franciscus

We will share the prize

Seems as some contest, so I would like to add my translation too: The German-made violin from 18th century, bearing a label of Friedrich Wilhelm and another one of repair of L. Neuner in Berlin. Two-part back without the flames of 35.6 cm length. The ribs from the same wood but with fine and regular flames.Spruce top with very fine to medium grain toward to the edges. Head without flames with peghole bushings and patch on the scroll. Clear and transparent orange-brown varnish Original instrument in all its parts and in working condition. Back and ribs in very good condition except for a trace of worms plugged long ago on the bass side of the upper bout, the top has many cracks restored long ago, including a soundpost crack with the piece of soundpost (?)

Very wise advice, I'd say. Posing that question, one can quickly check how much the appraiser stands behind his appraisal.

Your friend clearly belongs to the group of "PITA buyers", using the power of negative feedback in order to bulldoze the seller to refund some amount of money, one way or the other. If the seller stated that the pegs were professionally done, that not means that these pegs are nice looking, nor that these pegs have the same length (besides, the length of the pegs vary from one to the other). That means what it was stated and not more - all the job was done by some professional. How one can say that it is not the truth? Your friend changed the name on eBay (which is not even near to honest behavior there) and repeated the same procedure. He was blocked? He has to be expelled from the eBay, in my humble opinion.

How I see the things: (1) The appraiser have no any obligation regarding the purchase of appraised subject; )2) If the appraiser would like to buy the appraised subject, 1/3 to max one half of the appraised price would be a honest offer.

FWIW: Tarisio, 1993; Amati, 1993 (maybe the same one).

You do not have the bridge tray?

My two coins would be: 1. Tune the afterlength not by ruler, but by ear (with the afterlength on the G tuned at d, you are in the ballpark); and 2. Stiffness and mass of the bridge work together - your bridge with these wide grains seems as not-too-stiff and further cutting would decrease the stiffness even more - so, I'd, frankly, change the bridge as the first thing here. At least, this is the first crossing at the sound's way through the instrument.

I did put a lot of my time into electric instruments, but, fortunately, I have no spent a lot of my money because almost all that job was done for the others. My equipment I mentioned serves me for tests and demonstration when someone asks me to do something in that regard. My playing is far from serious playing and when play (very infrequently), I do that unplugged, and just for fun. Anything that would be worth recording, regardless of the fact that I even have no any recording equipment.

Your setup with Loudbox is rather customized, I'd say - you have the unbalanced input with 5 MOhm of impedance, which is pretty unique feature. The other amps usually have not-so-high input impedance, typically all of them are somewhere around 10 kOhm, so one can expect great impedance mismatch, which results in typical piezo quirks. The piezo pickups with balanced output are something that I have never met. Remember: the source and the receiver should have similar impedance, but if the source has much greater impedance than the receiver, you have much worse situation than the situation where the source has the impedance below the impedance of the input. I tried everything I could and ended with Art Tube MP, which is not something intended for pre-amplification of piezos, but works well. Also, if I use piezo discs or bars, I can go directly to my Crate Acoustic, because of its 1 MOhm unbalanced input. But, when one deals with - in example - cable pickup (Sonicore, for instance), the acoustic sound is impossible to get without something between the pickup and the input jack (balanced or unbalanced, regardless).

Fishman's piezos usually have the impedance of 10 MOhm, the others usually less, but Fishman also make appropriate amps (and preamps too), so if you go with the Fishman go with the Fishman all the way. I still think that the preamp is most important in this story, due to many reasons and it is not something that I learned from some book or from the Internet, but from experience with a few dozens of various pickups and a few not-so-bad amps and preamps.

Here you can also see a lot of interesting things.

I am not the maker too, but if the thing has gone to the point of breaking, this notches could help in keeping the break smaller.

How would you do that?

I live with a lot of Chinese violins around and my opinion is maybe a little different than usual opinion here in the MN. In the same time, I have a lot of MkN(Sch and Czech violins to compare and that is the basement of my opinion: all of these violins are the violins, some of them are good, some of them are not, there is some trash, there is some very dangerous beasts and so on. On topic: I've never seen any Chinese violin composed with anything but the some kind of animal glue. So, if one intend to change something there, one has all the space that one needs, including the neck reset. And, for the end: I do not think that the OP violin is Chinese.

My two coins here: the need for pulling the neck back for 3-4 mm is the need for the proper neck reset. How I see the things, if the violin is playable at all, the 1 mm is the more than you need, without the need for replaning the fingerboard.

I have to say "thanks a lot", Mr. Pasewicz, for your instructions (on your website). I successfully fixed a few violins, following them, and earned some money from these operations. So, I own you at least a few beers somewhere, sometime, who knows?

Heh.

Solid body, i think, is not the right way to construct the electric violin. maybe just the solid backbone and the other things from the lighter material, but just in their essential form, I do not like Yamaha's electric violin very much, but YEV series looks fantastic.

Yes, we are in the same league. I was born in the August, 1962.

Oh, Carl & Martin, If it is some contest, I could join - was in regional representative boxing team (when I was 19), passed six months of military training for emergency units, was engaged for six months more as an educator in the same educational center, still engaged in our Mountain Rescue Service. But, I frankly think that it is very (mean VERY) inappropriate to discuss here.

OMG, how old are you? "RIAA compatible" remains me on the problems with MM phono cartridges. Seems that we are in the same league

I am not the fan of Yamaha's Silent Violins, you mentioned them. The "secret" behind all electric instruments is the impedance matching. One can put any resistor in parallel with the piezo and get some sound, sometimes strong enough to send it to the amp, sometimes not, but it is no so important here.

Cheaper SV Yamahas have ordinaryunder-the-bridge piezo, not ribon but bar. Ones more expensive have dual piezo concept, with the transducer embedded in the bridge. And all SV violins have a preamp.

In my experience, every piezo transducer needs a preamp, not for amplification, but for the impedance matching. I have appropriate amp (Crate Acoustic) with 1 MOhm input, but still need a preamp, if I want to avoid the typical piezo sound.