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.

Where to hold a plate

  Measuring the tap tone frequencies of interest (Modes 2 and 5, and possibly also Mode 1) takes only a couple of minutes, and involves no tuning forks or loudspeakers. The pictures below will show where to hold the plate (belly or back).

A plate needs to be held somewhere on a nodal line, where the vibration amplitude at that selected resonant frequency is zero. This picture shows where to hold a plate (belly) to get Modes 2 and 5. Click on it or the one below for a better view.

Have a look on this page for the nodal lines. The ‘black lines’ shown seen there are these nodal lines on back & front plates for Modes 2 and 5.

Mode 2 is called the ‘X’ mode as the nodal lines are shaped surprisingly like an ‘X’, and it’s useful to remember that nodal line ‘X’ shape. It’s rather different on front and back, as the ‘X’ is two back to back C’s on a belly!

Mode 5 is called the ring tone, as the black nodal lines (or the lines where tea leaves/sawdust migrates to when the plate are resonating above a ‘speaker) are ring or ‘O’ shaped, particularly on the back plate. The front’s or belly’s (black) nodal lines are more like a pair of brackets, one above the other, that extend right to the edges.

 The point to hold a plate is in the middle of the upper bout, as if the plate had an ‘eye’ there as is the picture above. Importantly, holding here allows both Modes 2 and 5 to resonate when the plate is tapped, and suppress all the other Modes (and there are lot!), as their nodal lines do not pass through that point. I also use other points right on the plate edge that allow only one tap tone to resonate, and choosing that holding point damps all other modes.  Experiment, play around!  You will soon find where the best holding point is if you hold the plate up to your ear, and listen where the mic should be. I warn you: you will look ridiculous though.

Flatter plates (with lower arching), and bellies without bassbars need to be held lower down the plate.

Where to tap a plate, and what with

 I usually tap the plate right in the middle (the bridge position) for Mode 5, and at an edge (C - bout) for Mode 2.

The tip or pad of the first or second finger works well for Mode 2, and the knuckle for Mode 5. I’m using the knuckle here. C

Where to locate the microphone.

 The mic, preferably one on a ‘stick’, must be placed close to 1 - 2 inches away from an anti-node. The anti-node is in the middle of the plate for Mode 5, and at one edge (C-bout) and at the bottom block position for Mode 2: have a look at the pictures. With the mic at the centre of the plate, Mode 5 will be strong (as there’s an anti-node there), and Mode 2 weaker. Actually a Mode 2 broad nodal line is there, but it is still picked up a bit. You can see this from the FFT pictures below. In one case I measured there was no Mode 2 picked up by the mic at all because of this nodal line down the centre line of the plate. I usually move the plate up during the tapping so the mic’s opposite the bottom block position to make sure Mode 2 is picked up.

In the screen dump of the FFT (see later), Mode 5 is 15 dB above that of Mode 2 when the mic stays at the centre of the plate. “15 dB” here means about 8 times bigger in amplitude as it’s on a logarithmic scale. Usually the Modes 2 and 5 are about the same strength on the FFT screen when you move the plate during tapping so the mic picks up Mode 5 at the centre, and Mode 2 around the bottom block position.

How to get and interpret the results: the tap tones of Modes 2 & 5

Record the tap tones using Audacity software by pressing the red button (top left) with the mouse pointer. I usually now tap the plate in the right place about 10 times over say 5 seconds.

Select the 2 (or more) silences at the ends of the waveform with the mouse LH button pressed, at either end of the waveform and delete them using the delete key. This leaves a good waveform to work with: you may need to adjust the mic sensitivity so the mic is not overloaded.

Now select all the recorded waveform left in the window using “Control + A” keys pressed simultaneously and go to the ‘Analyze’ option on the top line of the window and then select ‘Plot Spectrum’ that drops down.. This is the Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) of the selected waveform: that is it shows the resonant frequencies present in the sounds picked up my the mic.

You will need to enlarge the window, and select ‘Spectrum’,  16,384 (the sample window size), Hanning window, and finally ‘log’ (or logarithmic) display.

I’ve included 2 pictures of typical Audacity windows, one above showing the waveform, and one right showing the FFT screen. Click on them to go to full size pictures. In this example of a front (belly) with a good bassbar fitted, Mode 2 peak is at 167 Hz, and, selected with the cursor is the 333 Hz for Mode 5*. What’s so good about Audacity here is that the cursor pops automatically to the nearest peak and shows its frequency under the display, under the purple area bottom left. Be careful to read the ‘peak’ frequency and not the ‘cursor’ frequency! Write it down - I keep a small transparent folder for each violin to record all results and calculations.

You can find similar instructions for using Audacity software here on NerdsCentral Blogspot (!) where the author (one Alex, with a PhD in Computational Quantum Mechanics) shows how to use Audacity to tune a mandola’s front plate. He calls it ‘strobe tuning’. He also exports data to MS Excel to calculate the energy at various frequencies.

I’ve included here (rt.) a screen-dump showing the tap tones for a belly using some very old software called ‘CoolEdit 2000’. It can be found on the web, but is only a 30-day trial. I’ve used it for years, as the FFT still works long after 30 days! It is my favourite waveform capture with a very good FFT function.

Note how broad each peak is: a good plate will have a very high and sharp (narrow) Mode 5 peak. The higher and stronger the better.

    Other possible waveform/FFT software program is “Visual Analyser 10” which again is free to use, and has a fairly good real-time spectrum analyser as well as a standard FFT function you apply to a captured waveform. Note that the X-axis for this does not plot to a log scale. The controls are a little quirky, see right.

You will need to use the ‘hold’ function to record a spectrum in real time - it works quite well, and is quick. Erase the spectrum by deselecting (un-ticking) ‘hold!’

Strobe Tuners

A company called Peterson make a range of strobe tuners, best described on this YouTube video. The latest is the ‘StroboSoft’ PC software for about $80. Strobe tuning techniques have been in use since Lloyd A. Loar’s outstanding work in the 1920’s on the Gibson F4 (and F5) mandolin plate tuning. They have a flat or rather carved front and back plate. His work has encouraged plate tuning on all kinds of instruments in the USA ever since, as the F4 and F5’s from that era are truly the ‘strads’ of mandolins! Roger Siminoff is the current US guru on plate tuning, and has published several books.

The advantage of ‘strobe tuners’ is they allow rapid visualisation of the tap tone’s pitch, and also its harmonics: i.e. a frequency and all of its octaves. This may require a compressor (as used with guitars) to stretch the tap tone out.

* Yes!  An octave front plate, where Mode 5 is 2 x Mode 2’s frequency!   Octave means twice the frequency, and it is what Carleen recommends.