This site has something for you if you are either making a violin or you want to improve a low cost violin or viola.

By tuning the top & back plates you can get a good instrument that responds well to the bow and that can sound like a £1500 instrument.

Articles, Links, Books etc .......:

  Here are some very useful references and books I’ve found over the last 18 months on tap tones and violin making in general:-

Mode tuning for the violin maker by by Carleen M. Hutchins and Duane Voskuil. Rather an advanced paper, but if you can understand it, it covers all the basics!

A Physicist in the World of Violins by William Atwood. A good basic introduction to the awkward relationship of craft and science.

Here’s Dr. Nigel Harris’s article

Martin Schleske: Master Studio for Violin making. A, or rather the leading authority on the acoustics of violins and making ‘acoustical copies’.

Construction of a violin by Hans Johannsson. The essential sizes and dimensions of violins and violas, and also here with some little videos! Also Stringworks: violin construction.

Acoustics for Violin Makers by Erik Jansson. This is a key reference work on acoustics and the violin: and it’s free! He used to work with Carleen M Hutchins (CAS) and really knows his stuff. He also gives suitable thicknessing patterns for both front and back plates and the key stuff on acoustics.

David Langsather violin maker. A remarkable man, and a fascinating website, showing how a violin is made in his workshop in full detail. He uses tuning, but uses mostly his ear, and tunes everything. Some useful hints too on using UV or sun light to raise the tone of a plate. David has recently done me the honour of creating a link to this site - thanks!

Peter Coombe: his workshop, and a very good article on Mandolin plate tuning.

Showing how Peter visualises the plate modes using tea leaves - well actually sawdust, but I do like the idea of reading tea leaves. I fully agree with what Peter says about getting the basics - arching, construction and so on right. Plate tuning increases the likelihood of getting a good tone from an instrument that has perhaps taken 100+ hours! Also have a look at MandoVoodoo ( ! ).

Nelle Doak O'Neill, Luthier of Carson Valley, Nevada: showing Mode 2 pattern in a belly/top plate.

James Beatley (in Ireland) shows the patterns of both Modes 5 and 2 in a violin back [plate].

Construction of a violin in Wikipedia. All the basics, and good ref. stuff.

Roche Violins . Making a violin - some pictures and text, but incomplete to date.

Oberlin Acoustics. Here is access to some of the important articles on violin making from the last decade. All free.

Violin Society of America (VSA) at this URL .......

Sound Animation: Six Modes of a completed violin animated that can hurt your brain.

“Path through the woods” Strad Magazine article on the great ‘del Gesù’ violins. Plate thicknesses given.

“Bridging the Divide” article by Joseph Curtin (Cambridge). Offering some help on bridge cutting.

Luthiers Library . Important violin dimensions, thicknesses and photos of Strads, Stainers, Amatis, etc. Some stuff available as a ‘guest’, but membership is $45/year to get at it all.

The Pegbox: online forum(s) that include quite a lot of people being rude about plate tuning. Have a look here at one discussion thread on Dr. Harris’s work on plate stiffnesses.

Have a look at the Wizard Violins page on violin making too. Michael Allen near Cork, Ireland shows how to use and make some special tools for a recent violin. The Safe-T-Planer ($50) looks specially good, and he uses a Dremel hand-router to cut the purfling groove.

Mowry Strings uses the Safe-T-Planer in a drill press to carve the external contour profiles of a mandolin back, which is very like a violin front or back. This is an alternative to using hand gauges for carving.

Have a look at David Ouvry’s ‘Contruction’ page. He’s a fine violin maker near Charlbury, Oxon, UK, and he uses Chladni’s tap / plate resonance methods to improve violin tone. Instruments from £3k ($6k) upwards.

There’s also “The Violin Site” which has a violin making page. It’s a site for violin teachers, students and performers.

Doing it by machine

And here’s how a front and back plate of violin or viola is carved or rather copied by a machine ..... a violin, and a viola, and a scroll. A plate can be copied in 1 hour to nearly finished for about $3000 for the carver- copier.

Guys who recommend Dr. Harris’s violins:

 look at at the www.violinist.com, and also “the Enso Quartet plays on a matched set of instruments by London-based luthier, Nigel Harris”. I really like their version of one movement from the Ravel String quartet on MySpace.

Fourier Analysis:   Academic articles stuff, so try this page.

Dictionary of Violin Makers - Reference

Here is [part of] J.M. Fleming’s “The Fiddle Fanciers Guide” pub. 1892, - Classical & Post-Classical Violin Makers”, just A to G so far.

Friends, good blokes:

Becky and Jonathan Springall mend and sell violins at Devon Strings in Exeter, Devon (UK) and their website is here. You can get some idea of their skill with this ‘cello repair!  Quentin Playfair’s contact details in Canada are here. All outstanding craftsmen craftspersons and tutors.

Article on Dr Nigel Harris  from Canterbury, New Zealand.

Construction of a Violin: Joe Sedlak's website showing construction of a violin clearly in its various stages.

He also shows the plate resonances measured using Harry Wake’s method with coil and ‘speaker magnet: takes time, but some good results. The mode freq’s are a bit low due to the weight of the energizing coil. This could have been done with a mic. and with Audacity software with a suitable holding point. Note his front plate Mode 2 is rather low.

Recommended Books:

“The Technique of Violin Making” by Harry Wake: His books are way out of date now (1970’s), but this remarkable man could write in a wonderful way about how to make your first violin: makes you want to go and do it now.

It has plans (in inches), and all the basic stuff, and is quite keen on measuring the weights of everything (especially the plates) and setting weight targets. Get it. Quite hard to find in the UK, but quite a few to be had in the USA. Here is his grandson’s website, where the books and DVDs can be bought. Harry Wake founded the SCAVM 40 years ago: some good stuff here too.

Violin Making: A Guide for the Amateur by Bruce Ossman (2000).

 I like Bruce’s very practical approach but there are a lot of compromises to keep the cost of special tools to an absolute minimum. In particular, he uses the same arching for belly and back and there’s no need to do so at all. The belly should have a ‘table’ top shape while the back should have a rounder arch.  He suggests too that the garland (bouts + blocks) is detached from the form or mold before the front or back are glued on: risky. It can easily get damaged and is prone to warping too when on its own. A simple thicknessing gauge is easy to make: I’d suggest making one, and then using it to help when tuning those plates!

You may need someone with know-how to answer questions that arise as you go along, such as on grain orientation. But you can get the book for less than £6 delivered!

“Violin - Making: as it was and is” by Ed. Heron-Allen. Published 1885-6, some 123 years ago. Can be got in various versions, hard or soft-back for £15 ($30) upwards.

This classic book on (Victorian) violin making has been in print most of that 123 years. Ed. Heron-Allen studied with one of the Georges Chanot’s, and published much of this material in practical magazine form originally. It has fold-out plans for violins with arching, thicknessing and external and internal moulds, and lots of stuff on history. References are to books of 150 years ago! Written in somewhat verbose and florid late-19C english, there are some contradictions and mistakes (especially on belly tap tone frequencies), but do get a copy. It is also avail. here. 

Amazingly, re-reading it the other day I found a reference to Modes 2 and 5 tap tones visualised using sand, and a rosined bow drawn across the edge of the plate to excite the modes. This is on pages 132-133. He refers to Mode 2 as the “normal tone”, and believe it or not, refers to “nodal lines” in the tech. footnote on page 133. As a reality check, this is from 123 years ago. What’s new under the sun?

“You can Make a Stradivarius” by Joseph V. Reid (1955). Dates from Noah’s time, but fun. A classic: show it to a luthier and watch him* throw toys out of his* cot. Used as a reference by some - someone I feel a kinship with too ......

Henry Strobel’s books on violin, viola and cello making are well known.

Highly recommended both for starters and the very experienced. They are at the violinman’s store too. In Violin Making: Step by Step ($30) he gives good basic info on tap tones, but frustratingly does not give the weights of plates, front and back. It would be particularly interesting to know the weight of the light (low density) Engleman Spruce he used for a belly. Some of this type of spruce can be 0.30 gm/cc rather than European spruces at around 0.45 gm/cc !

Sacconi’s book on Stradivarius’ violins called “The Secrets of Stradivari”. Get the paperback version: a must have. Try here too: about 120 Euro / £90 / $180.

“The Art of Violin Making” by Courtnall and Johnson. Get it. THE reference on everything for me, and it is less than £50 in hardback.

“The Art of Tap Tuning” by Roger H. Siminoff: $25 to $35 for the book with its DVD. Mr. Siminoff is coming from a quite different direction, but his work is practical and inspirational. He has an enormous amount of experience. He recommends setting up instrument plates in the bouts or with the plate edges held on a frame: this is much more like the conditions found in an actual instrument. And there’s a chapter on tap tones in his “Ultimate Bluegrass Construction Manual” too.

Violin Making Schools

I’m a real fan of Juliet Barker and her wonderful team at Cambridge Violin Makers, ‘The Violin Workshop’, not surprisingly in Cambridge, UK. I spend a week each summer there (when money allows) trying to make a viola from scratch. What Juliet doesn’t know about fiddle (and viola) making could be written on a postage stamp. She has published a superb book :”Violin Making a Practical Guide”, and “The Violin Explained” by James Beament is a useful handbook on the physics of violins too.

Hardangers ........

The Norwegian Hardanger fiddle, with its 8 strings is a fiddle with its own unique and haunting tone, a leftover from the days of mediaeval instruments with sympathetic strings: have a look here at some hybrids .

* Oh for more hers.

And finally bit of wittering .......... 

Lastly, I suspect that deep down we all want violin tone to be the result of the knowledge, that touch of a really special secret magic that only the luthier knows, passed down by his father, and his father’s father before him, not to be the result of some new technology or formula. We want living wood fibres not carbon fibre.

In an article in the NY Times (Nov’06) Andrew C. Revkin called “String Theory: New Approaches to Instrument Design” Joseph Curtin is quoted as saying “There’s a kind of a nervousness that the mystery will go out of it, the bubble will be pricked and it’ll all just be ordinary. It’ll be technology. There’s almost a cultural sense that the violin is the last repository of mystery. The fact that we don’t understand the violin adds to its allure.”

There’s an article of interest too in The Times about ‘online amateurism’. I really do hope that I’m not contributing. At least most of the weblinks on this site are to other sites!  So many "experts" with so little expertise! I quote “ Professor Brabazon’s concerns echo the author Andrew Keen’s criticisms of online amateurism. In his book The Cult of the Amateur, Keen says: “To-day’s media is shattering the world into a billion personalised truths, each seemingly equally valid and worthwhile.” Lord, keep us from the ordinary.

   Jonathan..