some very basic set-up on her myself but there really wasn't much to do, she hasn't got a truss rod or any of the other internal components of a higher-priced mandolin. Her tuners are holding remarkably well and though they could perhaps get switched out for a higher-quality set, right now they're doing everything I ask them to. I'm not tuning any more than normal, which is nice.

I adjusted her bridge and, as I thought, her intonation problems have largely ceased. Intonation, for those of you -- like myself, before I figured it out -- who don't know what that means, is simply how the instrument sounds along the fingerboard, from the first fret to the last playable fret. If a string instrument's intonation is off, the strings will sound different at various points along the fingerboard, and occasionally play differently too. This is bad for a number of reasons! The 'action' of a stringed instrument is simply how high the strings rest off of the frets when a player's fingers aren't pushing them down. An action that's too high or too low can result in an unplayable instrument, and also affects the sound quality, among other things.

Many mandolins -- including mine, thank goodness -- have adjustable bridges. Unlike guitars, a mandolin's bridge (that piece of vertical wood where the strings pass over, usually over or near the hole in the body where the sound goes out) is often not attached to the body of the instrument by anything other than the tension inherent in the strings. Mandolin bridges can be adjusted up or down through two independent little gears, one on either side.

Whoever put Rosalie together in China obviously didn't give a damn about making the instrument actually SOUND good. When she got to me, she had cheap strings that had no life, no bounce, and didn't resonate at ALL, they were just lying there. Her bridge was lopsided and it was clear she'd never ever been touched.

The first time I played her, like I said in my earlier post, Rosalie was bright, tinny, and not very complex. When I adjusted her bridge so that it was straight *and* when I lowered the action of the strings (I like my strings a bit lower than normal), her intonation issues went away completely (which surprised the hell out of me) and suddenly she began to get some depth and richness to her sound. Huh. Whoda thunk?

Then I spent 2 days taking off the old crap strings and putting some new ones on. Now, with a mandolin, strings really are super ultra important. It's not like a guitar where you could probably get a decent sound out of any set of strings, old or new. With a mandolin, different sorts of strings can and will totally change the sound of the instrument. Knowing this, and knowing that Rosalie would need help to offset her tinny, sharp sound, I chose the gold standard for a rich, mellow tone when it comes to mandolin strings -- D'Addario J74's. These strings are phosphor bronze and have provided great sound for decades. I was already familiar with phosphor bronze strings and what they can do to an instrument because of the Ernie Ball Slinkies I use on my guitar, and I had high hopes for putting bronze strings on the mandolin too.

I was not disappointed. Though it took me just over two days (and I went through THREE sets of strings because I kept breaking the E string) I got the old, crappy strings off and the new D'Addario J74's on and within seconds of having them correctly tunes, I heard a HUGE difference.

With the new strings, Rosalie's voice has mellowed out considerably (she's still a little tinny and quite bright, but at least now dogs won't howl if I hit a high note!), her strings have considerable response, sustain and ring to them, the sound is clear (as opposed to very muddy before) and loud, she actually has a bit of bass to her now, and the characteristic, classic mandolin 'sweetness' -- as much as she'll ever have-- is starting to show.

Now that I have been playing her for a month and she's beginning to settle in (it's the same sort of thing as a brand new car, you know how you're not supposed to do any hard work or sudden maneuvering with a new car for the first 500 miles or so, in order to let the parts start moving together without stress), things are really improving. I wouldn't be ashamed to take her to play in public now, for one thing, and I will be able to perform with her at least during my historic re-enactment events, something I wasn't sure I could do when I got her because of her sound. I wouldn't take her to a really, truly professional session or concert or anything, but for my level of playing, she'll perform quite nicely -- much better than I'd ever hoped.

As I keep playing her, I hope that she'll mellow even further and get sweeter as time goes on. The wood will age, get affected by environmental factors, etc etc, and I hope this is all to the good.

The only thing is that Rosalie does NOT like the cold. Really, really. She detuned herself all the way down to a guitar's octave the last time I brought her out in December, LOL! Truly a southern gal :) She's going to have to learn to cope with it though, we do after all live in Minnesota, the Frozen North.

And now, Gentle Readers, back to practice!