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The great mandolin woods experiment is on again.
I have often wondered why nearly all bluegrass style mandolins have maple back and sides. The answer seems to be tradition plus the fact that both players and makers are reluctant to invest the time and money in something that they are not sure of the outcome. I asked Bill to make the same A4 mandolin with the same spruce top with back and sides of maple, rosewood, mahogany and walnut. I did this a couple of years ago but the maple and walnut came in first and sold (very quickly) before the rosewood and mahogany arrived (both now sold). This time I asked Bill to deliver them all together, they have now arrived and been reviewed by Simon Mayor and Dan Beimborn of The Mandolin Archive. Simon's full review is in Acoustic Magazine Issue 21 June/July 2008. 
The Four Tops, all from the same section of the sameNavajo mountain 10,000ft elevation Engelmann spruce harvested in 1998 by the Hurd brothers. |
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Simon Mayor test drives the Old Waves
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Old Wave A4 Spruce/Maple
Simon Mayor's Evaluation
It’s a particularly beautiful piece of flamed maple on this instrument and even before I’ve played a note I’m drooling over the thing. Maple gives us a fantastic clarity and separation of notes, similar to the walnut model in sound, but with an even more penetrating treble. Positive is the word that springs to mind, it’s bright without being brash, and when I move up the neck the thing doesn’t die on me, if anything it responds even better. This mandolin responds sympathetically to hard playing, and although it sounds fine when played gently, it gives you an opportunity the shape your own sound. It could be harsh in inexperienced hands but this is the most powerful mandolin, and the one to use if you want to carry to the back of the hall without a microphone.
It’s a little more difficult to pull a rich tone from the maple [than walnut], particularly in the lower register, but its response up the neck is just a touch more positive, with slightly more ‘centre’ to the note. In a totally acoustic situation I can imagine this projecting best of the four and throughout the whole register its sound is clean and clear. It would also take a mic with no fuss, of that I can be sure.
Dan Beimborn's Evaluation
I was expecting this one to sound most like a Gibson F4, or generally to have a more defined note than the others and more dynamic range. The tone was quite similar to the Walnut instrument, again surprising me. This one you can really make a big difference in volume on with your pick, it was the most dynamic of the bunch.
Could go from very quiet to very loud, and the tone was clean with a really heavy pick, I couldn't get it to "blow out" or lose the nice tone by picking too hard. I'd say it's quite jumpy too, it starts out with a pretty impressive volume and goes up from there. I picture this one in a noisy jam as the one you can hear clearly through all the fiddles and whistles etc. If I hadn't been so smitten by the walnut instrument, I think this one would have been my favorite. It was more familiar to me tonally (I already knew what I could make it do), definitely a tonal archetype.£ 1,495.00
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Old Wave A4 Spruce/Rosewood
Simon Mayor's Evaluation
Rosewood looks seductively attractive on this mandolin. An initial tickling of the strings gives me plenty of sustain. I find myself playing baroque music on it and it’s delicate, almost harpsichordal quality is well suited. I know immediately that this is going to be an easy mandolin to linger on, its response is reassuringly fast. This would be good in a studio but I’d shy from taking it out on a concert. The sound is delicate rather than powerful, but rosewood can sometimes take time to come to life. I probably won't get the chance, but I'd be interested to hear this in a couple of years.
I decided to test them out on some relatives, not musicians or even particularly interested in mandolin music. When asked, they protested that they weren’t experts and what did they know about mandolins, but I assured them that this was precisely why I wanted their opinion. To my surprise, they immediately went for the rosewood model; it sounded “deeper”. I asked them for more adjectives and they came up with “richer” and “better”.
Dan Beimborn's Evaluation
Here's a very sweet-sounding instrument, soft tonally and responsive to delicate light picking. Many Irish & Scottish players will use this sort of mandolin on mike, as you get a very sweet note from it and it encourages a soft, even picking style that can produce a mellow rolling sound.
Acoustically this one won't peel the paint off the walls, but I could see using this one as a lead instrument on-mike. The tone reminded me of several Sobell mandolins I've tried over the years. I've always been a bit of a sucker for the smell of rosewood too, I kept sniffing it in between tunes!Out of stock
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Old Wave A4 Spruce/Mahogany
Simon Mayor's Evaluation
A classic, 'plumby' oval-hole mandolin sound with a deep, throbbing bass. Great for chordal work and a very intimate sounding instrument. The short sustain would actually suit a lot of players, particularly those with more of a bluegrass bent than me.
Dan Beimborn's Evaluation
I found this instrument reminded me very much of an older Gibson F2 I once owned. Snappy tone that makes you want to go up a bit on pick thickness to temper the attack of the note, but very nice for articulating ornaments. I pictured this one being useful in recording a set of fast Irish reels, or anything where articulation was the primary tonal trait to emphasize.
The balance of the instrument was the most even of the bunch (meaning each individual string course had the same volume with similar pick velocity) all up and down the neck. Sustain was also very long, which sounds nice for drone + melody playing. Dynamics on this one are more "automatic" than "stick", you get the articulated fast attack and then a fast decay with a long sustain after.The real fun I had playing this one was from working with left-hand ornaments, pull-offs especially could really rattle out like a Mac-10.
£ 1,950.00
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Old Wave A4 Spruce/Walnut - SOLD
Simon Mayor's Evaluation
Walnut is the dark horse of these four woods. Similar in looks to mahogany but quite a different sound. The treble is brighter but sweet rather than harsh. This is a very well balanced mandolin with good volume. My immediate reaction to Mr Bussman’s walnut A-model was to want to keep it (and remember, I’m generally not a fan of oval-hole mandolins). Of the four, there is no doubt that this has the most immediate appeal: loud, beautifully balanced across the entire fingerboard, a very fast response and a wonderfully mellow but penetrating tone. This seems to do it all, lots to give when played hard, and I can tell from experience that it would be equally good in a studio situation. I’d suggest it’s a little less suited to single note melody playing than the maple model, but for chordal work the sound is homogenised yet remaining clear as a bell.
I couldn’t resist laying the four Bussmans on visiting friend Andy Irving? Even before he’d played a note he remarked that his style was so different from mine that he may not choose the same mandolin, but after a due consideration went for the walnut. There’s no question that its fast response and very full sound suited him well.
Dan Beimborn's Evaluation
This one was my favorite of the 4, which surprised me. I was expecting that this one would sound "odd" because it's not a commonly used back wood. The tone was very much "Snakehead" which means nice rounded midrange and good volume to me. When I played with different picks, I could bring out the high sparkle and attack with a thinner one, or get a nice growl with a heavy one.
Overall a nice bell-like tone, good punch, and I could really control the volume with my pick. The sweet spot for picking was quite wide, this one seemed to me to have the most different sounds possible on it, all with a nice tone. Probably the most flexible of the bunch in terms of sheer variety of notes you could pull from it, and to my ear the most interesting tonally. This one really got my attention because it was very nice and had a lot of interesting tone available that I haven't ever heard before in a mandolin, it's a very refreshing tone and not quite like what you'd expect to hear.Out of stock
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