Looking at a sound spectrum and thinking about possible improvements for the sound. (Or better leave it as it is?)

[David Burgess]

4 hours ago, Michael Darnton said:

That's why I've often accused modern makers of making the "one-stop organ" version of the violin: they look for The Strad Tone, define it as one single beautiful voice (which it certainly is not), defined by something like an FFT, and then try to recreate a violin that makes that single-voiced FFT. And that is most certainly not what a fine violin is.

Perhaps the most common criticism I hear of modern violins is that they only offer one voice. I have even had a maker tell me that his violin was good because  no matter how you played it, you got that one "good" voice--this was his objective. You couldn't create an ugly sound (by his judgement) even if you wanted.

Micheal, sounds like you got up on the wrong side of the bed again, or still have a chip on your shoulder.

If you were to experience more contemporary instruments, like playing the 400 or so available at a VSA Competition, I'm confident you'd find that they're all over the map, not lending themselves well to stereotyping.

The same goes for your characterization of the people who make them. Maybe you need to get out and about a little more? For example, you could have taken me up on my invitation to visit the Oberlin Violin Making workshop to gain more real experience and exposure, where you could have had exposure to makers from all over the world. But you didn't.

If you wanted to, you could also learn quite a bit about what contemporary instrument makers really believe from Marty Kasprzyk here, who knows quite a few of them from his having attended the Oberlin Acoustics Workshop.

Oh well.

[Michael Darnton]

@David Burgess I am just reflecting my experience as well as that of many of my customers over many years, with many instruments. So it's not just me you disagree with, but a substantial portion of the violin playing community. Ignoring or discounting that is your own loss, I think. We don't have to see every violin at the VSA to have valid opinions. You disagree with us, and you have your own body of supporters. That's fine.

I seem to have missed the invitation to Oberlin. . . From what's visible and what I hear, I don't feel like I have missed too much. But I have had many fine instruments and players to learn from, and I'm grateful for that.

edit addition: By the way, I'm not tarring the whole new field, though my customers are. I have seen a couple of tonally pretty good new violins, The main feature of them is that they wouldn't have gotten any attention at either Oberlin or the VSA competition, nor in any good violin shop. That's always been a point of curiosity to me, that those people, uninformed and crude, could be doing something more consistently than the name brands. It's something to think about. I know I have.

[Andreas Preuss]

4 hours ago, Marty Kasprzyk said:

I disagree.   All the sound comes from the strings.

 

4 hours ago, Marty Kasprzyk said:

Noise on the other hand is a combination of widely random frequencies.  A bowed string produces some noise because many bow hairs are used which slip off of the string at slightly different times so the pure harmonic series (1f, 2f, 3f...nf) has some random noise scattered between them. 

But then, the noise from the bow would be a second source of ‘sound production’?

———

i think it is not only important to look where high frequency peaks fall off, but also how rapid and eventually if there is a pattern to it. It’s a huge difference if it goes down starting at 2.5, 3.0, 3.5 or 4.0kHz. 

I am convinced that inharmonic overtones (major triad-foreign) do play a significant role for sound coloring. (Similar to jazz chords adding foreign notes to a harmonic chord creating a color) it’s just a question of how much you have or how much of those frequencies can be controlled by the bowing arm. 

————-

In the end I am not interested so much in knowing what is the correct explanation for the outcome of what we see in a sound graph. (In this sense I gladly accept that the only source of sound is the string.) I rather develop methods to control sound in a direction I regard as desirable.

 

[Michael Darnton]

1 minute ago, Andreas Preuss said:

(In this sense I gladly accept that the only source of sound is the string.)

If you and Marty mean this in the way I think, what about wolfs? Don't some of them flow backwards into the string making it do something that wasn't there coming out of the bow, and isn't that basically the problem. What I'm saying is that the origin of vibrations may be in the string, but it seems obvious that the body feeds a lot backwards into the string to make the string do things it didn't originally, and this is a different class of information from "it all comes from the string". Another example of this is the violin whose pitch raises when the bow leaves the string because the body has an active spot very close to the pitch of the note that dominates the vibration and forces the string to the body resonance's pitch.

These are special cases because they happen to be obviously discernable, but they do illustrate that it is certainly possible for the body to contribute rather than just filter or amplify.

[Michael Darnton]

If anyone cares, regarding what I was saying about many-stop, tonally varied violins, I *think* that what is happening is that there are places in the structure of the violin that are in reserve, that are not always active, and that need a special approach to activate them. The pursuit of setting those up might be diametrically opposed to the idea of making as much of the body as possible active, making plates ring clearly and loudly, making the body light so that it's easily moved, making it loud . . all of these objectives, which I see as essentially modern objectives, are actually opposed to the model I'm proposing because they're involved in dumping as much as possible into the sound as easily as possible, leaving nothing back to be manipulated and shaped. At any rate, that's my model for what I think is going on.

At one point I thought that the highly irregular graduations of classical violins created these opportunities by forming non-cooperative or differently-behaving islands, but having tested that idea sufficiently, I've discarded that hypothesis.

[David Burgess]

19 minutes ago, Michael Darnton said:

I have seen a couple of tonally pretty good new violins, The main feature of them is that they wouldn't have gotten any attention at either Oberlin or the VSA competition, nor in any good violin shop.

Since you have never judged a VSA competition, nor been involved in even a peripheral way with the administration or judging process, nor even so much as visited any of the Oberlin workshops, don't you think that such bombastic proclamations come across as being a bit silly?

[Michael Darnton]

1 minute ago, David Burgess said:

Since you have never judged a VSA competition, nor been involved in even a peripheral way with the administration or judging process, nor even so much as visited any of the Oberlin workshops, don't you think that such bombastic proclamations come across as being a bit silly?

Perhaps the VSA standards are just incredibly low, then? Because these were exceptionally bad violins by any workmanship standard I can imagine. OK, forgive me for thinking better of you. Mea culpa.

[Andreas Preuss]

Concerning the validity of FFTs it’s best used if it is a memory aid to what we heard when playing or listening to an instrument. 

Trying to copy an FFT of a famed fiddle is IMO somehow driving violin making as such ad absurdum. It’s highly questionable if an instrument of 300 year old wood can and should be ‘sound copied’. One might muse how such a copy will sound in 300years.  Makers should rather concentrate on ideas how to create their own sound, whatever they define as such. 
 

I would neither put all modern makers categorically in one pot. If the ‘sound analytics group’ will emerge as the makers most desirable for players will be seen in future. I believe that they are creating and defining a sort of ‘new violin sound’. In the end music itself has changed a lot as well over the past two hundred years.

The dialogue between players and musicians can be extremely different depending on where you work. There is to my experience, and I have worked in quite different places, no general unison view on what players regard as desirable. 

 

[David Burgess]

10 minutes ago, Michael Darnton said:

Perhaps the VSA standards are just incredibly low, then? Because these were exceptionally bad violins by any workmanship standard I can imagine. OK, forgive me for thinking better of you. Mea culpa.

Uhm, did you not know that the VSA has separate award categories for tone? Yet you feel qualified to make pronouncements about the competition?

[Michael Darnton]

@Andreas Preuss That may be true. Whenever I go to concerts I regret that we will probably never see another Zino Francescatti, Yehudi Menuhin, Nathan Milstein, etc. because gradually the tools that they used for their work are becoming unavailable.

[Michael Darnton]

Just now, David Burgess said:

Uhm, you didn't know that the VSA has a separate award category for tone?

I do follow the results. Certainly I've never seen a maker like I'm talking about win a tone award. Have I missed some absolute dogshit quality tone winners, granted that I have not been able to connect every one of the names to what they do? If they play as I'm saying I like, I'm delighted to hear that they've won.

[Michael Darnton]

Well, as I observed earlier, it appears that everyone thinks the situation is just fine. Too bad so many players just don't agree. Complacency is the path to . . .  uh. . .  oh, don't mind me. Ignore it all! :-)

[David Burgess]

25 minutes ago, Michael Darnton said:

Certainly I've never seen a maker like I'm talking about win a tone award

How can you see such a maker win a tone award, if you are not present?

I've attended just about every VSA competition convention since their inception. You have attended what? One? Perhaps you should be asking questions and trying to better inform yourself, rather than trying to inform others on matters pertaining to the competitions?

[Marty Kasprzyk]

This discussion reminds me of the women who was looking for "Mr. Right" to marry.  She eventually did find "Mr. Right" and after being  married a while she complained to a friend: "I didn't realize that his first name was Always."

So I'll concede my definition of "noise" is a personal one like Michael Darnton pointed out.  A common definition of noise is that it is a sound that isn't wanted.  An example of that is my neighbor complaining about me playing Hallelujah

 too loudly.  They didn't want to hear it.  So my liked music is somebody else's noise.

I used a different definition of noise.  I said it was a sound that had random combination of frequencies.  But this too could be liked or disliked.  For example the random sounds of aspen leaves rustling in the wind sounds pleasant to me but I dislike random car tire noise.

Well anyway the "junk",  "noise", "random frequency"  bowed string stuff between the note's harmonics may not be necessarily bad. It's a character of a bowed violin note.  

Without it, the resultant pure sound is not be what we expect and may not be liked. 

 

[Marty Kasprzyk]

I can never do this right.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8eHHYenfyoU

 

[David Burgess]

12 minutes ago, Marty Kasprzyk said:

I used a different definition of noise.  I said it was a sound that had random combination of frequencies.  But this too could be liked or disliked.  For example the random sounds of aspen leaves rustling in the wind sounds pleasant to me but I dislike random car tire noise.

Tire noise can be musical.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdqkriPdXsw

 

[Marty Kasprzyk]

4 minutes ago, David Burgess said:

Tire noise can be musical.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdqkriPdXsw

 

Shit.  I just bought German Michelin tires.  I could have gotten a classic Italian violin sound with Pirelli.

[David Burgess]

1 hour ago, Marty Kasprzyk said:

Shit.  I just bought German Michelin tires.  I could have gotten a classic Italian violin sound with Pirelli.

Besides, all modern tires (even Italian) are too one-dimensional in their driving palette, lacking the nuance and variability of antique tires. They are like playing a "one-stop organ". Every professional race car driver I've had in my shop agrees, and would much rather race on tires from the 1920s.

[David Beard]

Detroit Rules!   Buy American!

 

[Don Noon]

14 hours ago, Michael Darnton said:

If anyone cares, regarding what I was saying about many-stop, tonally varied violins, I *think* that what is happening is that there are places in the structure of the violin that are in reserve, that are not always active, and that need a special approach to activate them...   At any rate, that's my model for what I think is going on.

What you *think* is going on is a classic definition of a non-linear structure response, which is the opposite of what the violin body is fairly well known to be.  It's very linear... i.e. the energy coming out is proportional to the energy going in across the frequency range, although the constant of proportionality varies with frequency.

I think it would be more productive to look at how the INPUT from the player varies depending on where and how the string is bowed, and then see what regions of the body frequency response would enhance or attenuate those variations.

I recall looking at some bowed semitone scale spectra... played by me, and played by another violinist, on the same violin, and the spectra were completely different.

My mental model is the "colors" analogy... the painter (player) wants a range of colors to make his painting, and if some are missing, he can't make the picture he wants.  I see this as dropouts in the frequency response of a violin.  There may be "colors" that the painter abhorrs, and having a dropout in that range would be desirable.

[Melvin Goldsmith]

As a violin maker I feel reasonably qualified to state from experience  and personal failures that there is nothing quite as self satisfied or foolish as a violin maker who has just make a violin and wants to subscribe it to FFT tests or the nearest soloist...these things take years to settle in to what they will be 

[Michael Darnton]

https://plus.maths.org/content/why-violin-so-hard-play

[Andreas Preuss]

1 hour ago, Melvin Goldsmith said:

these things take years to settle in to what they will be 

As I am working now since 10 years exclusively with steam treated wood, I don’t have to fight this problem so much any longer. 
 

I experience on my instruments a sort of stretch-in effect and after 1 month it gets to 90 percent, after 6 month to 95 percent. Then all is in the range of humidity and temperature variations stable.
 

My take with FFTs is to get a sort of rough picture what is going on. Now I look mostly into high frequencies.

[Don Noon]

1 hour ago, Melvin Goldsmith said:

these things take years to settle in to what they will be 

12 minutes ago, Andreas Preuss said:

As I am working now since 10 years exclusively with steam treated wood, I don’t have to fight this problem so much any longer. 

I too have been using torrefied wood for a while (13 years!) and agree the initial performance has a much more "aged" sound than unprocessed wood.  But every process can give different results.

Still, I can't imagine that even with unprocessed wood a maker would do best to totally ignore the performance of a newly made violin and wait for years to decide if it's any good and what to do different next time.  That's a helluva long feedback loop.  While the high end may be dull at the start, I think that there are things you can look for.  (I'll exclude the first few days, when there can be some really odd things going on).

 

[GoPractice]

Apologies for poking at this bear. I am hardly a "moderate" as given the tools and time, measuring everything makes sense. 

Measurements do matter. How we take them, how we interpret them, how the data is processed is all important. But how the data is used or trend, is not ( for the best ) always processed the same way.

I and many still use lengths and thicknesses to ID instruments. Photos are data for another form of IDing. I was making a jig for photographing instruments and bows. An expensive bulky ( 2 meter ) thing made out of extruded aluminum. He knew an AI guy and at least outlines could be or possibly have been - minus the wear. I have most of the hardware but the pandemic started and had not heard back. Having recently visited an appraisal session, the laptop was as important as physically inspecting the instruments.

Sound spectrum snapshots are definitely important for those willing to think about the data as a reference. I need them.

But I strongly believe that the 2D snapshot is not as easy to read. It's not empty of information, but the most exaggerated character is something we can assess. It simplifies the 10 -octave spectrum, but the data is static, or just a slice of that durian, skull. or MRI of whatever that is recorded. I have worked with 3D plots and they offer better indicators where resonances are prologed. For a plucked instrument, the decay occurs. A player can repluck, but the sound is regenerated. The software appears to be as important as the hardware. A parent, years ago showed me a Sony Vegas plug-in that shaded sonic changes in color. Though I was impatient then, I am using similar software now. It is licensed by the principle so can only say that the speaker industry have used it. 

Bowed instruments sustain pitch and shade them tonally as more or less energy is input via the bow.

I went to consult for someone interested in retrieving data from hand- hammered cymbals. I know nothing except for what the biases ( bai'ai? )that I can hear. The decay is not uniform. Certain frequencies peak. They should have hired someone with perfect pitch, but they hired me. A family member is a percussionist. Intonation was not their thing. But I have heard many struck objects. Recording struck ( hand- hammered ) cymbals offered interesting decay patterns. Machined Cymbals were fine, but the patterns were predictable. Resonances broke down differently in those that were hammered. Traditionally, cymbals were machined down, yes. Uniform sound, but not complex. Randomly hand- hammered, pre- machined cymbals definitely added complexity. Hint: Low frequency energy is a cool byproduct...

Cymbals have no ribs, nor do they have f- holes. But they have long sustained decays based on a single strike.

Bowed instruments essentially have a long, not infinite decay. They can be struck or pizzed.

BTW, manufacturers are interested in the purpose of cutout ( f- holes ) but do not have the end game for them. They might look cool... 

Cymbals are generally a uniform material, but the random striking of the surface changes how the edges behave. I still see interesting graduations on older instruments but overall, these anomalies are not easily measureable nor do they understand the variation in wood.

Anyway, collecting data is interesting. Making any sense out of it is still difficult. People who are better equipped, bigger heads, helmets, brains? or faster clock speed? might make sense of this, assuming bigger and faster is better.

As for that VSA sound... unfortunately Frank Zappa did not live long enough nor was not a bowed instrument player. Sorry, somewhat obscure reference. There are many roles in the real world. Not every one is a soloist despite what I heard in the halls of music school.

I have highly recommended Maestro Darnton's instruments as well as many from the Chicago "workshop" group because they are capable of producing complex sound. This is a horrible label but something that excites me. Will play any Matsuda, Kiernoziak, etc. One of my favorite instruments above all violins is an "old" Becker. It was sweeeet and had an immense amount amount of tonal and dynamic range. Full Disclosure: one my favorite groups is the Lyric Opera ( Chicago. ) And the Santa Fe Opera, though I was informally invited only once. The players their are highly expressive and musical, maybe intellectual.

Not to walk away from the previous remarks, but Maestro Danton's instruments are a bit undervalued but not easily available. Same goes for the Matsudas or whatever as they are not complex. One of the most interesting viola makers is from the Chicago group. Again, unfair to group these individual makers together but what they yield is musically more interesting for me. Not to say that these makers have not won VSA awards. Sometimes these instruments require work to play. But they often yield tonal and dynamic rewards. The last Darnton I played ( two years ago ) was not for sale ( happily owned ) and was perhaps a sleeper. With out pushing it, it was blanket warm with clear patterns and pitches. Pushed, not fully, it produced very gutsy string rich tones, everywhere, not just the g- string. She was maybe 120 lbs in weight. I suggested that she step into her accented bows to establish clarity and punch. Sensible players would be happy to have her.

The role of the player is not always the soloist or the principle 1st violinist.

I do have instruments from VSA winners but my bows not as much. They are also older instrument ( but not bows. ) Newer bows are more interesting. Tonally, the earlier instruments were better balanced for how I play. Younger players do amazing things but perhaps ( to my benefit ) experienced less. I am an old man. When the early Burgess Viola was available for auction, I suggested that a student bid for it. I am not saying that his newer instruments sound differently, but that I have not played as many in recent years. I know what they used to sound like, and the potential quality was high.  

SO measurements matter. It is in how you do it and data used. Instrument with complexity are important for so many of us who are not soloist- soloists. I can be a walk- on for any pre- romantic concerto, even with a relatively inexpensive Chinese instrument. Happy to do so... but for chamber music ( not to elevate it above Symphonic music ) the proximity and what a listener might feel is so different. I have sat in the midst of pines on an aluminum and nylon chair to hear fiddlers make music. With a "Hopf" they create excitement, joy and perhaps tears. I would like to tack a measurement to what that player is doing, but I have yet to know how to make sense of it. Some how musicality has yet to be measured.

I am still a sonic tool and not much else. When I grow out of fashion, which is inevitable, the value will degrade. So Maestro Noon's ( et al ) approach will adopted by future makers assuming that the bowed string instrument is worthy. 

Spring break is hell. Back to work...