Welcome to our forum. A Message To Our New and Prospective Members . Check out our Forum Rules. Lets keep this forum an enjoyable place to visit.
Currently working on errors from the latest (SimplePress) forum update. Many issues have been resoled and others are being worked on. Thank you for your patience.
Log In
Register
Topic RSS
(0 votes) 
Honorary tenured advisor
Regulars
Offline
Sometimes we've talked about violin design. I wonder if this project ever went anywhere.
A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort. ~Herm Albright
Offline
I wonder about it to Uzi. I had never watched it before.. or I have forgotten. It is interesting. What a break through for students if this actually happened. I can see how that would be frustrating for a teacher to have the student with a low quality violin. Thanks for posting.
Vibrato Desperato.... Desperately seeking vibrato
Regulars
Offline
Wow @Uzi, that's really interesting.
I hadn't heard of this endeavor before, but now that I have, I also wonder if it was a success.
That was a fairly good sized hole he put in the side, but made a huge difference.
I also liked the example of achieving more equal sound using the rulers. Learned something new here today. 
"Music is what feelings sound like." ~ Author Unknown
Member
Offline
I wonder what price range these violins would be after he was finished altering them.
Good, Better, Best.
Never Rest,
Until your Good is Better and your better is BEST.
Regulars
Offline
Very interesting. I reckon that this deserves a little research.
Seen it all. Done it all. Can't remember most of 
..... What was I saying???? 
Members
Offline
Definitely very interesting.
Thinking about it, such radical experimentation may not have happened much in the early development of the instrument. They didn't have cheap factory fiddles that were made largely by machine to try such things on. Having to do things all by hand, why would anyone experiment with radical ideas, when their skillset could be applied to making something that they knew was more likely to sell?
I wonder if more details about the vent holes and changes to the bass bar are available somewhere? Considering this stuff was being experimented with in the early 1990s, I wonder why we haven't heard more about it.
"This young wine may have a lot of tannins now, but in 5 or 10 years it is going to be spectacular, despite the fact that right now it tastes like crude oil. You know this is how it is supposed to taste at this stage of development." ~ Itzhak Perlman
That video takes me back to an experiment I tried about eight months ago.
I have a student "Glasser" fiber glass bow that I bought for $24.95 about 20 years ago. I seldom used it do to the fact that it was very heavy and stiff and the sound was a bit scratchy, so I got to thinking about what makes the difference in the sound between good wood bows, carbon fiber, fiber glass or a composite bow. Is it the make up of the stick itself, the bow hair or a combination of both ? Is the sound carried / transferred down the stick or the hair and what does the material used in the stick have to do with it ?
Soooooo..... I decided to experiment on my $25.00 Glasser. I had an idea that the stick was hollow and remembering from TV advert's on the "Bose" wave speakers and that the sound is carried through tubes to produce the excellent quality of sound I figured that if the sound was to move through the hollow bow stick I may be able to improve it's sound. Near the tip end and frog end of the stick I drilled a 1/16" hole "through" the stick and about every 2" between the through holes I drilled a 1/16" hole half way through into the hollow of the stick. I drilled the holes on the underside of the stick between the bow hair and stick figuring the sound would be immediately transferred directly from hair to stick.
It definitely improved the sound without changing the balance of the bow or weakening it's structure. In fact it's still so stiff that I have a really hard time tightening the screw so I leave it tight all the time. There is still an issue with the weight, but I use it more now than ever before and am getting used to the excessive weight.
Ken.
Regulars
Offline
Cutting holes in the sides of a violin. Sorry, can't hold back.
Offline
@Fiddlestyx
Cool experiment.. especially if you are still using it. 
Vibrato Desperato.... Desperately seeking vibrato
Regulars
Offline
In that case you would have loved the Wright Bros. RU
Seen it all. Done it all. Can't remember most of ..... What was I saying????
Regulars
Offline
Ferret said
In that case you would have loved the Wright Bros. RU
Well I do love the Wright Brothers. The Wright Flyers were both interesting and not stupid. I looked into it a little during the Flyer's centennial year, 2003.
As I recall, Orville was the younger and the more educated, knowing some algebra. But they had instinct and experience with aerodynamics and instinct for making simple measurements. They had intelligence, vision, drive, and persistence. They made their own measurements of drag and lift, I think, and found that the accepted textbooks were grossly wrong. They outdid the big-time inventors. They were the only ones who had a concept of steering the aircraft.
But they were working on a new problem, not one that was 400 minus 24 years old.
1 Guest(s)
