Televet

The Gadda is in London so the price is in pounds

That is a very pretty Mike, and not expensive. Warning taken about the phantom power. I can absolutely see myself doing that...which might be a good reason to see if we can continue to get results with the Rode. Its early days so far and to be honest the initial improvement over what we were getting before is so great, that none of us have been too critical about our results...As we progress we may start to become more critical and I will keep the Fathead in mind. #markbouquet I bought an NT1 Kit which includes a nice shock mount. So far I'm very happy with the results. The Mike that comes with the Scarlett is a really nice well made large diaphragm condenser mike too.

As always, Brad gives good advice. Playing a bunch of violins is the best way of finding something you really like.

#markbouquet Many thanks, I bought a Rode Nt1 for miking the violin and a Scarlett 2i2 as an interface. We are using the Scarlett supplied mike for miking the harp. First couple of recordings today were great.

I have personal experience of three violins made by Apostol Kaloferov from Bulgaria. You can see and hear his instruments here from a concert celebrating Apostol Kaloferov's Jubilee in 2019. All three are very fine instruments, one in the hands of my teacher, who is Concertmaster with a solid regional Orchestra (having 'retired' from being a touring orchestral musician), one in the hands of an advanced student, and one currently for sale, back with the maker in Bulgaria. All three have plenty of colour and are plenty loud enough for a soloist. I am just a hacker, but loved the two I have actually tried, and would have bought the one that is back in Bulgaria if my cash flow had been better when I tried it. I have no vested interest here, but his instruments are definitely worth a look.

Thank you. That's a great resource.

The new reality means that there will be a lot more recording of performances from the basement, lessons from the bedroom and even auditions from the kitchen. Our household has a harpist home from college and a violinist shut in together, wanting to make and share music with their peers and colleagues. We are rapidly exceeding the parameters of microphones directly plugged into computers and are venturing in to the home recording studio... I am looking for recommendations for the types of clip on microphones that seem to have become more or less the standard when one sees soloists who are being recorded at concerts. My harpist daughter has a good understanding about how to mike the harp but we are absolute beginners about the best way about miking the violin. Any recommendations gratfully received. Matt

Philip. There is a Wyoming in Ontario, and a London. Every time you turn around you can be transported half way around the World!

These are two really good papers. I don't have to hand the work from the nineties which was, I think, a patent application, but that included some information about safety to varnish. My current crop. Two contemporary oil finished violins, two dutzenbeit and one old Italians, have suffered no damage to their finishes. It's a pity these papers did not look at violin plates and ribs. We have something unique with what are effectively thick veneers that are finished on at least one side and sometimes sealed on the other. If anyone wants to do a research project using some finished plates and ribs I would be delighted to cook them up. Meanwhile, according to the ear test, there is no difference between pre and post treatment sound.

Ethylene Oxide will go anywhere that air will go. The limiting factor would be cycle length. The narrower, or longer, more blocked a channel is, the longer it would take for the gas to diffuse into the channel and reach adequate concentration. Sounds like a research project for someone.

I understand that ethylene oxide is a major component of thermobaric weopons

If you ask around local specialty vet hospitals you will likely find someone who has one and usually we are pretty easy to get on with folk. Aside from being in Canada which would complicate shipping, I would be happy to help out anytime someone has a problem instrument that needs treating.

Good question. I had expected that the mould would be killed and the spores inactivated but expected no change in the appearance. The process flushes and purges the chamber repeatedly with clean air every two minutes for two hours at the end of the cycle, so it might be that the mold is literally vacuumed away after being killed? The sterilization is by alkylation: any chemists out there know if that might have had a bleaching effect on the mold? No photos of the label I'm afraid. We were both so relieved everything had survived unscathed, we kind of bolted out the door and went home to our beds. There was a paper from the nineties that confirmed ethylene oxide did not damage woodwinds or stringed instruments but somehow it was hard to trust rationality when using it on very valuable instrument! Absolutely. We use one of these . The process is as follows. The instrument or surgical pack, endoscope or whatever, is wrapped to protect it from scratching and placed in a heavy duty plastic bag along with a sterilization indicator, and a humidichip to maintain humidity along with a multiwrapped ampoule of gas. A purging wan is placed inside the bag and the bag is gathered around the wand base and secured with a very tight Velcro strap. The whole assembly is then placed inside a sterilization chamber and the air in the bag is purged by a negative pressure applied through the wand. The ampoule is then manually broken Within its carboard over wraps and the door of the airtight chamber is then locked. The gas fills the sealed bag which is contained within a sealed locked container which cannot be unlocked or opened for the next 14 hours. The instruments then sit in the gas for 12 hours. After 12 hours the machine vents the gas via an exhaust tube that goes through post treatment depending on your state or federal rules. The bag is then flushed and purged with fresh air every two minutes for a minimum of two hours before the door can be unlocked. Using this method the risk of exposure to operators is as close to zero as can be reached.

I have talked elsewhere about using ethylene oxide to make safe an old violin that had had too close an encounter with mice and might have been a Hanta Virus risk. Recently a friend mentioned that his two performance violins had been exposed to damp conditions and mould had been found inside both violins. One is an old Italian and the other a contemporary violin by a European maker. We discussed treatment and investigated Ozone (not effective enough against mold spores) and various other options and concluded that The Ethylene Oxide method would likely be the best route, but I was a bit nervous about putting a very valuable instrument through the gas. Everything suggested that all should be well, but in order to allay my concerns we gas sterilized a couple of less valuable violins with oil finishes as a warm up. That gave us n=3 and with only a little trepidation we ran the old Italian through a 12 hour cycle today. As expected (but still much to my relief) everything went well, the violin came out as beautiful as it went in (and also less moldy). Unexpectedly, the label which was almost illegible from the ravages of time and black mold came out of the sterilizer looking like a museum conservator had spent weeks restoring it. I have no explanation for the label, but just wanted to let you all know that this is a very viable method of sterilizing and making safe a violin that has been exposed to such adverse events. Ethylene Oxide sterilizers are fairly common pieces of kit in the veterinary and medical worlds if anyone has a need. They are not expensive to run and they certainly do a good, safe job. Tomorrow it is the turn of the Contemporary European instrument.

Work your way through Jacobs checklist and answer your own question. It's a better way to learn than asking someone else to tell you the answer.