So.... why exactly can’t cheap violins sound like master violins?

[szuper_bojler]

Ok, I know the title sounds naive and admittedly a bit clickbait-y, but hear me out!

Modern CNC machines can produce top and back plates from a mold far more precisely than any human can. So as long as you have a good pattern (arching, graduation, what have you), workmanship shouldn’t be the limiting factor in producing high-quality violins. I mean, most modern makers follow a mold anyway.

In terms of wood selection, it seems that many Chinese instruments are now made from pretty high-quality wood. There’s also not much evidence to suggest that Chinese-grown maple or spruce can’t be used to make award-winning violins. I think Feng Jiang from Ann Arbor has even won prizes with instruments made from Chinese-sourced maple. If Chinese-sourced wood works, then presumably similar material could be found in North America, since both spruce and maple grow here—you’d just need a good way to quantify the properties of the wood being used.

If the issue is optimizing plate stiffness, then in principle you could use force sensors to measure how plates deform under a given load. From there, you could sample existing makers’ instruments and try to reproduce their properties using machinery or skilled labor.

If it’s about setup, then surely all the violin shops here in the States claiming master-level setups would be producing really darn good sounding instruments.

I get that there is a fair amount of tinkering involved in making a violin sound as good as possible, but even without that, as long as you get the geometry, stiffness, graduation and arching right, you should still be able to produce pretty good-sounding instruments. Maybe not at the level of a master soloist instrument, but surely something suitable for a high-level conservatory student?

Yet mass-produced instruments still don’t sound that good… why?

[Dwight Brown]

A fair number of people have spent a lot of time trying to quantify just what makes a great violin (or any other instrument).  Joseph Curtin has put in a lot of effort on instrumentation and design.  I'm not sure we are close to being able to say " build to these dimensions using wood of this density , etc."   It may be that what makes an instrument good is different for different people.  It would be like going to a great art museum and asking 1000 artists what the best painting in the museum .  My analogy like my thought process is clumsy!  There have been carefully conducted double blind tests done with monumentaly expensive golden period instruments VS fine modern instruments using excellent players. the results were interesting to say the least.  

I will be interested to see what others will say about this.  My thoughts are not of any great use and are probably a terrible waste of electrons!

DLB

[Casey Jefferson]

I have a different perspective, given a great violin in front of you with varnish looked cheap and with a Chinese label, you would doubt your own judgement and mostly. Likewise, you might think your ears are broken once again if you hear funky sound coming out of violin because it has an Italian name in it.

And then there are great violin police around giving lectures.

[gbup]

I personally think with enough effort this is possible. I believe there are studies out there showing that 10% of copy paste factory instruments end up being considered "good". That means that you roll the dice with the same mold/thickness/arching/etc. at wood over and over again and stumble across the right configurations for success. 

I suspect the two major problems though are one - the application of "automation" tools like CNC machines have almost exclusively been in the name of reducing costs not increasing accuracy (which modern tools already did long ago). The second and most importantly is I don't think even the best luthiers are bowling 300s consistently. They have failed/scraped projects, wood stock that ends up not being usable they thought would work out well, and differing quality instrument to instrument. That can be true even if they use wood from the same tree, same design, same varnish, etc. I think that the qualities of wood being infinitely variable and natural with its own life and imperfections makes turning anything regarding it into an equation inherently difficult. 

[Altgeiger]

I remember one cheap Chinese violin the shop I worked in sold — it was priced at $99 in 2000 dollars — that sounded just amazing.  I held it back until I found a kid whose talent far exceeded his budget.  They exist, but they're hard to find.

[Violadamore]

4 hours ago, szuper_bojler said:

So.... why exactly can’t cheap violins sound like master violins?

 

IMHO, many cheap violins can, but they don't, because they don't have master players (or expensive labor-intensive master luthier support).  

BTW, in the current market, not all "master violins" are expensive.  Neither are all mass-produced trade violins "cheap".  

As to why, regardless of price, mass-produced violins often underperform individually produced violins in the same hands, that's a whole 'nother subject. 

 

 

[Chamberlain]

Talented violinists and luthiers don’t want to play with cheap violins. Cheap violins in general feel like they are heavy and unfinished. I do believe there are cheap violins with good bones/wood that could sound amazing with a little work and faith. These older “cheap” violins usually sell for more on EBay, because of their potential (or parts potential), when they do come up. Good wood is good wood even on cheap violins.  
Also what high level player ever proudly said I play a Sears German special and a nippon bow.. Let alone a Roth/Shar with a Glasser or unknown Chinese …

[Don Noon]

"Cheap" implies high volume and minimal manpower expended per unit, as well as minimizing material costs.

"Master" makers will usually source wood from suppliers where the results are known, and many are picky about density and other wood properties.  Then they let it age for a few years (or torrify  it).  Cheap implies buying in bulk and using as soon as possible, properties are secondary, and often the density is quite high.

Getting a precision CNC, programming it, and related tasks are not cheap or low-cost labor.  CNC doesn't churn out a finished part, either... someone has to do the detail work.  Varnish matters to sound as well, and that can take time.

That said, there is no reason an inexpensive violin can't sound very good... if you luck out.  I have come across a few of them that sounded better than "master" violins, but it is pretty rare, and good players wouldn't want to be caught playing them.

[Andreas Preuss]

Just from a standpoint of statistics, mass made instruments are constantly improving. So also chances that there is an instrument with very high level of performance qualities is getting higher. Maybe you can that once it was one out of a million and now it’s one out of hundred thousand or less. 

I do see this linked to advanced technologies in producing those instruments and there is a chance that a manufacturer sees a profitable chance to set up a production line for ‘the best of the best’ where a few more efforts are made for high quality sound. 
 

I don’t think however that this will appeal to any serious soloist. This doesn’t fit ‘their game’ where instruments are telling stories linked to history. This also encompasses the belief that the sound of an instrument needs to be played in and to ripen over a long time. 
 

If any customer might be interested it’s  the gifted amateur who can’t afford instruments with a price tag equal to his own home or as mentioned above a gifted kid whose parents wouldn’t spend or don’t have a high amount of money for a violin.
 

And those market mechanisms make it that mass producers don’t find it worthwhile to push the boundaries of existing knowledge and technologies, at least not in a foreseeable future.

 

On the bottom line, logically you are correct, and I see it coming that mostly individual makers will employ whatever they find necessary to build better instruments.

[Mansfield Piggot]

3 hours ago, Altgeiger said:

I remember one cheap Chinese violin the shop I worked in sold — it was priced at $99 in 2000 dollars — that sounded just amazing.  I held it back until I found a kid whose talent far exceeded his budget.  They exist, but they're hard to find.

I am that kid!  But really, there are contests between very selected "individual" violins, and violins considered the ones to beat.  There are no contests between very selected mass-produced violins and the former.  And I hope there never are because I want violin making to continue to be something individuals pursue.  I don't think there will be...

In your shop your individual makers were selected, and your mass-produced fiddles less so because it's not worth it.  So the result is an illusion that mass-produced is categorically worse with a ringer now and then...

[Violadamore]

2 hours ago, Don Noon said:

"Cheap" implies high volume and minimal manpower expended per unit, as well as minimizing material costs.

 

Nope, "cheap" just means that you didn't have to pay much for it, for whatever reason.  If you find a fine violin worth $25K at an estate sale for $100 because the heirs weren't aware of it and the sellers are clueless, it's cheap.  Same goes for low initial bid auctions on eBay that aren't "Sponsored" or whatever, so the algorithm doesn't showcase it, and nobody else capable of spotting it's worthwhile shows up to bid against you.  There's cheap good violins in all sorts of places, if you know where and how to hunt for them.  Thrift stores, estate sales, local auctions, antique stores, pawn shops, etc., are often run by people who know their guns, jewelry, sporting goods, home appliances and electronics, fashion, tools, and collectibles, but don't recognize good violins or bows, though they may know guitars a bit.  Skillfully made amateur violins, and a number of obscure (to the public) pro makers, fall through the cracks a lot in non-specialist sales venues.  

 

[David Burgess]

11 hours ago, szuper_bojler said:

So.... why exactly can’t cheap violins sound like master violins?

Unfortunately, you're looking for an analytical engineering-type answer, when that is not where the answer is to be found.
The people who make the successful high-end instruments are imbued with a cosmic destiny which is infused into the instruments they make. Those who make the factory-type instruments have been cut off from this advantageous karmic connection, because the universe frowns what they are doing. 
Simple as that! 
 

[Deo Lawson]

The more experience I get as a luthier, the more I really understand the chasm of quality that lies between production instruments and master instruments. Even moreso than when I was primarily a performer. 

The Chinese instruments that come into my shop always seem to lack the details. At a glance they look good, to a layman even "perfect", but on closer inspection the little things are missing. They are all made according to some more or less "perfect" Strad template yet lack any attention to the subtleties. As a whole they're often much too thick but that's only one factor out of many. If I had to describe the average sound of Chinese violins (ie Jay Haide and similar) I would call them harsh, muted, and unyielding.

Making a truly great violin is complicated. It's not random; the great makers of yesterday and today have something that factories cannot mimic, at least within their budget parameters 

[The Violin Beautiful]

I would also agree that precision and measurement consistency among factory violins has improved over time. It’s a lot more common to find violins that are made cleanly on the inside as well as the outside now. My great-great-grandfather warned people about the crudeness with which cheap violins were hacked out on the inside, and that used to be a common problem—when you took a top off, you’d find that it hadn’t been made with much thought and was left very rough and often with far too much wood left. These days the majority of factory violins (excluding the lowest quality) are reasonably well carved out and finished inside.

However, factories do tend to make sacrifices to get faster turnaround. One of the biggest problems is that green wood is regularly used, so the instruments are often structurally unstable and they sound waterlogged. At a shop where I worked, the owner bought a large quantity of white factory violins but could tell the wood was green, so he stored them for 20 years before varnishing. During that time some of them became distorted and damaged. Those that survived were now stable and ready for use. 
 

 Another issue is that the adhesives used are not always appropriate. Because many of the factory violins are put into shipping containers and sent overseas in conditions that are tough on violins (high heat, high humidity), manufacturers have turned to non-hide glues to keep seams from popping open. Shops with luthiers don’t consider it a problem to glue an open seam, but some of the businesses that sell cheap violins don’t have the knowledge or tools to glue a seam and will consider an open seam a defect and a reason for refund or return. So it’s common to find white glue, fish glue, PVA glue, or some combination of glues. This makes it a real nightmare to deal with them when they have problems. It may or may not impact tone. 
 

Yet another issue is often that the varnish used is rather thick or hard and can significantly choke the sound out of a violin. There are very impressive-looking factory varnishes that are quite thick and hard and seem to be almost like adding a heavy practice mute. A lot of factory violins are sprayed with varnishes that are designed to take the beating careless users will inflict on them. This is not ideal for tone. 
 

I think the biggest issue, though, is the understanding of the wood. Good makers can read a piece of wood and work according to its properties, not just to a set of specs from a data sheet. A maker may look at a piece of wood and determine that it will be better used with a specific arch. A CNC machine is cutting to within a certain tolerance of the data set programmed based on one violin as a template. If the wood is fairly consistent, the results may be roughly consistent, although they’re not individually optimized. Yes, in theory, measurement tools could be used (like an impedance test) to adjust, but the technology already exists and has not yielded superior results for those who use it, and factories don’t want to add to the expense of their production. Factory violins are churned out by the container full, not made by individual order, so there just isn’t a very big incentive to go to great lengths to individually adjust them. They are being sold to other businesses in bulk, not directly to end users, so the model isn’t based on the individual. Lots of companies will claim to have their own factories, but this is not usually the case.

Cheap violins that sound better than their price can be found with enough time and effort devoted to the search. I think you increase the odds of finding something better with each element of the process that ISN’T done by a factory. For example, if you simply look for violins with a good setup, the odds are better than you’ll find with the setup from the company. If the varnish has been done well by a shop as well as the setup, the odds increase again. If the violin has been taken apart and optimized on the inside as well, the odds increase yet again. 

[Don Noon]

4 hours ago, Violadamore said:

Nope, "cheap" just means that you didn't have to pay much for it, for whatever reason.

The OP detailed materials and manufacturing items, so I took the context to mean new, manufactured instruments... which would eliminate the external "whatever" reasons for cheapness.  Cheap, old instruments would have the benefit of aging... or not, depending on whatever.

[GeorgeH]

13 hours ago, szuper_bojler said:

So.... why exactly can’t cheap violins sound like master violins?

The answer, of course, is that some cheap violins can sound like master violins, and some expensive violins can sound terrible. The caveat is that “cheap” and “master” are relative terms with subjective meanings, as is any judgment of “sound.”

In any manufacturing process, there will be a distribution of quality within the output. Most violins will be of average quality for that process, but some will be better, and some much better than average. Similarly, some will be worse, and some much worse than average.

The distribution of quality within a violin production line can be thought of as following a normal distribution, as illustrated below. Note that as the average quality improves, the entire curve shifts accordingly.

The universe of old violins is skewed by survivor bias: better violins tend to survive over the years, while poorer ones do not.

One should note that, based on inflation, a cheap "cottage industry" violin costing $30 in 1920 would be equivalent in price to a violin costing $500 today. Is today's $500 Chinese violin better than a new $30 violin in 1920? On average, I think the answer is "yes" because the manufacturing process is much more systematic, reliable, and robust.

 

[martin swan]

So.... why exactly can’t cheap violins sound like master violins?

another answer would be that the ears don't hear anything, they are merely an interface between the outside world and the brain ... and the brain hears what it wants to hear

[Arbos]

It seems to me like it would be possible for shops with talented luthiers and a high turnaround of extremely expensive instruments to scan them, make moulds, select for the best wood that best matches each particular instrument, and then copy them pretty much exactly. Then those instruments, which presumably would sound quite well, would sell for a fraction of the original, thus making them “cheap”. But then they would be master violins, and also $60000 is only considered cheap if you’re in the market for an instrument worth millions, in which case you’re not buying just the sound.

Of course, Florian Leonhardt already does this.

[Dr. Mark]

According to Mirriam-Webster: cheap can mean:

1. Charging or obtainable at a low price.

2. Purchasable below the going price or the real value.

3. Of inferior quality or worth.

If the OP meant 3, it's kind of a tautology - Why can't cheap violins sound like master violins?  Because the sound quality is inferior and/or they can't support the stress needed to achieve and maintain quality sound - i.e. they're cheap.

If the OP meant 1 - Why can't cheap violins sound like master violins?  They can, but usually not if the market or a middleman has had the opportunity to assess and judge their value before a price is assigned.

If the OP meant 2 - Why can't cheap violins sound like master violins?  Because the market, middlemen, and manufacturer all try to sort their products by quality to assign price point and the pressure is always upwards.  Doesn't mean the odd instrument doesn't slip through the cracks or can't be found at a garage sale - like TK1's 'Strad' lol.  Maybe Grandma's attic.

So I think the OP's use of 'cheap' is definition 1, and maybe implies def 2 if definition 2 can be maintained when def 1 has been achieved.  He means 'inexpensive' and is referring specifically to assembly line products that don't cost much to make, a topic which is pretty well covered by previous comments.  When low machining accuracy and precision, arbitrary wood properties, inexpensive varnish character, set-up labor and materials costs & etc come together to produce master-level tone, and where those with better tone aren't sorted out and sold at a premium, you could get a pleasant surprise. 

Maybe, with some manufacturers, we're approaching a Goldilocks zone between industrial quality and traditional conceptions where most inexpensive instruments, at least from some manufacturers, can be tweaked to achieve master-quality sound.  But if Mr. Burgess is correct, and something like that shouldn't be dismissed lightly IMO, there will always be something of the soul of the maker present in hand-made instruments.  

Frankly, I think that the Western capitalist economy is always going to force a premium price for anything in demand, and that price will always drag its market to the level of greatest financial pain it will tolerate.  You won't get inexpensive master-level instruments for very long before the price starts to rise except perhaps in some communist or socialist economy that can actually be made to work.

That's all pretty complicated - wonder if I've got it correct the first time....

[Rue]

There are so many facets to "cheap". And there are so many facets to "good quality". And there are so many facets to sound production/quality/interpretation. 

So, is it possible to have a cheaply made violin that happens to sound incredible, especially when played by a professional? Of course. Just as it's possible to have an expensive violin sound like crap when played by a beginner.

It's just that the odds of a "better", all- round outcome, increase when the violin is made from good materials by an experienced craftsman. 

And frankly, none of this takes away from the "magic" of discovery. Don’t need no supernatural phantasmic sh!t goin' on! 

Oh yeah, and then there's humidity and environmental factors... can't forget 'bout that... 

[David Burgess]

42 minutes ago, Rue said:

Don’t need no supernatural phantasmic sh!t goin' on! 

Party pooper. 

[Chamberlain]

1 hour ago, Arbos said:

It seems to me like it would be possible for shops with talented luthiers and a high turnaround of extremely expensive instruments to scan them, make moulds, select for the best wood that best matches each particular instrument, and then copy them pretty much exactly. Then those instruments, which presumably would sound quite well, would sell for a fraction of the original, thus making them “cheap”. But then they would be master violins, and also $60000 is only considered cheap if you’re in the market for an instrument worth millions, in which case you’re not buying just the sound.

Of course, Florian Leonhardt already does this.

I was just reading about master copier/maker Paulus Pilat and his ability to seemingly do this successfully in the 30’s and 40’s. I wonder what he could have done with his skills combined with the technology of today? If high turnaround of expensive instruments would have been his goal..The Strad 1989 story reads he could copy a master and build a copy finished and out the door in 2 weeks. 

[Don Noon]

56 minutes ago, Rue said:

Don’t need no supernatural phantasmic sh!t goin' on! 

Never has been.

  

[Davide Sora]

2 minutes ago, Chamberlain said:

I was just reading about master copier/maker Paulus Pilat and his ability to do seemingly do this successfully in the 30’s and 40’s. I wonder what he could have done with his skills combined with the technology of today? If high turnaround of expensive instruments would have been his goal..The Strad 1989 story reads he could copy a master and build a copy finished and out the door in 2 weeks. 

Evidently, he was a magician, not a maker.

[Dwight Brown]

More radical than even CNC instruments are the carbon fiber Luis and Clark instruments.  The viola seems to have developed a following.  The materials for those instruments would seem to be easier to control and reproduce than wood.  No two pieces of wood are ever 100% the same, certainly close but not exactly.  I haven't been able to play one yet but the price is low enough that I might buy one just to see.  (I imagine there may be a number of them on the secondary market). I should think if they are any good at all they would be ideal for traveling.  

Just a thought,

DLB