Andreas Preuss

Just from a standpoint of statistics, mass made instruments are constantly improving. So also chances that there is an instrument with very high level of performance qualities is getting higher. Maybe you can that once it was one out of a million and now it’s one out of hundred thousand or less. I do see this linked to advanced technologies in producing those instruments and there is a chance that a manufacturer sees a profitable chance to set up a production line for ‘the best of the best’ where a few more efforts are made for high quality sound. I don’t think however that this will appeal to any serious soloist. This doesn’t fit ‘their game’ where instruments are telling stories linked to history. This also encompasses the belief that the sound of an instrument needs to be played in and to ripen over a long time. If any customer might be interested it’s the gifted amateur who can’t afford instruments with a price tag equal to his own home or as mentioned above a gifted kid whose parents wouldn’t spend or don’t have a high amount of money for a violin. And those market mechanisms make it that mass producers don’t find it worthwhile to push the boundaries of existing knowledge and technologies, at least not in a foreseeable future. On the bottom line, logically you are correct, and I see it coming that mostly individual makers will employ whatever they find necessary to build better instruments.

Here I have unfortunately no pictures at hand but can provide them after the Easter weekend. I will also take measurements. Neither the top nor the back were spectacular wood. At the moment I just want to find out if there is interest at all and likewise I have no clear idea how to arrange the shipment. For people in Germany considering pick up it’s in the region of Aachen, in Jülich to be more precise. If interested please send PM.

Actually I am not trying to make money on it, a small donation will be appreciated. All are nicely bound in Leitz binders in Leitz cartons to hold those binders. Shipment costs however are on the buyer unless someone can pick them up in Germamy. Shipment would be arranged mid April. If interested please send PM.

The problem is that for each of those tonal problems bright/dark/harsh/soft, there is a different approach needed. Naturally you start with alterations to the setup which are reversible and only if this didn’t work you go for more radical solutions. Regraduating plates is probably only effective on top plates which are way too thick and on mass produced instrument. Actually string angle (neck angle) is more effective than plate graduations in my view. Trying to systemise things at the beginning is good and helpful and will eventually give insights when certain checkpoints can be skipped and or which order brings results in less time consuming manner. The rest you have to figure out yourself. From my personal standpoint where I somehow started looking on violin making from an upside down perspective, I believe now that classical making leaves too little choices for radical sound adjustments and therefore a method of construction is needed which gives this aspect as much room as possible in order to model sound instead of following models in the belief that they produce certain sound qualities. There are plenty of reports from quite daring sound experiments (at least seen through the eyes of a classical maker) which indicate possibilities to alter sound quality not in a minimalistic but rather progressive way except that this looks like impossible in the framework of restrictions set by rules of classical making. One simple example is to expand the length of f holes for a sound adjustment.

I suppose you mean on new instruments? Bridges vary a lot depending on how precise want to have the result. I am aiming always at a very clean fitting of the feet because it is very important so that the bridge stays stable in place. For quick work I don’t double check the bridge height to minimal differences after putting the whole string load on it. After one day already the neck can drop minimally and the ammount is hard to precalculate. I want to finish feet fitting in 30 minutes and string height as well. In case I loose time for both I go for the rest a little faster eventually with less precision in regard to the perfect flow of lines. Together this comes to 2 hours, when I want to have a super clean result up to 3 hours. Since a few years I make all my bridges with 2 carbon rod reinforcements to make them ‘distortion proof’. The rods are inserted after the height of the bridge is adjusted. The glue for the rods needs to settle over night and the rest is done the following day. Inserting the rods is only 15 minutes but makes a bridge to last a lifetime. Soundpost setting is somehow not my favourite thing to do and I might spend 1.5 hours until I get the result I want. (But once in a while I have my lucky day and end up finishing in 30 minutes) Top nut can be done in one hour, sometimes I end up faster, but I make always sure that the notches are ultra clean and polished to prevent that the windings on the strings unravel, especially on the A string. When the saddle mortise is already done, a clean saddle can be made within 30-45minutes. Hill type saddle is usually a bit faster. Plane fingerboard on a new fingerboard takes roughly 1 hour. Sometimes ebony can be stubborn in some areas of the surface, then it takes longer. Finishing the whole neck with the sides of the fingerboard is 2 - 3 hours. Peg setting with the holes pre drilled takes 30 minutes per peg. Boxwood pegs need additional time for staining. In total a complete setup is done in one working day, but the real work starts when all is reviewed for sound adjustments.

Which one is yours? On the left or right? Pictures taken from all sides would be helpful.

It’s the question how you define ‘built after Stradivari’. The violin you are showing on the pictures doesn’t have much to do much with Stradivari (IMO). Even if you stretch the argument that Stradivari made high arched instruments at the beginning of his career the rest is clearly different. I would place your instrument in old Mirecourt school and there are people gathering expertise in this field who might be able to give you more precise information. As a model I would say neither Steadivari nor Stainer but rather old Mirecourt. Regardless, the transition from Stainer principles to Stradivari principles is interesting. (Lets rather skip Amati whose influence on the development in violin making is debatable) This development or transition was clearly influenced by famous Italian violinists using a Stradivari visiting different places in Europe. One could say that this transition started in London at a time when Stradivari was still alive.(!) Daniel Parker seemed to have adopted the Stradivari principles of the long pattern model though the highly individual execution veiled the direct impression. Principles which can be measured in the general dimensions of the model, f hole placement and arching pattern and height. Early Imitators of Stradivari were not eager to copy his scrolls. In Paris you could see it a a sort of crystallization process spanning roughly from 1750 to 1798. If you have the book of Sylvette Milliot you can nicely see the development. There is a nice violin made in 1756 by Benoist Fleury which displays clearly Strad elements rather than Stainer. You find also pictures of a violin by Solomon (1760) and one by the lesser known George Cousineau (c. 1760). The latter is interesting because he ‘struggled’ with the correct placement of the f holes. All of them bear as a clear identification mark their individually made scroll, all of them which came by the rules of the guild from the wood carver Lafille in Paris. Now, as Christian Bayon pointed out, Renaudin was the first who clearly made an attempt to emulate the Style of Stradivari more in detail. So he attempted to make the bee sting at the purfling corners and scooped the lower f wings quite visibly. You get also the impression that he must have copied the f hole pattern from an original instrument and though the cut of the scroll is his own, he blackened the chamfers in the manner of Stradivari. All things you won’t find on instruments before. The last maker in this chain is Nicolas Lupot. He was fanatically pursuing the essence of Stradivaris instruments. And that’s why I wrote 1798 as the ending year in this development. I had seen a very nice Lupot build in the mid 1780s which had almost everything you would expect. At least seen from the outside INCLUDING the scroll. Just the inside work didn’t match and some other minor details. Later I saw a violin made in 1798 in the open. In the meantime Lupot must have had the chance to look inside an instrument of Stradivari because everything was just dead on. Choice of materials for the linings and blocks, dimensions of the linings and the way C linings were anchored in the blocks. He also came much closer in his varnish formula which showed a sort of quantum step in his development. This level of craftsmanship wasn’t surpassed by any maker in France in the 19th and most of the 20th century. Not even Vuillaume could get (IMO) close to that level.

As we know Renaudin had some quite revolutionary ideas….

A kind of blant answer is that the dimensions of neck joint to the body has been tested over more than 200 years now on soloists instruments which definitely traveled a lot. More important than the dimensions is most likely the technique of forcing body and neck slightly together in the fitting process and making sure that there is most pressure on the lower end which holds most of the stress. It is also clear that the slight taper of the neck root helps to prevent disaster. Consciously I have seen only one maker who constantly used a deeper mortise for the neck. Bernardel pere made the mortise something like 10mm deep, but as I see it now this was more a measure to prevent the neck dropping down on a freshly finished instrument.

I think at the bridge making competition they also started to collect old bridges. If it is yours or if the owner agrees this could be a rare piece for their collection.

If you read the text the purpose is to enhance the loudness (Tonfülle) and beauty of sound (Tonschönheit) while augmenting the stability. Apparently the Reichspatentamt didn’t see it as their task to verify claims, the reason for which many useless patents have been made. Without the ‘dovetailed’ glue surface it would certainly break within first month of usage and this could have been the problem which killed its use.

Damit der Geiger in die Röhre(n) gucken kann.

The thinner the top plate the more the neck angle and also the tilt becomes an important factor.

Who would be a respected expert to write a certificate for a Bellini violin?