Hello Any one did use a sound card and a spectrum analyser software for adjusting the violin sound post ?

[gaetan8888]

Hello

Any one did use a sound card and a spectrum analyser software for adjusting the violin sound post ?

Any web pages or video about that ?

Thank you

Bye

Gaetan

 

 

[FiddleDoug]

I've never heard of anyone using one. Stradivari didn't need no spectrum analyser!

[violins88]

Gaetan888,

 

It’s a good question IMHO.

[Salve Håkedal]

When you are adjusting the sound post, you are at the final stage and can hear the result directly with your ears. I think it is interesting to see a graph of what a knock on the bridge will produce and I save lots on my disk. But what matters at this stage is playability and the sound in your ear. Everything else is a detour.

[David Burgess]

12 hours ago, gaetan8888 said:

Any one did use a sound card and a spectrum analyser software for adjusting the violin sound post ?

I put quite a bit of effort into this, and finally gave up. I could hear and feel consistent changes when playing and listening, relating to soundpost position, which I could not derive from graphic representations of the sound.

[gaetan8888]

Hello

I know that moving the soundpost a little towards the bridge allows for a louder and more concentrated sound, moving it away from the bridge allows for a more mellow sound. Moving the soundpost towards the lower strings or to the upper strings will emphasize those strings.

Since it seem better that the 4 strings should sound at a similar volume, I was thinking to use a sound card to do that,  but to adjust the soundpost for a louder or a mellow sound, the sound card may not be very usefull

Thank

Bye

Gaetan

[Don Noon]

There is one resonance, usually around 840 Hz, that is sensitive to the fore/aft position of the post relative to the bridge foot, and if I see a large peak (or dip) there, I might consider moving the post.  But I'll play it first to confirm that it's a real problem or not.

In the end, as Salve and David said, it's all about what the player wants.  The post position does much more than affect that one resonance, and has to be evaluated in totality by a human.  There's no quantitative solution.