Marty Kasprzyk Posted February 17 Report Share Posted February 17 On 2/10/2022 at 5:29 PM, Andreas Preuss said: I was once thinking about fixing the entire top only with micro screws. Anyway, if the top is only supported on the blocks, the openings between top plate and ribs makes a big change for the air resonance. The experiment by Carleen Hutchins with the ,Swiss cheese ribs’ demonstrated that this is another method to destroy the sound. So even if you loosen the plates from the ribs it must be airtight. If the air gap between the plate and ribs has about the same area as the f holes the A0 frequency should be similar. Doug Martin's experimental violin doesn't have f holes and the gap seems to have worked like f holes. If you have screws all around the entire perimeter you could choose to use only a few of them in various locations to hold the top plate. This will make the plate to vibrate in different node patterns which which will probably change its frequency response curve. Maybe the violin's sound character can be changed by using different screw location choices. These changes are reversible which is a big advantage over plate thinning. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRFysSAxWxI Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Burgess Posted February 17 Report Share Posted February 17 6 hours ago, uncle duke said: While reading through yesterday, laughing some, wondering some, dusting off clothes between reading/working breaks etc., allowed me to hog out four insides of plates while you guys were at it -so imo. not a bad day. Good for you! Today, I only managed to do some minor refinement of a cello back outside arch (still lots more to do), and make a little progress toward satisfying the gubermint tax filing requirements. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Darnton Posted February 17 Report Share Posted February 17 10 hours ago, David Burgess said: To (hopefully) reinforce the notion that in the fiddle business, not everything needs to be totally black or white, or totally wrong or right. Most things are varying shades of gray. Thanks for the clear explanation Grey is good. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
uncle duke Posted February 17 Report Share Posted February 17 1 hour ago, David Burgess said: Good for you! That was yesterday. Today, 10 " of snow. They say we haven't had that much here in 129 years or so. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jezzupe Posted February 18 Report Share Posted February 18 On 2/16/2022 at 10:45 AM, David Burgess said: Maybe. Many years ago, we invited a bunch of people to present at Oberlin, all with multiple VSA tone awards. Almost all of them incorporated some kind of tapping and listening into their making strategy. This isn't to say that I'm sold on it. Only that the evidence suggests that it should not be summarily pooh-poohed. Sorry, man, my first visit to Haight-Ashbury (maybe around 1970?) was shortly after all the "groovy" stuff had already gone away, replaced by people in suits n stuff. But back home in Seattle (which was several years behind San Francisco in hippedness), Owsley was still a famous name. Oh I tap, I just don't call it "plate tuning" it's more like gradient arranging Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
uncle duke Posted February 18 Report Share Posted February 18 After getting a plate thinned down before ff hole cutting and bass bar gluing do you make note of the tone of the plate firstly, cut the holes, glue bass bar and return to the tone of the blank plate? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Burgess Posted February 18 Report Share Posted February 18 16 hours ago, jezzupe said: Oh I tap, I just don't call it "plate tuning" it's more like gradient arranging Great idea! We can rename things to reduce some of the past trauma and stereotypes associated with the old names. It's the "woke" thing to do. By the way, I will no longer accept being called just a fiddlemaker. Please refer to me instead as a Bowed String Instrument Experimental Engineer And Fabrication Implementation Scientist. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter K-G Posted February 18 Report Share Posted February 18 What you really shuold be thinking of is whathever you are in or out (the club), please appologise to Michael for sticking your tongue out! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter K-G Posted February 18 Report Share Posted February 18 I suppose nowone bothred to ceck when the OP poster last responded? Anyone care to tell him anything useful? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Don Noon Posted February 18 Report Share Posted February 18 14 minutes ago, Peter K-G said: I suppose nowone bothred to ceck when the OP poster last responded? Anyone care to tell him anything useful? There is nothing provably useful in stand-alone taptones. Given a maker with experience who is consistent in his work (wood selection, arching, and a zillion other details) and has kept good records and has a specifc tonal goal... then maybe his taptones records might be useful. Or not. Mine aren't, but I'm not super-consistent with anything. I think this came across in the first page or two. The rest as been MaestroNoise. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
James M. Jones Posted February 18 Report Share Posted February 18 45 minutes ago, Peter K-G said: I suppose nowone bothred to ceck when the OP poster last responded? Anyone care to tell him anything useful? check it out ,have fun… explore … but Don’t get your panties i n a knot over it …. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter K-G Posted February 18 Report Share Posted February 18 4 minutes ago, James M. Jones said: check it out ,have fun… explore … but Don’t get your panties i n a knot over it …. Oh I do have fun Don is just "that guy" (in my opinion), who steps in to tell it's rocket science, it's complicated, it's not resolvable.... but wait, what's there to resolve? MN = Not a good place to be if you are an engineer.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
James M. Jones Posted February 19 Report Share Posted February 19 1 hour ago, Peter K-G said: Oh I do have fun Don is just "that guy" (in my opinion), who steps in to tell it's rocket science, it's complicated, it's not resolvable.... but wait, what's there to resolve? MN = Not a good place to be if you are an engineer.... To be clear , I personally have a huge amount of respect for Don , on several levels, after meeting him twice and seeing his work , he’s a top notch guy and consider us lucky to have his inputs here… Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Don Noon Posted February 19 Report Share Posted February 19 5 hours ago, Peter K-G said: Don is just "that guy" (in my opinion), who steps in to tell it's rocket science, it's complicated, it's not resolvable.. No, it's NOT rocket science, which is complicated but mostly resolvable. Musical instruments are more complcated (in the physics/acoustic details), and unresolvable... so there's no need to burn your brains out trying to "solve" it (I do it for mental exercise). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jezzupe Posted February 19 Report Share Posted February 19 9 hours ago, David Burgess said: Great idea! We can rename things to reduce some of the past trauma and stereotypes associated with the old names. It's the "woke" thing to do. By the way, I will no longer accept being called just a fiddlemaker. Please refer to me instead as a Bowed String Instrument Experimental Engineer And Fabrication Implementation Scientist. Ah yes the old B.S.I.E.E.A.F.I.S, I will accept your pronoun if thats what makes you feel comfortable in your safe space, whereas I still contend that I am a Giraffe and I just don't play by your human rules. Like the other day I was at the super market and I yelled out "clean up in isle 7" and it wasn't because I broke a pickle jar I'm tellin ya I could get used to some of this woke stuff. I mean shoot where I live you don't even have to pay for anything anymore, everything under 1000$ is free if you can carry it away. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rothwein Posted February 19 Report Share Posted February 19 Buzeeafus is a pronoun? Plate tuning... I haven't ever carved a top, as finished violins are much easier to play. But I do notice differences in tone when checking for open seams, cracks, etc. Along the purfling, Thock Thock Thock... Click is either a seam open or a crack. Not sure what a higher pitched sound from tapping one of the quadrants of the table (lungs, I guess is luthierspeak?) indicates. I hope the OP got something useful from this thread. I appreciate that it's been a very civil discussion amid all the digressions Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Burgess Posted February 19 Report Share Posted February 19 2 hours ago, Rothwein said: Buzeeafus is a pronoun? Hey, why not? I've already accepted that Jezzupe identifies as a giraffe. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jezzupe Posted February 19 Report Share Posted February 19 5 hours ago, David Burgess said: Hey, why not? I've already accepted that Jezzupe identifies as a giraffe. Thanks it's been hard all these years being a closet furry, let alone all the problems I have trying to find a bow I can hold with my hooves , lets not even get into the shoulder rests, but alas I have triumphed over adversity an attribute my new found freedoms to communist ideological subversion and the psychological destruction of all normalcy, pff' whatever that is, but those that understand such things would know that all of it's quite normal, quite normal indeed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter K-G Posted February 19 Report Share Posted February 19 23 hours ago, Don Noon said: There is nothing provably useful in stand-alone taptones.The rest as been MaestroNoise. 17 hours ago, Don Noon said: No, it's NOT rocket science, which is complicated but mostly resolvable. See! I fully agree with your above statements, so what do I argue about? Maybe it has something to do with what I haven't figured out, what is it you are doing? Are you doing anything different than for example, well all others? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andreas Preuss Posted February 20 Report Share Posted February 20 On 2/18/2022 at 5:32 AM, Marty Kasprzyk said: If the air gap between the plate and ribs has about the same area as the f holes the A0 frequency should be similar. Doug Martin's experimental violin doesn't have f holes and the gap seems to have worked like f holes. If you have screws all around the entire perimeter you could choose to use only a few of them in various locations to hold the top plate. This will make the plate to vibrate in different node patterns which which will probably change its frequency response curve. Maybe the violin's sound character can be changed by using different screw location choices. These changes are reversible which is a big advantage over plate thinning. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRFysSAxWxI Concerning the placement of the cavity openings (traditionally the f holes) I am a little puzzled. I think it is certainly not a good idea to make f holes and create somewhere else additional openings. I think this must have to something with the air compression created inside. Some musicians can hear if a seam has opened somewhere and this must be related to lost air pressure. (Mostly cellists) Otherwise I suspect that it makes a difference if you place an opening in a zone of the body where vibrations are very active or in zones where vibrations are rather limited. Maybe this has to do with the fact that the outside body and the inside air are apparently vibrating in opposite phase, so when the body expands the air is exhaled. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Don Noon Posted February 20 Report Share Posted February 20 2 hours ago, Peter K-G said: Maybe it has something to do with what I haven't figured out, what is it you are doing? Are you doing anything different than for example, well all others? I started out with wood properties... looking for high stiffness/weight (primarily spruce). Not unusual. Then torrefying to bump things up and reduce damping... which is not unique, but not common. I believe this gives the potential for more sound, but what kind of sound you get I think depends on other things, like: Arching, mostly, but grads and bass bars too, and varnish. I am no different from many others in studying what arching is on "good" violins. If possible, I try to get more detail on the sound produced using spectral analysis, which is not unique, but not super-common. The goal is to understand what type of arching produces what kind of sound. "All others" covers a vast, varied territory. I DO try to find out what the good makers do, and adopt things that make sense. (I also watch what very bad makers do, to see if I understand why they're bad) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marty Kasprzyk Posted February 20 Report Share Posted February 20 37 minutes ago, Andreas Preuss said: Concerning the placement of the cavity openings (traditionally the f holes) I am a little puzzled. I think it is certainly not a good idea to make f holes and create somewhere else additional openings. I think this must have to something with the air compression created inside. Some musicians can hear if a seam has opened somewhere and this must be related to lost air pressure. (Mostly cellists) Otherwise I suspect that it makes a difference if you place an opening in a zone of the body where vibrations are very active or in zones where vibrations are rather limited. Maybe this has to do with the fact that the outside body and the inside air are apparently vibrating in opposite phase, so when the body expands the air is exhaled. I screw around a lot so I liked your idea of using screws around the perimeter. Carleen Hutchins's "Swiss cheese" experiments were an inspiration for me to try multiple ports for my own violas. Opening and closing the ports with corks changes the various air mode frequencies and amplitudes and as a consequence the sound character of a viola can be altered immensely. The attached photo shows an early viola with four extra sound ports in addition to the two f holes. I believe this gives 720 different possible open and closed combinations. Viola players love the challenge of finding the best combination and it's a good pacifier for them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JacksonMaberry Posted February 20 Report Share Posted February 20 10 hours ago, jezzupe said: Thanks it's been hard all these years being a closet furry, let alone all the problems I have trying to find a bow I can hold with my hooves , lets not even get into the shoulder rests, but alas I have triumphed over adversity an attribute my new found freedoms to communist ideological subversion and the psychological destruction of all normalcy, pff' whatever that is, but those that understand such things would know that all of it's quite normal, quite normal indeed. Am I having a stroke? Or just a peyote flashback? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JacksonMaberry Posted February 20 Report Share Posted February 20 24 minutes ago, Don Noon said: I also watch what very bad makers do I bet this is actually more informative than I would have thought. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Evan Smith Posted February 20 Report Share Posted February 20 1 minute ago, JacksonMaberry said: Am I having a stroke? Or just a peyote flashback? Are you vomiting, or just dizzy? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.