Help with Responsiveness

[David Stiles]

My number 3 violin has been strung up for about two months now and has just completed an orchestra concert series.  I'm giving it 8.5/10 but I am biased.   Really, I am really happy with it, powerful, nice tone, well balanced across the strings,  rich G, and the E really sings.  It is so close to being an excellent violin however there is an issue with dynamic range which I would love to be able to fix.

The player says that it is a little difficult to play quietly.  I have no playing skills but I can see that with the old German violin which is our 'benchmark', I can get a nice tone with even the lightest touch of the bow.  With this (my number 3 violin) I can't,  it needs a just a little more bow pressure & movement to get going.  

Body resonances, weights and setup parameters are in the usual range.  I can post lots of the numbers if it helps.

Is there likely to be anything setup-wise that I could do to improve this?  Perhaps it just needs more time, or maybe it is just inherent in the instrument!

Thanks  

[Marty Kasprzyk]

You might try lighter tension strings such as Larsen Tzigane.

[Michael Darnton]

Push the post inward just a little bit ...like 1/2 mm for a start.

[Don Noon]

6 hours ago, David Stiles said:

Body resonances, weights and setup parameters are in the usual range.  I can post lots of the numbers if it helps.

I would be most interested in:  top weight (no bar), bass bar weight, and back weight.

[jezzupe]

Unless you want to rip it apart I'd go with Michael's suggestion, it may stiffen the response and would be the easiest place to start. My next suggestion if that doesn't help, besides trying different strings {that might not be an option depending on the players flexibility} would be try cutting a new bridge or two, paying attention to the old one and it flex feel parameters along with how much wiggle you think your waist kidney cuts have imparted and then try to make the new ones more stiff, less flexy, be it the way you cut it, or the material itself.

I do not have "numbers" but I have "messed" with multiple bridges for the same instrument and know for a fact that the bridge has way more to do with "milking" out tone quality and particularly "feel under the bow" than it is given credit for. I absolutely hate what I call "cello drag bow response time feel" in a violin where it becomes difficult to anticipate the response time of the bow to actual sound coming out, that tiny delay where it feels like you start to bow, a fraction of a moment goes by, then the sound comes out, that "flabby feel" is the first way to make a bowed instrument unpredictable and then yes, make it hard to play quite .

All I know is I have made several bridges for one instrument in particular, and in that foray I must have made 30 bridges and some of them literally "killed" the sound quality , some of them killed the response time and all sorts in between. In the end two bridges went out with the violin, one a "regular" bridge and the other one of my design made from Jatoba with balsa shoes, both surprisingly similar sounding and playing with the Jatoba one being slightly more bright.

The search for the "holy grail" bridge was done simply for the fact that the instrument lives in the University of Bristol in England and gets exposed to many, many top musicians and gets to travel all over Europe, Turkey and other places as a well known composer and music professors "writing tool" and I wanted it to sound as good as I could make it, that way Maxim Vengerov may raise an eyebrow and let out a chuckle, but at least he doesn't think it sounds like crap.

[David Stiles]

10 hours ago, Marty Kasprzyk said:

You might try lighter tension strings such as Larsen Tzigane.

Thanks Marty, I have Warchal Ambers' on it currently.  I just looked them up and they are a little bit higher tension than Dominants, of which I have a spare set.  Thant would be an interesting comparison.

 

9 hours ago, Michael Darnton said:

Push the post inward just a little bit ...like 1/2 mm for a start.

 Thanks Michael,  I presume that is to loosen the post a little?  Along the lines of lower tension strings.  Well, I just did that and found the post  tighter than I thought it was.  It has made the desired difference.  Definitely more responsive to light bowing.  It may have lost something at the strong bowing end. I suppose it's always a compromise. 

 

7 hours ago, Don Noon said:

I would be most interested in:  top weight (no bar), bass bar weight, and back weight.

Hi Don, Top is 65g + 3g for the bass bar.  Back is 103g.  I am interested in your thoughts on this.    

 

Jezzupe, the bridge already seems stiffer than some of my others so That may not be it.  Good to keep in mind for future.

 

[Don Noon]

1 hour ago, David Stiles said:

Hi Don, Top is 65g + 3g for the bass bar.  Back is 103g.  I am interested in your thoughts on this.    

I used to use bass bars that light (the old "lighter is better" mentality), but they lacked the "resistance" to play quietly, among other tonal issues.  I've replaced them all with bars in the 4 - 4.5g range, with the weight more centrally located.

However, if your top is graduated more thickly in the middle, that might provide some of the same effect.

[Michael Darnton]

@David Stiles FYI, a better arch combined with more wood will give you a wider range of responsiveness. Making the plates lighter will only move around the range defined by that arching. The center isn't the only place you can add wood.

[David Stiles]

24 minutes ago, Don Noon said:

I used to use bass bars that light (the old "lighter is better" mentality), but they lacked the "resistance" to play quietly, among other tonal issues.  I've replaced them all with bars in the 4 - 4.5g range, with the weight more centrally located.

However, if your top is graduated more thickly in the middle, that might provide some of the same effect.

Thanks Don, I will take this on-board for next time.   I was under the possibly false impression that light weight provided easy bowing response.  Am I to understand that what we need is 'resistance' which is more related to stiffness?  Is this another wonderful dichotomy?

This plate is 2.2mm in the bouts graduating up to 3mm in the middle.   

 

22 minutes ago, Michael Darnton said:

FYI, a better arch combined with more wood will give you a wider range of responsiveness. Making the plates lighter will only move around the range defined by that arching. The center isn't the only place you can add wood.

Thanks Michael, I wonder what you mean by "better" arch.  I have been using 'Messiah' templates from makingtheviolin.com.  This plate ended up about 16.6mm.  I have already figured that this is too high for the stiff spruce I used.  So, next time I will pay attention to timber properties and make lower arching if spruce is stiff. That should allow "more wood" in terms of thicker graduations.  Not sure how what to do about cross arching fullness; I have not really got a good understanding of that.

 

[Marty Kasprzyk]

13 hours ago, Marty Kasprzyk said:

You might try lighter tension strings such as Larsen Tzigane.

If you are using a low bow pressure and the bow hair is just sliding across the strings a stickier rosin could also help.

[Don Noon]

3 hours ago, David Stiles said:

This plate is 2.2mm in the bouts graduating up to 3mm in the middle.   

My "usual" is 2.6 or 2.7 in the middle, and 60g without the bar... so your plate might not need the as much bar weight as I tend to use.  But since I haven't done 65g and 3mm, so I can't advise directly.

A couple of months old is still pretty new... so I wouldn't expect it to behave like an older violin.

[Michael Darnton]

3 hours ago, David Stiles said:

Thanks Michael, I wonder what you mean by "better" arch.  I have been using 'Messiah' templates from makingtheviolin.com.  This plate ended up about 16.6mm.  I have already figured that this is too high for the stiff spruce I used.  So, next time I will pay attention to timber properties and make lower arching if spruce is stiff. That should allow "more wood" in terms of thicker graduations.  Not sure how what to do about cross arching fullness; I have not really got a good understanding of that.

 

The height is probably fine. Pay very careful attention to the arch shape around the edges, the extent and shape of the concavity, especially in the c-bouts. Don't wipe out what you have accomplished there with casual final scraping.

[David Stiles]

Thanks gentlemen, you are very generous with your advice.

[Andreas Preuss]

On 3/16/2022 at 3:11 PM, David Stiles said:

Thanks gentlemen, you are very generous with your advice.

One thing which hasn’t been mentioned yet is to have an eye on the string angle over the bridge. Often the mistake is made that if responsiveness is not so good, the string angle is decreased to put more pressure on the bridge. This a kind of suffocates the sound and the opposite is what is needed. (Along with loosening the sound post a bit) The thinner the top the more attention has to be paid to the string angle. 
 

————-

Concerning plate weight it really depends on the arching, but I started to look at the stiffness of the linings on the top side as well. This too becomes very important when the top is what I would call ‘at critical thinness’. 
 

For thickness patterns I advise to go away from 1/10 mm figures. I think it is better to look on the relations between thinner and thicker areas. Going from 3.0 to 2.2 is over 20% difference. That’s IMO too much. I try to land in the range of 10- 20% difference. Maybe with the exception of a small area around the sound post where you need some meat, I wouldn’t go below 2.8.

———-

Concerning responsiveness in general, it largely depends how heavy the bow arm of the player is. This means that players with a very heavy bow arm might need an instrument what has a slow or bad response to other players. Players with a heavy bow arm are rather afraid that the sound  will ‘flip’ if they don’t pay attention. And to my understanding this is more likely on instruments with a seemingly good response. 
 

 

[scordatura]

On 3/15/2022 at 7:45 PM, Don Noon said:

I've replaced them all with bars in the 4 - 4.5g range, with the weight more centrally located.

What benefit is the weight in the middle?

[Don Noon]

44 minutes ago, scordatura said:

What benefit is the weight in the middle?

(My interpretation)   It gives the reaction mass for "resistance" and strength in the higher frequencies (which are mostly driven by the treble foot), and keeps the signature mode frequencies from getting excessively high.

Adds mass without adding stiffness.

It's easy enough to test by sticking mass (or using magnet pairs) on the outside of a fiddle, to see what works best.

[Marty Kasprzyk]

1 hour ago, Andreas Preuss said:

One thing which hasn’t been mentioned yet is to have an eye on the string angle over the bridge. Often the mistake is made that if responsiveness is not so good, the string angle is decreased to put more pressure on the bridge. This a kind of suffocates the sound and the opposite is what is needed. (Along with loosening the sound post a bit) The thinner the top the more attention has to be paid to the string angle. 
 

————-

Concerning plate weight it really depends on the arching, but I started to look at the stiffness of the linings on the top side as well. This too becomes very important when the top is what I would call ‘at critical thinness’. 
 

For thickness patterns I advise to go away from 1/10 mm figures. I think it is better to look on the relations between thinner and thicker areas. Going from 3.0 to 2.2 is over 20% difference. That’s IMO too much. I try to land in the range of 10- 20% difference. Maybe with the exception of a small area around the sound post where you need some meat, I wouldn’t go below 2.8.

———-

Concerning responsiveness in general, it largely depends how heavy the bow arm of the player is. This means that players with a very heavy bow arm might need an instrument what has a slow or bad response to other players. Players with a heavy bow arm are rather afraid that the sound  will ‘flip’ if they don’t pay attention. And to my understanding this is more likely on instruments with a seemingly good response. 
 

 

Jim Woodhouse's article https://euphonics.org/9-3-1-shellengs-bow-force-limits/ describes the physics determining the minimum bow force and maximum bow force that a player can use and still get a good sound.

If you want to  "get a nice tone with even the lightest touch of the bow" as David mentioned then it is helpful to use a low impedance string.  String impedance is proportional to the string's tension so you should use low tension strings.  It is also helpful to use a high impedance violin body which means it should be stiff and heavy.   A low impedance string on a high impedance body produces a quiet sound.

Conversely if you wanted to have the maximum bow force then you should use a heavy tension string which will then tend to be quite loud.  If you wanted a really loud sound then you should also use a low impedance violin body (thin, low weight).

So all this is just a matter of compromises and personal preferences.

[David Burgess]

3 hours ago, Marty Kasprzyk said:

Conversely if you wanted to have the maximum bow force then you should use a heavy tension string which will then tend to be quite loud.  If you wanted a really loud sound then you should also use a low impedance violin body (thin, low weight).

I'm thinkin' that a heavy string on a low impedance violin will produce all sorts of problems, most notoriously, the phenomenon of a limited upper end threshold, which is not considered desirable by most high-level players. Unless they are playing a Strad. Then, they've got to do what they've got to do, to embrace all the potential promotional value

[Peter K-G]

49 minutes ago, David Burgess said:

I'm thinkin' that a heavy string on a low impedance violin will produce all sorts of problems, most notoriously, the phenomenon of a limited upper end threshold, which is not considered desirable by most high-level players. Unless they are playing a Strad. Then, they've got to do what they've got to do, to embrace all the potential promotional value

Don't you think there is one or two good Strads out there?

[David Burgess]

31 minutes ago, Peter K-G said:

Don't you think there is one or two good Strads out there?

I most certainly do!

[Andreas Preuss]

5 hours ago, Marty Kasprzyk said:

Conversely if you wanted to have the maximum bow force then you should use a heavy tension string which will then tend to be quite loud.  If you wanted a really loud sound then you should also use a low impedance violin body (thin, low weight).

 

Isn’t a low impedance violin top  enough for this? And that’s basically what you find on instruments by Guiseppe Guarneri del Gesu. 

[Andreas Preuss]

2 hours ago, David Burgess said:

I'm thinkin' that a heavy string on a low impedance violin will produce all sorts of problems, most notoriously, the phenomenon of a limited upper end threshold, which is not considered desirable by most high-level players.

I don’t know what you mean exactly with ‘a limited upper end threshold’. If it is ‘resistance’ the the recipe of heavy gage strings on a low impedance body seems to work under the condition that the string angle is not too small.

[David Burgess]

31 minutes ago, Andreas Preuss said:

I don’t know what you mean exactly with ‘a limited upper end threshold

By that, I mean a violin which is easily "played through", or overloaded to the point of the sound breaking, a violin which cannot withstand more than light tickling. When the upper end of the range is diminished, the total range of options the player has to choose from are diminished.

[jezzupe]

I suppose you can add mass to experiment, but my suggestion of experimenting with different bridges is to a certain extent the same thing where you are searching for the right weight and flex, tiny additions or subtraction of weight in the very important location of the bridge can have {by using lighter or heavier bridges} dramatic effects sometimes ,but sometimes not.

I do think its not a bad idea to play with some weight in the area to see if addition is the right direction, furthermore, counter intuitive as it may seem, if after adding weight, either as Don suggests, or perhaps blutak on the bridge itself , if it sounds worse, I might be tempted to lighten the existing bridge and make it more flexy {noting that Mr. Stiles said he thinks it's more stiff than usual} strange counter productive motions can occur when two coupled things are too far apart from each other.

I think the tendency to think of the bridge alone and it's properties independent of the top can lead to "wrong think"  In this case we are "thinking" that if there is a lack in response time that surely adding more "wobble" potential in the bridge would only make it worse, my thinking is that "maybe" the bridge is out of phase with the top in that the top seems to be on the thinner side of violin life and the bridge is more robust and that somewhere in there something de-constructive is happening causing the feel of delay response in that they are not coupling well

Again my suggestion comes from just "doing it" and sometimes being surprised by the results of new bridges.

When I do something like this I do try to create a weight gradient of blanks from heavier to lighter and also try to classify flex.

I guess I would just rather exhaust all potentials for transient parts or adjustments prior to "digging in" further, particularly if everything else is pretty "there" And well the process is completely reversible by just going back to the original, but I think "we" can be surprised sometimes by the difference a bridge can make.

[David Stiles]

10 hours ago, Andreas Preuss said:

One thing which hasn’t been mentioned yet is to have an eye on the string angle over the bridge.

Actually, this violin has string angle of 160 deg, a little flatter than target. Fingerboard projection dropped nearly 1.5mm under string load. 

 

10 hours ago, Andreas Preuss said:

I Started to look at the stiffness of the linings on the top side as well.

In guitar world there is a theory that stiff linings reflect vibrations back into the plate and make it work like a larger plate and increasing radiation.  What have you found in violins? 

 

9 hours ago, Marty Kasprzyk said:

If you want to  "get a nice tone with even the lightest touch of the bow" as David mentioned then it is helpful to use a low impedance string

 

9 hours ago, Marty Kasprzyk said:

Conversely if you wanted to have the maximum bow force then you should use a heavy tension string which will then tend to be quite loud. 

It seems that in this violin, responsiveness can be very effectively adjusted by post tension.