How to make violin sound "fuller"?

[Mark Norfleet]

On 2/7/2025 at 12:22 PM, szuper_bojler said:

I think I have a pretty good setup at this point

How can you know that you have a good setup?

[HoGo]

I also have (generic german usual) violin that I'm not fully satisfied with and tried everything including soundpost adjustment, new bridges strings, complete setup overhaul with fingerboard planing and I must admit that all this, if done at good quality will only change the overall sound to a small degree to what ordinary (or poor) player like me feels or hears. More like a fine tuning a carburetor of a chainsaw. It will not improve power vastly or some other miracle... I knew it is likely a bit overbuilt on top like many of those violins and measured thicknesses showed some unevenness so I took the top off and thinned some of the overly thick spots to get smoother pattern on top and got top weigth at least below 80 g and also made sure to correct the neck projection and the fiddle now sounds niticeably fuller while the overall character didn't change much. It still lacks a bit and doesn't sound like a Strad. I wouldn't recommend this as results are rather unpredictable unless you know the instrument exactly (stiffness of wood and other properties) and you are experienced luthier.

[Marty Kasprzyk]

2 hours ago, HoGo said:

I also have (generic german usual) violin that I'm not fully satisfied with and tried everything including soundpost adjustment, new bridges strings, complete setup overhaul with fingerboard planing and I must admit that all this, if done at good quality will only change the overall sound to a small degree to what ordinary (or poor) player like me feels or hears. More like a fine tuning a carburetor of a chainsaw. It will not improve power vastly or some other miracle... I knew it is likely a bit overbuilt on top like many of those violins and measured thicknesses showed some unevenness so I took the top off and thinned some of the overly thick spots to get smoother pattern on top and got top weigth at least below 80 g and also made sure to correct the neck projection and the fiddle now sounds niticeably fuller while the overall character didn't change much. It still lacks a bit and doesn't sound like a Strad. I wouldn't recommend this as results are rather unpredictable unless you know the instrument exactly (stiffness of wood and other properties) and you are experienced luthier.

Way back in 2006 Joesph Curtin (see attached paper) found that nine famous old Italian violin top plates had average weight of about 60g without the bass bars and about 64g with them.  

I'm quessing that some of these old violins might have sounded good and it might be worth while to copy them. Has anybody published more top plate weights since then?

taptones_vsapapers.pdf

[HoGo]

I've seen those nubmers and they seem CRAZY light and thin. I'd wonder how much the worn edges subtract from the weight? The thickness of edges is often way thinner than "regular" numbers say and also the overhang is reduced on most of those.

[szuper_bojler]

10 hours ago, Andreas Preuss said:

So now you know the difference between an average violin and a really good one. What skilled luthiers do with the type of violin you own is to make it work best WITH its own characteristics.
 

Trying to convert it acoustically into something else is impossible unless you alter fundamentally its structure and this could also include alterations of the plate arching(s). 

That's fair, I guess I just want to nudge the sound of my own violin slightly more into the direction of a fuller sounding one. Which is why I'm here

[szuper_bojler]

5 hours ago, Mark Norfleet said:

How can you know that you have a good setup?

Oh, I've done quite a bit of experiments on this violin already, I think I've gone through most of the things HoGo mentioned in his comment. Including changing to and from three different type of tail guts, playing with string after length, different tail pieces, switched from Dominants to PIs, changing the bridge etc.. 

I also had my local luthier plane the fingerboard and fit a new soundpost too. I'm not a trained luthier of course, but I tried my best according to the advice of those around me and the resources online. 

[Don Noon]

7 minutes ago, HoGo said:

I've seen those nubmers and they seem CRAZY light and thin. I'd wonder how much the worn edges subtract from the weight? The thickness of edges is often way thinner than "regular" numbers say and also the overhang is reduced on most of those.

Those numbers don't seem too crazy light, as that's about the same weight as my plates... for which I use good wood (medium low density, high stiffness).  For student instrument regrads, the wood is usually  quite high density and sometimes not very stiff as well, so I'd never go that light on a regrad. 

I don't think that worn edges are terribly sigificant in terms of weight.  More important would be varnish, which can be a couple of grams... but most of the old ones have very little left, with only a thin French polish.  One student instrument I refinished had over 10 g of varnish on the plates, a real tone killer.

[HoGo]

I know that most of great violkins are like that but they seem crazy light to me when I compoare to the violins I had in my hands and especially to mandolins.

I wonder why do you think that the "student" instruments are necessarily constructed out of high density wood? I don't know much about wood selection for the "usual" but I don't think they did more than just simple cosmetic grading where the cheapest instruments were carved from whatever was at hand and better grades got wood the looked nice and fine grained for tops and nice curly maple for backs/sides/necks. I'd guess density of wood on those would be more likely randomly distributed?

That fiddle of mine still has some wood to offer when I compare it's thickness to the thicknesses of Strads so the density may be not too high. I'm thinking about giving it a second go sometimes, just to see. There's not much to lose. :-)

[Alto Ego]

20 hours ago, szuper_bojler said:

Haha I've already spent a bit on bridge making tools, so kind of don't want to spend $250 more to get a new bridge. Though I'll ask my local luthier to adjust it for me, if he's willing to do that. 

I don’t follow that logic. That’s like me saying that my car still has problems, but I don’t want to bring it to a qualified mechanic because I already spent money on tools and parts. Sometimes you just have to set the ego aside and get professional help.

[Alto Ego]

20 hours ago, szuper_bojler said:

 

Edited February 9 by Alto Ego
Double post

[szuper_bojler]

5 hours ago, Don Noon said:

I do have before/after spectral plots of a bowed semitone scale.  The results are typical... primarily power gain in the lower frequencies, but some in the upper frequencies as well.

Thanks for the data and comparison, Don! The graphs look pretty convincing. That said, it seems like after the regraduation, two very steep troughs have been formed around 1300hz and 2300hz, was that also expected? I've heard that a smoother frequency response is always preferred for audio equitments. Though, I'm not sure how much that applies in the violin acoustics world. 

I'm a bit confused on how less mass leads to better bass response though. Wasn't there an experiment where you added putty/clay to the top plate which led to increase in bass response as well? So, shouldn't more mass mean more bass response? Not trying to throw wrenches, genuinely curious here. 

[szuper_bojler]

10 minutes ago, Alto Ego said:

I don’t follow that logic. That’s like me saying that my car still has problems, but I don’t want to bring it to a qualified mechanic because I already spent money on tools and parts. Sometimes you just have to set the ego aside and get professional help.

Fair point, I'll have a professional check my work, and if it is beyond rescue, I'll try have a new one professionally fitted then. 

[Don Noon]

1 hour ago, HoGo said:

I wonder why do you think that the "student" instruments are necessarily constructed out of high density wood?

Based on my numerous regrads, I generally find that the weight remains on the high side and/or the taptones start getting too low when the graduations approach what I consider reasonable.  Not always, but this is usually the case.

1 hour ago, szuper_bojler said:

Thanks for the data and comparison, Don! The graphs look pretty convincing. That said, it seems like after the regraduation, two very steep troughs have been formed around 1300hz and 2300hz, was that also expected? I've heard that a smoother frequency response is always preferred for audio equitments. Though, I'm not sure how much that applies in the violin acoustics world. 

I'm a bit confused on how less mass leads to better bass response though. Wasn't there an experiment where you added putty/clay to the top plate which led to increase in bass response as well? So, shouldn't more mass mean more bass response? Not trying to throw wrenches, genuinely curious here. 

Most decent violins will have a "Dunnwald Dip" in the response somewhere in the 1-1.5 kHz range.  It just happens.  Ideally, I would prefer not to have the dip at 2300 Hz, and also prefer that the response extend out to 3500 Hz... but you get what you get, especially on regrads of student violins.

Reducing the mass of the plate by thinning will necessarily reduce the stiffness, which enhances the lowest frequencies.  You may be referring to my experiment adding lead to the bass bar, which reduced the bass output slightly, but increased the response on the high end.  The violin was a bit over-thinned, so it was slightly bass-heavy to start with.

 

[LCF]

9 hours ago, Don Noon said:

Altering the arching is usually only done to restore the shape of very valuable old violins that have distorted 

I sometimes wonder what would happen if one regraduated one of the cheapies by mostly working on the outside, assuming the inside is smooth enough, and focusing on the arching shape.  Kissing the finish goodbye of course. 

 

9 hours ago, Don Noon said:

I do have before/after spectral plots of a bowed semitone scale. 

It is interesting how very dissimilar those two response plots are except maybe around 2400 Hz and the 700 to 1200Hz band. I assume you made significant setup changes also, but??? 

[Don Noon]

26 minutes ago, LCF said:

I assume you made significant setup changes also, but??? 

I generally try to keep the setup the same for before/after regrad comparisons.

[LCF]

16 minutes ago, Don Noon said:

I generally try to keep the setup the same for before/after regrad comparisons.

Was it top and back, or just top regrad?

[Don Noon]

3 hours ago, LCF said:

Was it top and back, or just top regrad?

That one I'm not sure; usually the top is most in need of regrad, and the back is more of a pain, with the ribs in place and I prefer not to take off the fingerboard.  And maple is tougher.  I'm just trying to get the most improvement for the least amount of work, as these violins aren't worth doing more.

BTW, I had a 1977 Seidel (Mittenwald student brick) hanging in the shop, and this thread got me motivated to pop the top and do a quick regrad.  Original top weight with bar = 99.02 grams, w/o bar = 94.3g.

Currently rough gouged down to 77g, M5 = 288 Hz.  It will get a bit lighter with scraping, but I don't want to take out too much more because...

My average top plate for 27 violins is 58.5g and M5 = 322 Hz, so it's pretty obvious that the spruce on the factory Seidel isn't good for stiffness/weight... which is what I normally find.

[HoGo]

9 hours ago, Don Noon said:

Based on my numerous regrads, I generally find that the weight remains on the high side and/or the taptones start getting too low when the graduations approach what I consider reasonable.  Not always, but this is usually the case.

Could that be partially result of their arching shape? That one of mine has kinda "flat" cross arch with steeper rise from waist and almost flat under bridge. I thought that it's likely result of bridge pressure, but it is the same on bass side where bassbar would not allow that much deformation.

If I remove the top again from my fiddle I'll measure M5 too. I'll probably remove the bass bar as there are thicker places under the bar that might offer some wood to remove. I'm working on new electronic hack-gauge now so I can check back thicknesses more precisely before I open it and decide on possible steps. It's kinda fun for someone like me who is not living out of making .

[Don Noon]

14 hours ago, Don Noon said:

Based on my numerous regrads, I generally find that the weight remains on the high side and/or the taptones start getting too low when the graduations approach what I consider reasonable. 

Oh... I just remembered that I had a spreadsheet and graph of M5 and weight that shows this.  The one I am tinkering with now falls well within the range of all of the other cheap student violins.  The red squares are my builds, black diamonds from other makers (except those in the red zone).  Green diamonds are old Cremonese.

[Don Noon]

4 hours ago, HoGo said:

Could that be partially result of their arching shape?

Not significantly.  I made a few experiments with low and zero arching, and the taptones were a bit different, but not extremely so.  Flatter arch = better alignment with the grain fibers, so that counteracts the lack of arch.  Bent plates might be different.

[Nick Lewis]

3 hours ago, Don Noon said:

Oh... I just remembered that I had a spreadsheet and graph of M5 and weight that shows this.  The one I am tinkering with now falls well within the range of all of the other cheap student violins.  The red squares are my builds, black diamonds from other makers (except those in the red zone).  Green diamonds are old Cremonese.

Very cool! 

[David Beard]

On 2/8/2025 at 5:32 PM, szuper_bojler said:

Haha I've already spent a bit on bridge making tools, so kind of don't want to spend $250 more to get a new bridge. Though I'll ask my local luthier to adjust it for me, if he's willing to do that. 

Bridges matter.  Don't hang on to a bad bridge just because you're invested in it.   Show it to a pro.  Bridges aren't easy to do well.  A home job bridge is probably not doing you any favors.

[David Beard]

4 hours ago, Don Noon said:

Oh... I just remembered that I had a spreadsheet and graph of M5 and weight that shows this.  The one I am tinkering with now falls well within the range of all of the other cheap student violins.  The red squares are my builds, black diamonds from other makers (except those in the red zone).  Green diamonds are old Cremonese.

Interesting graph.

[Andreas Preuss]

8 hours ago, Don Noon said:

Oh... I just remembered that I had a spreadsheet and graph of M5 and weight that shows this.  The one I am tinkering with now falls well within the range of all of the other cheap student violins.  The red squares are my builds, black diamonds from other makers (except those in the red zone).  Green diamonds are old Cremonese.

What is ‘RR’?

[Davide Sora]

39 minutes ago, Andreas Preuss said:

What is ‘RR’?

Radiation Ratio?