Hi everyone,
I just try a garrison mandolin and I realy love it. But the only thing its bugging me is the piece of carbon to fixe the top. I was wondering if it would does a difference when the instrument would get older, if it will get old nicely?.
Thank you for your advive.
Gab
p.s. sorry for the bad english I'm Québécois and my first language is french.
Hi Gabriel - haven't tried one but as I like mandolins I did a search - have you seen this review: http://www.acousticmagazine.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=299&Itemid=52
The Garrison pictured has a cedar top like the Hathway that I have, and I like that a lot (though a spruce-top mandolin can be louder). Don't know what you mean by the piece of carbon - the top is solid wood isn't it. Garrison seems to have been taken over by Gibson.
I think they use carbon fiber in their bracing system. There's wide speculation in the mandolin community that Gibson bought the company to aquire this technology. Very strong material with interesting tonal characteristics.
One of the founding luthiers of the Rigel mandolin company is now making mandolins completely out of carbon fiber and they are supposedly very very good. They are made under the name of (Peter) Mix.
Interesting question. I presume you are talking about the bracing being made of carbon fibre. I don't know to what extent the aging of the brace wood affects the development of the tone over time. But I am certain that the soundboard itself plays a much bigger part. The job of the soundboard is to transfer the vibrations from the strings to the air inside the soundbox, whilst the job of the braces is primarily to stiffen the soundboard and thus control the way it vibrates. The way they do this is, of course, affected by factors such as the density, height, thickness and configuration of the braces, but these do not alter much over time. Repeated vibrations in the soundboard cause microscopic alterations to the cell structure of the wood (or so the theoreticians say), thus altering the way it vibrates. No doubt, wooden braces are, to an extent, subject to the same effect, but since their primary role is not to vibrate but to be 'stationary', I would question whether they would contribute significantly to the 'aging' of the instrument. Of course, the only way to know conclusively whether carbon fibre bracing makes a difference to the way a mandolin ages is by comparing two otherwise identical instruments, or better still, comparing a large number of mandolins with wooden and carbon fibre braces, over several decades, starting from manufacture. I'm guessing carbon fibre-braced mandolins haven't been around that long, so only time will tell.
"One of the founding luthiers of the Rigel mandolin company is now making mandolins completely out of carbon fiber and they are supposedly very very good."
One would imagine they would still sound the same at 50 years of age as the day they were first strung up. But maybe that's an incorrect assumption.
I've been playing a Garrison for around a year. They are sweet as a nut
The tone is rich, which I put down to my version being a cedar top. The bracing is carbon fibre and there seems to be a lot less mass in the bracing than if it were wooden. The bracing is thin, almost ribbon-like, similar to the carbon fibre that protects the top and bottom edges of the mandolin.
The main difference I have noted is the sustain. Compared to other celtic designs it has slightly longer sustain ( and way beyond A anf F style mandolins ).
Garrison, a Canadian company, began their life working on guitars that were built of wood around a plastic framework, not exactly "bracing".
These guitars were heavy and didn't sound very good, so the internal framework went thru a lot of changes and finally became pretty good and the framework material changed a lot.
The company grew to build a full line of guitar styles, mandolins and octave mandolins, and was bought by Gibson a couple of years ago and pretty much shut down.
I haven't seen any of the latest Garrison guitars in some time, but I've played a couple of the octave mandolins recently and they're very nice, tho not up to the well-known luthier-made ones. I didn't look at the internal structures of the octave mandolins, but as I recall from the company website, I think most of the mandolins and octaves were all timber, no plastic nor carbon fiber.
garrison mandolin
garrison mandolin
Hi everyone,
I just try a garrison mandolin and I realy love it. But the only thing its bugging me is the piece of carbon to fixe the top. I was wondering if it would does a difference when the instrument would get older, if it will get old nicely?.
Thank you for your advive.
Gab
p.s. sorry for the bad english I'm Québécois and my first language is french.
# Posted on July 22nd 2009 by Gabriel Bizeau
Re: garrison mandolin
Hi Gabriel - haven't tried one but as I like mandolins I did a search - have you seen this review: http://www.acousticmagazine.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=299&Itemid=52
The Garrison pictured has a cedar top like the Hathway that I have, and I like that a lot (though a spruce-top mandolin can be louder). Don't know what you mean by the piece of carbon - the top is solid wood isn't it. Garrison seems to have been taken over by Gibson.
# Posted on July 22nd 2009 by RichardB
Re: garrison mandolin
I think they use carbon fiber in their bracing system. There's wide speculation in the mandolin community that Gibson bought the company to aquire this technology. Very strong material with interesting tonal characteristics.
One of the founding luthiers of the Rigel mandolin company is now making mandolins completely out of carbon fiber and they are supposedly very very good. They are made under the name of (Peter) Mix.
# Posted on July 22nd 2009 by Steve L
Re: garrison mandolin
Interesting question. I presume you are talking about the bracing being made of carbon fibre. I don't know to what extent the aging of the brace wood affects the development of the tone over time. But I am certain that the soundboard itself plays a much bigger part. The job of the soundboard is to transfer the vibrations from the strings to the air inside the soundbox, whilst the job of the braces is primarily to stiffen the soundboard and thus control the way it vibrates. The way they do this is, of course, affected by factors such as the density, height, thickness and configuration of the braces, but these do not alter much over time. Repeated vibrations in the soundboard cause microscopic alterations to the cell structure of the wood (or so the theoreticians say), thus altering the way it vibrates. No doubt, wooden braces are, to an extent, subject to the same effect, but since their primary role is not to vibrate but to be 'stationary', I would question whether they would contribute significantly to the 'aging' of the instrument. Of course, the only way to know conclusively whether carbon fibre bracing makes a difference to the way a mandolin ages is by comparing two otherwise identical instruments, or better still, comparing a large number of mandolins with wooden and carbon fibre braces, over several decades, starting from manufacture. I'm guessing carbon fibre-braced mandolins haven't been around that long, so only time will tell.
# Posted on July 22nd 2009 by CreadurMawnOrganig
Re: garrison mandolin
"One of the founding luthiers of the Rigel mandolin company is now making mandolins completely out of carbon fiber and they are supposedly very very good."
One would imagine they would still sound the same at 50 years of age as the day they were first strung up. But maybe that's an incorrect assumption.
# Posted on July 22nd 2009 by CreadurMawnOrganig
Re: garrison mandolin
I've been playing a Garrison for around a year. They are sweet as a nut
The tone is rich, which I put down to my version being a cedar top. The bracing is carbon fibre and there seems to be a lot less mass in the bracing than if it were wooden. The bracing is thin, almost ribbon-like, similar to the carbon fibre that protects the top and bottom edges of the mandolin.
The main difference I have noted is the sustain. Compared to other celtic designs it has slightly longer sustain ( and way beyond A anf F style mandolins ).
# Posted on July 24th 2009 by stringpicker
Re: garrison mandolin
Garrison, a Canadian company, began their life working on guitars that were built of wood around a plastic framework, not exactly "bracing".
These guitars were heavy and didn't sound very good, so the internal framework went thru a lot of changes and finally became pretty good and the framework material changed a lot.
The company grew to build a full line of guitar styles, mandolins and octave mandolins, and was bought by Gibson a couple of years ago and pretty much shut down.
I haven't seen any of the latest Garrison guitars in some time, but I've played a couple of the octave mandolins recently and they're very nice, tho not up to the well-known luthier-made ones. I didn't look at the internal structures of the octave mandolins, but as I recall from the company website, I think most of the mandolins and octaves were all timber, no plastic nor carbon fiber.
stv
# Posted on July 24th 2009 by stv culchie
Re: garrison mandolin
Strange, a lot of the information on Garrison that used to be available has disappeared, including a webpage on their patented bracing system.
Here's another review -
http://reviews.harmony-central.com/reviews/Guitar/product/Garrison+Guitars/M30+Mandolin/10/1
# Posted on July 25th 2009 by stringpicker
Re: garrison mandolin
Thank you for your word everyone.
# Posted on July 28th 2009 by Gabriel Bizeau