Senza system

[not telling]

Has anyone ever tried throwing strings on an instrument without the winding,  and does it really make a huge difference? Has anyone ever heard of this,  or is it just another violin maker trying to get standing among players as an expert who is offering something unique? 

If she is doing something else besides removing the winding I can't tell what.

Just curious. 

[Davide Sora]

 

I suspect that if the effect were significant, strings manufacturers would already have adopted it.

 

However I have never tried these system, so who knows, but I think I can continue to live without it
 

[vathek]

I watched the video, and to understand the speech better used closed captioning. As it turns out, this system was invented by, and I quote, one 'fuckin wattage' (sic)

[Dwight Brown]

Well........Any new or different strings are going to sound different at first.  Kinda has a snake oil, magic bass bar feel to it.

On the other hand, stay away from my wizard rosin or I'll box your ears!

 

DLB

[WorksAsIntended]

I actually tested it out of curiosity for the winding influence. A friend of mine believes in it and is very active in trying to convince others . I only tested the strings, nothing else.

Could not find any difference, only of I play on the other side of the bridge very close to the winding. 

[not telling]

On 6/23/2017 at 7:20 PM, vathek said:

I watched the video, and to understand the speech better used closed captioning. As it turns out, this system was invented by, and I quote, one 'fuckin wattage' (sic)

The words of Sean from Junior School (Julliard)... Heh...It's like trying to read a slightly more word salady William Faulkner:

"give me a couple weeks with this violin and this thing could sort the back of the room

not very very larger

With that I think I want to try to my own excrement

I can see the potential in it

It's incredible 

It's going to be this closeness that it had before

it disappears

he was a little more boat"

(wipes away tear) That was so moving. I guess technology is not perfect. But obviously I was curious enough to listen to the video just because it makes sense that winding on strings could have a damping effect.  This seems almost in the category of 'too obvious to think of'. Of course , the theory may be complete nonsense just on the basis that she uses Dominants for her method. Everyone knows: no one uses Dominants. 

[sospiri]

19 minutes ago, not telling said:

The words of Sean from Junior School (Julliard)... Heh...It's like trying to read a slightly more word salady William Faulkner:

"give me a couple weeks with this violin and this thing could sort the back of the room

not very very larger

With that I think I want to try to my own excrement

I can see the potential in it

It's incredible 

It's going to be this closeness that it had before

it disappears

he was a little more boat"

(wipes away tear) That was so moving. I guess technology is not perfect. But obviously I was curious enough to listen to the video just because it makes sense that winding on strings could have a dampening effect.  This seems almost in the category of 'too obvious to think of'. Of course , the theory may be complete nonsense just on the basis that she uses Dominants for her method. Everyone knows: no one uses Dominants. 

 

Don't violinists talk incredibly pretentious bollocks?

It's like having your own church.

 

 

wisit me at my website.

Only £200 to get her to take the windings off. Wow what a bargain

[Wee B. Bridges]

17 hours ago, not telling said:

If she is doing something else besides removing the winding I can't tell what.

Just curious. 

 

It is the before and after recordings that impressed me the most.  

[WorksAsIntended]

Great vid btw. Changing the tailpiece while comparing strings. Awesome. 

At least those are good tailpieces for the normal price. I own a Boxwood Tailpiece from ErgoVio and I think I paid about the same. 

[not telling]

I liked how the violinist talked about the amazing 1735 Santo Serafin then proceeded to name all possible things that could be wrong with a violin.  But it's a great old sound. No before soundclip, but you can trust the opinion of a 20-year-old player who may or may not be a paid promoter of the 'system'. Oh yeah. 

 

[WorksAsIntended]

7 hours ago, sospiri said:

 

Don't violinists talk incredibly pretentious bollocks?

It's like having your own church.

 

 

wisit me at my website.

Only £200 to get her to take the windings off. Wow what a bargain

I partly agree but in Germany at least the dominants are only 10€ cheapers than the ones without winding they sell. Still 10€ for nothing much, but no £200.

[Johnmasters]

19 hours ago, not telling said:

Has anyone ever tried throwing strings on an instrument without the winding,  and does it really make a huge difference? Has anyone ever heard of this,  or is it just another violin maker trying to get standing among players as an expert who is offering something unique? 

If she is doing something else besides removing the winding I can't tell what.

Just curious. 

Heifetz used plain gut on the center strings.  He used a wrapped G.  Without the extra winding of the G,  the string would be rather thick to get the necessary mass per unit length.  Perhaps JH did not like that idea.  With the extra bending stiffness that would occur in a plain gut G,  perhaps he would have lost clairity in the upper positions.  

[bkwood]

19 hours ago, vathek said:

I watched the video, and to understand the speech better used closed captioning. As it turns out, this system was invented by, and I quote, one 'fuckin wattage' (sic)

Not only that, but the excrement is incredible! But I doubt a simple change like that can have the dramatic results those players claim. It is very hard to measure something like that objectively. If you're expecting a big change you might very likely think you notice one.

[GeorgeH]

Really, she has it backwards: I unwind the windings on the other end of the string so that the pegs can contribute to the overall resonance of the violin. I also tap-tune each peg in synchronicity with the circular resonance of the scroll.

My system is called "The Maykano Senza System," and it only costs $100 per string.

Video including attractive supermodels sensuously playing Strads and smiling coming soon.

[Carl Stross]

5 hours ago, bkwood said:

Not only that, but the excrement is incredible! But I doubt a simple change like that can have the dramatic results those players claim. It is very hard to measure something like that objectively. If you're expecting a big change you might very likely think you notice one.

It does change the tone and players intimately aware of their instrument may perceive minor changes as dramatic.

[not telling]

 

On 6/24/2017 at 5:44 AM, sospiri said:

 

Don't violinists talk incredibly pretentious bollocks?

It's like having your own church.

 

 

wisit me at my website.

Only £200 to get her to take the windings off. Wow what a bargain

Also an amazing line.  "Like having your own church"...huh?  And that's actually what she said.  

Carl, I also agree that there could be a tonal change perceptible to a player who knows their own instrument well enough to hear a difference with the windings removed.  That is why I asked in the OP if anyone has tried this.  I would question whether this method brings about an improvement, or simply a different sound. But in this case of the video, the instruments were borrowed, and the players only go on and on about how horrible the instruments sounded before without offering any attempt at proof of improvement.  It seems to me like players just saying a lot of words, buzzwords, big words, strings of nonsense that sound meaningful and smart if you're not really paying attention.  So it all becomes more silly than interesting, probably.  But I have to ask, how do you know that the tone changes?  Have you done this or are you only suggesting that you are sure that there is going to be a difference?

[Will L]

After we have had to live through this, then the next big play will be a computer program which will test a violin and tell us exactly how much wrapping to add or subtract for each violin, each string, and both ends.  That should bring in another $60,000 a year to every shop in the world. I can see the next generation of Juilliard graduate claiming that by adding .04 mm of silver wrapping to his D string behind the bridge and .17 mm of silk wrapping at the peg end, he has now been offered not only one concertmaster position with a major orchestra but two!  

One ignores super-sophisticated adjustments at his own peril.  I'd hate to show up for an audition to find the guy warming up in the next room had recently found that the .00656 mm wrapping addition was not quite perfect and he had settled, temporarily, on .00654mm.  Now, how in the heck could I compete against such a discerning artist?  I might as well slink on home and buy a kazoo. (Actually perhaps a blessing, since to my knowledge no one has started trying to perfect the kazoo...yet.)  

In the mean time, the fact that said Juilliard graduate dropped his violin and he only lost ONE concertmaster offering is encouraging.  Nice to know we can solve a broken bridge and fallen sound post with a mere hair's breadth of added material to the non-playing part of a string.  We live in remarkable times.

Yeah, I'm being sarcastic.  Next someone will suggest that by getting pretty patterns with metal filings on vibrated loose plates we will soon have nothing but great violins.  Or, maybe building them in space, where gravity is not a factor will make us all better-n-Strad.  I see the possibilities as limitless.  Gee, maybe we should start trying to find a varnish which will make all this other stuff obsolete.    

[WorksAsIntended]

I found the difference beeing smaller than the variation of my violin between two different days caused by climate. Small enough that I am not sure if I would detect anything if not suspecting a change. 

[Barnes Ziegler]

Questions: Do you unwrap the whole string or just a part of it? And if you unwrap it all wouldn't this change the tension of the string?? If you just unwrap a part how do you stop the winding of the rest of the string unwrapping itself? If you unwrap the strings for more flexibility, why are you not using gut strings? And I don't understand the idea of continuing the scale in fiths, is there a certain physical concept?

Never heard of this concept before. I think it could be interesting to try it out, but at the end one should also consider the instrument, on some it might have an improving effect, but maybe on others not.

[Don Noon]

As I understand "the system", it is not just strings without the overwrap (specially made... I don't think they take the wrap off of an existing string), but a super-short tailpiece to get an extra-long afterlength, presumably adjusted to get some particular (unstated) ratio or afterlength frequency.

While I can understand that getting rid of the wrapping can reduce damping by a tiny amount and may seem an improvement if the violin is normally a bit dead or closed, and if the afterlengths are in tune you can get a little more ring and reverb effect (the "church" comment?), this might not suit everyone.  And the effects might seem cool initially, but not so hot once you live with it a while.

There is also a concern about causing dead spots in the response.  Afterlengths are non-radiating resonators, and as such will cause a dip in the response at the resonant frequency of the afterlength.  In a normal setup, the afterlengths are short enough so that these dips (which you can actually measure on a response plot) are fairly high on the E string, and the overwrapping adds damping so that the response dip is not as deep and sharp as it would otherwise be.  With the extra-long afterlength, that puts these dips farther down on the fingerboard, and with the lack of damping, the dropout would be very deep.

Think of it as a hardanger fiddle with high-pitched sympathetic strings, with the sympathetic strings not necessarily in tune.

[WorksAsIntended]

1 hour ago, Barnes Ziegler said:

Questions: Do you unwrap the whole string or just a part of it? And if you unwrap it all wouldn't this change the tension of the string?? If you just unwrap a part how do you stop the winding of the rest of the string unwrapping itself? If you unwrap the strings for more flexibility, why are you not using gut strings? And I don't understand the idea of continuing the scale in fiths, is there a certain physical concept?

Never heard of this concept before. I think it could be interesting to try it out, but at the end one should also consider the instrument, on some it might have an improving effect, but maybe on others not.

They dont put of the metal winding

[Hippolytus Huffmaker]

4 hours ago, Don Noon said:

 presumably adjusted to get some particular (unstated) ratio or afterlength frequency.

Toward the end, she says the afterlengths are B, F#, C#, G#.  Major 3rd above the opens, then.  She called them also "the next following fifth" which I figured means what the strings would be if you had four more strings above the E string.

4 hours ago, Don Noon said:

Afterlengths are non-radiating resonators, and as such will cause a dip in the response at the resonant frequency of the afterlength. 

Does that mean there will be a dip at the same pitch as an afterlength pitch (in some lower octave)?

[GeorgeH]

If there were awards for the most absurd claim about how to allegedly "improve" the tone of a violin, I think that "The Senza System" would win first prize. 

[Don Noon]

14 minutes ago, Bill Merkel said:

Does that mean there will be a dip at the same pitch as an afterlength pitch (in some lower octave)?

The dip would be at the exact afterlength pitch.  It would likely be most noticeable on the E string where the afterlength pitch would match the fundamental of the note being played.  However, some lower notes would have harmonics at the afterlength pitch, and these would be attenuated too.  Then after you finish playing the note, there would be a ring as the afterlength put energy back into the body.

6 minutes ago, GeorgeH said:

If there were awards for the most absurd claim about how to allegedly "improve" the tone of a violin, I think that "The Senza System" would win first prize. 

I think if you researched all the various "improvements" that have been claimed over the years, there would be plenty of them ahead of this one.

[GeorgeH]

58 minutes ago, Don Noon said:

I think if you researched all the various "improvements" that have been claimed over the years, there would be plenty of them ahead of this one.

LOL. Ok, just for 2017...so far.