by John Pierce
Geoff Burghardt is a fixture in the Denver music scene. I met him about 10 years ago at Luke Blaser’s Park House jam. He was playing a unique looking A-Style mandolin, so I asked him about it when he took a break and told me he made it himself. Geoff is very outgoing and always willing to discuss musical instruments. I was immediately impressed with his knowledge of the mandolin and over time, I’ve ended up owning two of them.He has been a luthier for about 21 years and he does instrument setups, pickup installations, nut cutting and many other tasks for stringed instruments in addition to building his own mandolins under the brand name iii mandolin (pronounced triple-eye mandolin). He primarily works on mandolins, but also works on guitars & basses, both acoustic and electric and also ukuleles in his shop at the back of his house.
Geoff has been building mandolins since 2003 and is constantly evolving his craft. He builds an average of 3-4 instruments per year, although one year he did build 9 instruments. These days Geoff has been heavily involved in the analysis of what makes mandolins sound the way they do. He measures dimensions, weights, evaluates the type of bridge, tuners and tailpiece used and taps on various parts of the instruments recording the tones with a microphone to analyze peaks and values in the response. Kind of “The mad scientist of mandolins”. To date, Geoff has analyzed 80 different mandolins of all makes/models included Collings, The Loar, Eastman, Gibson, Gilchrist, Ellis and many others. He gathers up to 70 different measurements for each instrument and has all the data organized in a giant spreadsheet along with sound files and wave patterns for each mandolin.
Geoff says he is most interested in resonances and deflection (stiffness) and in the thicknesses of the top and back. He also likes to see the comparison between different types of wood; mahogany, maple, rosewood, etc. Has taken a lot of his analytical direction from Gore and Gilet guitar makers in Australia and Don Macrostie of Red Diamond mandolins, two makers who also have a very data-driven approach to creating great sounding instruments. Geoff’s goal is to develop different recipes for his customers when building a mandolin. Do they want it to cut in the midrange, or be heavier on the bottom? Personally, he is looking for a deep, resonant sound which doesn't get tinny when played on the higher frets.
In the early 2000’s, Geoff was a teacher at Red Rocks College where in addition to math he taught mandolin building. He has collaborated with Robbie O'Brien to make a mandolin building instruction video which is 12 hours of detailed instructions for those wishing to build their own mandolin.For my final questions, I asked Geoff what are his current favorite strings on a mandolin - he said D’Addario J74. I also asked him what is the most common problem people have with mandolins? He said a lot of people are afraid to adjust their bridge. Don’t be afraid, try it. Slack the strings, turn the wheels on the bridge up and down. Go down until it buzzes when fretted, then back it off until it doesn't buzz.
If you have tuning or buzzing issues you can't resolve, then take it to Geoff. He will take care of the problem and make that stringed instrument sound better plus be easier to play. If you are interested in one of Geoff’s hand-built custom mandolins, you can go to his website or see one of his new mandolins at the Old Town Pickin’ Parlor in Arvada. Geoff will also be bringing several mandolins to the Denver guitar show later this month on March 24th.
Finding Geoff:
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