Fiddle Jameson: Acoustics, what sound features make a good sounding violin? Ask three violin makers and get four opinions… Actually thanks to some great work done by Carleen Hutchins, Joseph Curtin and the Oberlin acoustics workshop luthiers we have a fairly good idea of What acoustically represents a “good” sounding violin. The video shows Chladni sound patterns forming as a signal generator excites the plates at ascending frequencies. You can also identify the frequencies where these patterns occur with a spectrum analyzer, looking for peak energy for specific frequencies. We use the frequencies to calculate the plate stiffness and impedance. Calculating the stiffness is better than twisting the plate and hearing a crack when you press too hard… done that a few times, Ouch Impedance determines how much bow pressure a violinist needs on a string to start and maintain a tone. Too much pressure and the instrument is hard to play having limited dynamics. Too little pressure and the tone is mushy having little projection. Like Goldie Locks in the fairy tale we are looking for the acoustics that are just right:-). We take lots of measurements and compare the results over and over and over


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Fiddle Jameson: Acoustics, what sound features make a good sounding violin? Ask three violin makers and get four opinions… Actually thanks to some great work done by Carleen Hutchins, Joseph Curtin and the Oberlin acoustics workshop luthiers we have a fairly good idea of What acoustically represents a “good” sounding violin. The video shows Chladni sound patterns forming as a signal generator excites the plates at ascending frequencies. You can also identify the frequencies where these patterns occur with a spectrum analyzer, looking for peak energy for specific frequencies.
We use the frequencies to calculate the plate stiffness and impedance. Calculating the stiffness is better than twisting the plate and hearing a crack when you press too hard… done that a few times, Ouch

Impedance determines how much bow pressure a violinist needs on a string to start and maintain a tone. Too much pressure and the instrument is hard to play having limited dynamics. Too little pressure and the tone is mushy having little projection.
Like Goldie Locks in the fairy tale we are looking for the acoustics that are just right:-). We take lots of measurements and compare the results over and over and over. #violin #viola #fiddle #5stringfiddle #violinJameson #fiddlejamesen
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#acoustics, Howery Violins, Normal


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