#49 Comparing Tonewoods. Maple, ash and applewood violins
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- Опубликовано: 27 ноя 2022
- I compare a range of my handmade violins with the help of Bronco!
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It is always a pleasure to watch people who clearly enjoy each other's company and the topic at hand, and are also very knowledgeable about it. Thank you!
The Victorian floorboard violin really stood out. Wish I was in the room hearing them! Looking forward to future videos
Ahhhh, Wendy, come and have a Jam with us?!! 😊😊 I am pleased you liked the instrument!
A floorboard violin wood have to stand out, wouldn’t it? Or should I tune my puns?
The applewood fiddle (in particular) sounds wonderful! Thank you for posting this video. Now I am curious about finding 'resonant' Victorian floorboards!
It's a beautiful instrument to play! I loved it!
Thanks, I wanted to build an applewood violin for several reasons, it was a massive relief when the two I built turned out so well!
Thank you, I found it very informative. I will be visiting a few timber reclamation yards hunting for old floor boards and hardwood for backs.
Just make sure you only buy wood that rings when you tap it!
I have recently had a violin made for me by a Scottish maker from a Scottish I50 year old fallen apple tree. The back, sides neck, pegs and endpin are all made of the apple wood. The table is of spruce from the Dolomites. The applewood looks amazing. The violin sounds lovely (currently strung with Pirastro Tonicas). I really like your work and ethos. Loved this video. More to study. Thank you.
While I know nothing about violins, or any other stringed instrument ( I dont even know how I ended up here! ) that Applewood Violin is absolutely beautiful esthetically. They all sound great to me, but then again I am not a musician either. And brown chin pieces are amazing, much more attractive than black. Thank you, now I will shut up!🫡
You have touched upon why I am drawn to wooden instruments. I spent years turning bowls on a lathe, I love wood, wood grain, the sameness, the differences … but a bowl doesn’t have a purpose other than being a bowl. A violin? A guitar? A bass? A piano? These can serve two purposes - a delight for the eyes and ears. But the best instruments in the world? The ones that are built well? Those are made by Masters.
The violin made out of the victorian floor board is beautiful both in sound and look. Such beautiful instruments.
Thank you Jessie, that's very kind. Much appreciated. Graham.
All these fiddles sound great!
The Ash are my favorites.
I totally agree with you concerning the Dominant strings, not a fan.
Thanks for sharing!
The Ashes have a lovely tone don't they! 😊
I keep coming back to ash violins, they have something that works for me!
@@grahamvincentviolins I'm very much enjoying the 'classical' ash fiddle, currently sporting Larsen Vs D & G, chrome wound Superflexible A and a gold Gold Brokat E. It'll definitely hold it's own at a session and stand out 🙂
@@stickulari I bet that sounds great. How long lasting do you expect that set to be? I'm thinking I might try that very setup on mine.
@Graham Vincent Violins I'm waiting for new Larsen Vs, these are off my French fiddle. Tried the Il Cannone but the response time was too slow. Will report back :-)
There needs to be more luthiers making content about different tone woods. I had an ash viola and very deep and resonant. I love it! Would be great to see those woods of willow, pine, birch and others in mainstream
I can really recommend giving Thomastik Vision Solo strings a go - I find them a lovely compromise between warmth and brilliance, especially with a Jargar Forte-gauge E string to give them some more bite. Well worth a shot!
Never tried the Vision Solo, I may well give them a try soon, thanks!
great stuff. And, I'm no longer only person to love the Infeld Reds.
WHat was the name of that slow air? Nice violins, the apple wood and ash backs are really nice, I wouldn't have thought Ash would look so good.
I preferred the tone's of the Victorian floor Board fiddle , I felt the High and Low ends tones were evenly balanced across... " If I was Honest" lol for an old Canadian Prairie Boy I also liked the Apple Fiddle I liked the bottom end Tones... Thanks for doing this Graham.Well Done...
Thank you David, glad you enjoyed it. Some of the old floorboard violins I make sound really great and it’s also like having an extra layer of history in your hands!
Good morning to you David, I am pleased you like my catch phrase! 😊. Apple wood is very nice, I am pleased you liked it! X
Eh! Another Canadian Prairie lad, cool. I have to mention- Dominant strings are kind of considered the “best” around the fiddlers I know, but that you can play around with strings if you personally like it.. but switch to dominants if you want to enter any competitions lol kind of interesting. They cost about $100CAD where I’m at so not cheap
Great Demo and fun .. only question is about tuning since all the violins seem to be tuned differently
All tuned by ear with little reference to each other, but in 5ths.... so A probably somewhere between 435 and 445Hz on each, but in a "standard" tuning!! Must use my tuning fork more.
Very nice instruments, thank you for sharing. I agree with all your statements about dominant strings, good student strings but not good to get the best out of fine violins. Did you try Pirastro? I tried so many brands but ended up with the Perpetual from Pirastro, using the Gold e-string from the set of Evah Pirazzi. What I love with the Perpetuals is the complexity of sound and wide range of dynamic. They sound soft same as loud, just louder.
Thanks for your kind comments! I am (and I steal these words from another...) a "string butterfly" and now that you've mentioned the Perpetuals with the gold EP e, I suspect it's only a matter of time before I try that particular combination!!
Love these videos. Any chance you could start adding a few bookmarks into them?
Hi Erin, I might have a look at how easy/time consuming that is, I can see it would be useful!
I own an old handmade violin, and had to finish the pegbox myself. It has the same tone as the apple wood, and the most gorgeous back. It has a deep rich tone like my viola. I'd love you to see it. I'd like to know what woods the maker used.
Send me some photos if you want, I'll see if I can help!
Here's a link to Chris Hutchings music publishing company www.moonhousemusic.com/
Unfortunately, I got completely lost on which one was which of those last two by the end ... was that the spruce floorbaord and ash back, as the "folk" and the apple and ash as "orchestral"?
I got lost too, I had to go back and watch it most of the way through..... Both the ones he picked were ash back and sides, the "folk" one had the reclaimed floorboard front, but Bronco felt that was too powerful to gel in an orchestra. TBH there wasn't a duff one on the table and all sold really quickly.
@@grahamvincentviolins Jolly good, interesting materials too. I've started out building with maple and spruce from Pahler and Dyke but I'll try some "stuff from the woodstore" at some point ... I have a few boards of nice Cherry I have been keeping for 30 years, maybe it is time to use one!
When will you redo this comparison with better strings? Would the ranking change?
Good question, would have been interesting, but I've sold three of this five. I will do another similar video for you next time I have a good choice of fiddles with nice strings as well!
I’ll remember to never put on a set of Dominant strings.
Have all these violins sold? They sound very nice even with those strings but, of course, the violin player is able to bring the very nice sounds out of them.
I'm in the embarrasing position of having to play an old French Violin myself at the moment as I have sold everything I've made (and it's not as nice as mine!!). If you're after a violin get in contact using grahamvincentviolins@gmail.com I will have a couple available in the new year.
Soooo, is this saying that a violinist needs a different instrument to play different styles of music with?
The 'classical' violin is attracting a lot of favourable comments in the sessions it is played at and is holding it's own though could be a little louder, not much, it cuts through. I think the neck angle is probably the reason for the difference between the two volumewise.
And as you know, I'm playing the "folkie" violin from the pair as my main instrument at the moment. Volume of violins is such a strange thing, the perception of volume by the player and audience can be quite different in my experience. Like you, I sometimes think mine could be a bit louder, but when I play up it's always loud enough. As a recent example, I forgot to turn my mic on for the first number at an open air gig and most of the 100 plus sudience could still hear me (albeit quietly), it was only after the first set that the sound guy realised I wasn't amplified. I think yours is probably the same - not loud, but always loud enough!
I set the neck to give my standard bridge height, and both of these were the same I think, so the string break angle should be the same and that's what dictates the downward pressure.
Well, all else fails, you demo the first set of strings, then you re-string with the strings you ACTUALLY like. Alternately, you can get a baseline with a very middle-ground string before re-stringing each with the strings that you think suit the temperament of the tone wood the best and demo them again to see if you can really highlight the character of the violin.
My take on anything that makes sound, be it instruments or speakers, is this: as long a there isn't something catastrophically wrong with it such that it cannot play the full range expected of it, then there will be a genre of music for which it is ideally suited. In the case of instruments, because they are even more personal to the player, there will be someone who will love the sound it makes and want to use it.
I am so glad that you didn't let tradition stand in the way of experimentation and you brought us all of these beautiful violins. They're all charming in their own way.
Listening observations may not match reality due to youtube compression, the microphone not accurately depicting the sound, etc.
With the dominant strings:
-1st traditional material violin: more suppressed by the strings and the bass performance is a bit muted and the treble is a bit harsh, but it definitely has a meatier mid-tone with good presence.
-2nd traditional material violin: less suppressed by the strings and more resonant, but the bass is less meaty and relies more on the resonance for volume and presence, but the treble is much sweeter.
-applewood violin: a stunner with a particularly plaintive and yearning tone, perfect for the demo song. It's very well suited, but could stand for some strings with a bit better clarity. Then you really lean on the E and A strings for some quick fiddle work and you find that it's highly energetic with quite a bit of voicing for such quick strokes. Quite a versatile beauty. Plus it's pretty in an understated way thanks to the darker back and sides. It's not flashy like the ash, but it's lovely.
-the Victorian floorboard violin: The spruce floorboard really stained up dark here if it matches the ash, but more importantly the sound: it's a bit of a diva soprano. The low end is there, and it's got a great tone, but it's far less resonant in the low end compared to the applewood. The high end, though, is like a beautiful bell. Ringing and pure with excellent harmonics. You'd want to re-string the lower strings with something a bit more powerful to bring out more volume and projection to make up for what it isn't giving you, but if you're in a quartet with a viola then this is the one you want singing above everyone else.
-the ash back with trade-source spruce top violin: mellow and sweet, but definitely less resonant than the Victorian floorboard. I'd say it's less resonant than the applewood too. The tone is still there, so it does sound lovely, but it lacks that particular projection and would be best suited for personal playing with the current strings, otherwise it will require amplification.