Violin Forum/Message Board

[JWH]

This is a graduation question and not a bar question, Michael, but are you a proponent of thick-to-thin starting from the center of the arch to the edge, or thin-to-thick?
Noting a CAT scan some time ago of a Del Gesu lower bout cross-section, my eye could not find a trace of difference in thickness throughout. It was uniform from edge to edge. But, then I suppose that this issue is more about the C-bout than the upper or lower after looking at a series of Dr. Loen's graduation patterns. I am trying to get clarity on edge thicknesses as it relates to arching.
It would be nice if research could be made to not only provide us the type of work Jeffery Loen did on graduations, but a whole series of arching patterns on the same violins. Discounting thinner graduations overall to modern measurements, I suspect many consistent relationships or ratios may get revealed between the two.

[Michael Darnton]

I'm not a big believer of graduation meaning too much, except in regard to keeping it in balance. That means you have to keep the same plan in mind throughout (if you're making a thick top and back, the ribs should be thick, too) and paying close attention to following a plan that's not stupid (the French way of making the thickest spot between the lower corners, for instance) that throws the whole balance off.

I definitely also know that it's harder to make a thick instrument work than a thin one, which is why a lot of modern makers make their instruments thin, and in some cases, too thin.* Relative to the bass bar discussion, that's one of the common errors that makes for a flabby violin that you can't simply correct with a bar. A lot of makers get away with this because the biggest market for new violins is teenagers, who often view darkness as positive, and don't notice when a violin responds like it's made of a sheet of rubber, and mistake that for dark depth, which it isn't.

It's possible to make great violins with many possible graduations, if you keep those rules in mind.

The things that Jeff Loen talks about have been known in a general way for a long time, and I've been doing it since I started making violins. It's an interesting idea, but in my experience it doesn't result in a huge difference. There's some unclarity, too, exactly what's going on in this regard, because I believe he didn't make any attempt to try to figure out what's original in his charts and what isn't. I had a sort of revelatory experience measuring a del Gesu which definitely had not been regraduated or scraped inside (it was in nearly mint condition, and had been hidden away for 200 years in a dealer's family collection), in which this thinning was extremely localized, and obviously intentional--something which doesn't show as well in violins which have been repeatedly scraped over by bad repairmen multiple times. When I started doing it specifically the way I saw in that instrument, the resulting change was. . . not much. So, you can do it or not, whatever. I don't think it means a lot.

Something you definitely don't find in the best Cremonese violins, though, is tops that are thin around the edges and thick in the middle--that's a plan from an entirely different time or place--so I would stay away from that.

I think that the best results from graduation will come when people start looking at that problem differently. Most modern makers assume it's got some relationship to a tuning problem, and I don't, from my experience, get that idea at all. It's definitely much more related to math, as is the entire rest of the design of a violin. That idea doesn't get any traction among amateurs looking for recipes, but the idea does seem to be taking hold among more the thoughtful reverse engineers looking at violins these days.

* "Too thin" is a often salesman's kill of his competition, because the customer has no way to verify the claim. I don't mean, then, "too thin" in the way that Sergio Peresson was comercially derided for making "thin" instruments that I have measured as being in some cases as being as thick as 3.5mm in areas of the top. I mean that I have seen a violin from a very famous modern maker that was in average 1.9mm thick in the top, and was already collapsing, after only six months. The bottom end was a classical illustration for this thread, having a sort of loose "wubba-wubba" sound that totally crashed with any bow pressure to speak of. The young player loved it because it was "responsive", but that's all it was.

[JWH]

Thanks, Michael.

I don't have Jeff Loen's book and can't comment much about it, except to say that if it is strictly a pictorial publication without discussion, then, as you say, we are unaware of the regraduated examples used, nor would we know which instruments play better than others to draw any comparisons.

It's interesting you comment on the math. I had David Gusset tell me one time, "if it looks good, it probably plays well", and after seeing one of his exhibitions and some of his exacting sketches, I think what he meant is: If the math is right, it will play well. Yet, there will always be unexplained aberration outside of mathematical correctness.

[Michael Darnton]

Yes, and my theory is that mathematical correctness determines the extent to which a violin works, and lack of correctness is what makes it interesting instead of plain.

[JWH]

Has anyone read the article by Peter Zaret, "How to Judge if a Violin has a Good Tone?"
http://www.zaretandsonsviolins.com/goodtoneviolin.html

Here he describes tone with all the descriptive adjectives that would make a wine taster blush. The one adjective that stands above all else in his description is, 'power'. Solo violinists want and need power and to get it, players have to sacrifice smoothness under the ear for edginess etc. etc.

The main reason I present this article is not that I disagree on his characterizations of tone or with universal problems makers often are confronted with, but should I be skeptical about his patented bassbar that supposedly solves many of these problems?

"On a good violin with the traditional bass bar you tend to have a wolf tone on the B natural or C natural above A 440. This is particularly prominent higher up on the G string,"

"Generally speaking, a student violin with the traditional bass bar will be bright and brassy sounding in the lower register"

"The essence of my patent is I discovered how to build up the bass of the violin by adding wood to the bottom part of the bass bar away from the surface. Therefore, the violin becomes deep and rich in the lower register yet bright and brilliant in the upper register."

Has anyone seen one of his bars and know anything about this?

[Michael Darnton]

I have seen and played one.

http://www.violinist.com/discussion/response.cfm?ID=12622

[violinarius]

I heard that some makers use very light bass bars.

Has anyone any information on what happens with a light bar?

[MANFIO]

Hi Michael! How many grams your finished bar adds to the top? Thank you!
_________________
www.manfio.com

http://www.flickr.com/photos/7875988@N02/with/464604020/

[KenN]

I like that formula for the bass bar. It is one thing that isn't really addressed in books at length, or at all. I figured out a way to adjust the height for arch height. If you take the instrument length, divide by 11, subtract the belly arch height, and mutiply by 10/11, you get the 1/2 height. Then all the other numbers go down by dividing by 1.11to the x power. For example. 352/11=32-16=16x10/11=14.5. 14.5/1.11=13.1/1.11^2=10.66/1.11^3=7.8/1.11^4=5.1
Does this idea sound any good?
Using it your bass bar for a 14mm arch will be much bigger than for a 19mm Montagnana. Is a 12 mm bar too small, or a 16mm bar too big? If you use the numbers given in the article on original bass bars by Stewart Pollens, you can use the same formula by substituting 5/8 for the 10/11 factor. Are viola and cello bars pretty much the same?