For science - your technique, my instrument.

[Don Noon]

3 hours ago, JacksonMaberry said:

...my hope with this thread was to bring in the dreamers who might need help putting their musings into a full, concrete form that could then be played alongside typical working violins.

Pretty generous offer.  However, my musings tend to be on the materials side of things, looking to maximize acoustic properties, mostly low damping at the moment.  Keeping to that idea, coating materials and thickness would also be important.  I'd donate some wood to your project if I didn't think I'd be making any more violins myself.

I think we have pretty decent information on the shape and graduations of instruments that work very well, and, as I have mentioned, I doubt that there is any ideal recipe that will show abnormally fine results. 

Relatedly, I have seen one maker with absolutely nutball concepts, goofy arching, and poor workmanship... yet some of them sound very good (most of them don't).  It's a quagmire to try and show any concrete results one way or another.

[jezzupe]

Yes I fear it would be an effort in futility, mostly as it seems this would be a "one off" and frankly one iteration of these alleged "ideas" would most likely not be enough information to prove anything one way or another and would probably add to more befuddlement in the long run.

[JacksonMaberry]

5 hours ago, Don Noon said:

Pretty generous offer.  However, my musings tend to be on the materials side of things, looking to maximize acoustic properties, mostly low damping at the moment.  Keeping to that idea, coating materials and thickness would also be important.  I'd donate some wood to your project if I didn't think I'd be making any more violins myself.

I think we have pretty decent information on the shape and graduations of instruments that work very well, and, as I have mentioned, I doubt that there is any ideal recipe that will show abnormally fine results. 

Relatedly, I have seen one maker with absolutely nutball concepts, goofy arching, and poor workmanship... yet some of them sound very good (most of them don't).  It's a quagmire to try and show any concrete results one way or another.

I think you've done a lot over the years to demonstrate that you're a lot more than just talk, Don. Thanks for all you've shared. 

[JacksonMaberry]

2 hours ago, jezzupe said:

Yes I fear it would be an effort in futility, mostly as it seems this would be a "one off" and frankly one iteration of these alleged "ideas" would most likely not be enough information to prove anything one way or another and would probably add to more befuddlement in the long run.

The single data point would indeed not be sufficient, but one starts somewhere. And anyway, might be worth doing just because it's kind. 

[Christopher Jacoby]

ah yes. the "dreamers."

[Marty Kasprzyk]

8 hours ago, jezzupe said:

Yes I fear it would be an effort in futility, mostly as it seems this would be a "one off" and frankly one iteration of these alleged "ideas" would most likely not be enough information to prove anything one way or another and would probably add to more befuddlement in the long run.

I very much agree.  Strad made lots of violins (1000?) and some of them were great and some were not so great.  Even he couldn't even duplicate his best every time.

100, 200,  and 300 years later and now other very serious makers have tried to duplicate Strad's best (ok, ok lets include DG) and some are really great and some aren't.

What do all these erratic results mean?  In manufacturing terms  it means the design is not very "robust".  It is "finicky" and the results are left to chance with too many variables uncontrolled (Don would say "it's complicated").

My opinion is that there is no sense in beating a dead horse.  

 

[JacksonMaberry]

6 minutes ago, Marty Kasprzyk said:

My opinion is that there is no sense in beating a dead horse.  

Nietzsche would agree.

[JacksonMaberry]

12 hours ago, Christopher Jacoby said:

ah yes. the "dreamers."

Didn't mean that in a condescending way, and I regret that it came off like that. I apologize to any that I offended.