Comparison of 3D Printed Violins
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 10 ก.ค. 2024
- The Modular Fiddle and the Hovalin are two 3D printed acoustic violins that anyone can easily build with no prior experience making musical instruments. How do they sound?
The Modular Fiddle is my design and you can learn more and download design files at openfabpdx.com/modular-fiddle
The Hovalin is designed by Hova Labs. Learn more at www.hovalabs.com/hova-instrume...
I compare my wooden acoustic violin, the Hovalin, and two Modular Fiddles to compare sound. My wooden acoustic is a Chinese instrument worth about $2K. A good violin but nothing fancy.
Buy a kit! openfabpdx.com/shop
I now have several variations. You can find design files for a Hardanger Modular Fiddle and a 5-String module at openfabpdx.com/shop - เพลง
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There is no comparison! Fullness and stamp are all for your project. The hovalin has the toy sound common to other instruments printed in 3d, not yours that is comparable to an excellent wooden violin.
A magnificent work.
You've certainly got the Hovalin beat in terms of sound quality.
It’s true. There are some simple things that could be done to improve the Hovalin. Use a tailpiece and bridge instead of printing them on, that’s too much mass on the top plate, and modify the design to allow the plates more freedom of movement. Even if they’re three parts they could glue or weld them, but the fittings add nodes to the plates...
At any rate, thanks! I hope you build a ModFiddle and do a sound comparison with your instrument!!
Awesome! I have so many questions. Is there software that you're using to predict sound quality, or changes in quality with changes in material and design?
Will this work as designed with woodfill filament? I have a luthier friend from whom I can get parts, so I'm going to get some pegs and parts locally, and begin printing this weekend.
Will a square rod affect acoustic quality compared to the round one? A square rod is stronger, so can be made smaller. Also, it seems to me that using it as a truss rod can offset potential warping, is there any potential downside to adding in adjustable tension across the entire rod length?
Do you have a forum on your website? Discourse is phenomenally easy to moderate and use, and it'd be a great resource.
Thank you for this!
Josh Rowe, these are great questions! Let me give quick answers and you can shoot me an email David@openfabpdx.com if you want to talk more.
First, no forum on my site but I have a google group here: groups.google.com/forum/m/#!forum/fffiddlers
and check out the forum at violinmakers.org
Woodfill would be fine but may not improve quality. Carbon fiber filled PLA from ProtoPasta does, though. I would be interested to see what woodfill sounds like!
Traditional pegs don’t work as designed, but I’m working on a pegbox design that accepts traditional pegs. Email me for info.
Interesting thought regarding a square tube. Hovalin used to use one but they moved away from it. Smaller would be better. And yes, adjustable tension would be really good - you could tune the scoop on the fingerboard. A designer made such a thing for a derivative of my F-F-Fiddle a few years back. Join the google group to learn more about his work.
Thanks for your great questions!!
I think the real advantage is the actual bridge that you have, as shown with your last violin. Twoset did a demonstration with Olaf using wedges to essentially mute the richness of the violin.
That's really cool - I didn't expect such a good sound to be honest. Really amazing!
Kinda sounds like unvarnished muted violin with warm charming sound☺️
Amazing work.... Very cool demos..... Fascinating info about the bridge being designed by the CAD not by you.... And yes your original green one sounds amazing. I'm a violinist and just started playing with a 3d printer... I suppose my next experiments will be your original violin design!
Thank you, Don! Yes, please make one! I love these Modular Fiddles. There is a lot of conversation on Discord - link is on my website. I would recommend joining there to see what folks are doing and what is in the works.
Very informative comparison with quality performance for contrast- thank you.
You’re welcome, and thanks for the kind feedback!
I saw these at the Portland Maker Faire. They were letting kids and parents just grab them off the table and start playing. Pretty cool!
That's a really cool design you made! I'm trying to make a hurdy gurdy which has a ton of moving parts but I am going to definitely look at some of the techniques and unusual design choices you made when designing it. Absolutely amazing design.
Thank you! A hurdy gurdy, awesome! I have thought about making one -- they sure are complex. Let me know if you make one for sure!
@@openfabpdx Thanks, I will be sure to let you know and I will probably post a video and share the models if I do. good luck in future projects!
@@theredstormer8078 Yo Did you make any progress by any chance ? I want to make hurdy gurdy and I have a lot of tools but sadly i just don't want to bend any wood. I have some ideas as to how you could 3d print the hurdy gurdy but I am mainly now just doing research. (also there is a STEP model of one gurdy that i found. Just type "AntiQuated Strings by AntiQuated Strings" in google
I would love the concept of a 3D printed violin with catgut strings, the fusion of old and modern would be an amazing art piece, even if they don't sound quite as good as a wooden body
Yes! Gut strings are fun. I’ve designed a Modular Hardanger Fiddle that I build with gut strings. I just built up a beautiful one and it’s listed on my online shop: openfabpdx.com/shop/
I would like to congratulate you both for your design skills, fabrication skills, and violin skills. Excellent work!
Haha thank you! I do enjoy all of those things. :-)
David your green violin sounds better than the wooden one . The plastic or wood composite you've used I do not know now for strength carbon fiber is excellent but draw backs is density for carbon fiber 1.95 versus maple 0.65 another quick way of producing violins is using vacuum forming using plastic sheets acrylic, nylon or polycarbonate before doing that make a simple box design and test various plastics and choose the best acoustics.
Now I want set up my printer with a tiny nozzle just to print a tiny one and see how it works.
DUDE, this is absoutely awesome. I have been looking for a project for the 3d printer and this is it. I am gonna end up taking lessons, but look forward to bring this instrument in to them.
Thanks! Yes, make one! I know of several folks that are learning the violin on a Modular Fiddle and are loving it. Their violin teacher reactions are always fun (and so far 100% positive).
Whoa. Radical. Thank you for the awesome video and 3D prints!
Thanks! I need to get some fresh videos up here but am staying too busy making new fiddles! A good problem to have.
@@openfabpdx That's a great problem to have. I hope you're coming up with increasingly fantastic designs.
I like the way your modular fiddle looks. Cubist.
Interesting generated bridge design. I'd call it the Brooklyn Bridge since it looks a little like it. Violin bridge design is probably one aspect of violin design which has been explored quite a lot by luthiers through the centuries.
Today, carbon fiber violins, even the ones costing around $5000, use a wooden bridge and soundpost. It would be great if you could squirt something out of plastic that sounds like a Stradivarius though.
I made a modular. Honestly I think it sounds better than wood. It’s soo sturdy.
Nice work, sir. I hope to purchase a kit soon. I cannot wait to try out the files and see what I can achieve. My first musical note will be a sight for sore eyes/ears.
Thank you! I hope that you do purchase a kit, this is a fun fiddle to play and and also a fun project to build. openfabpdx.com/shop/
@@openfabpdx Saving must take place but afterwards, I should get the kit. I found the f-f-fiddle, too. I put in a work order for this local place to 3D Print it for me. I will let you know how things work out.
i personally prefer the sound of the normal bridge over the cool optimized one
I 100% prefer the normal bridge!
great video. i was impressed how nice the 3d printed instruments sound. well done!
I bet you could figure out how to tone down the harshness of that last one while retaining the loudness by looking at the resonace and damping of either the bridge or the body
Yeah I think you're right. At some point I want to do a deeper dive into bridge design and acoustic simulation.
Awesome! I dont believe i have a big surface to print this out but sounds good enough
It doesnt have quite the wood sound but as long as the notes come out, this is awesome on a budget
Thanks! And the sound on my current instruments is so much better. These parts can just barely be printed on an Ender 3.
I like the green one as far as the sound.
Wow. That is nice. LOL Very nice sound. I wounder if you printed in wood filament if it would soften the sound a bit.
Excellent work bro
I've thousands of hours experience with cad programs and love to work on traditional fiddles( I've about a dozen). I wish I still had the software. I did start a fiddle from acrylic, long before PC's existed thinking it might compare to wood, it's still not finished. Maybe this video will inspire me to do that.
The hovalin would probably be genuinely pretty good as a practice instrument. Other than that though I don't really see why it'd be worth using. Your design though sounds much better and honestly, I actually quite like the shape too. It's weird but it works and in such a way that embraces the fact that it's not a traditional instrument. I can see that kind of style maybe working for an electric violin where the player might even be sending it into some effects pedals. Overall nice work and nice playing :)
Thanks, Brendan! I think the Hovalin folks have different design goals than I do, and their instrument when electrified sounds pretty good.
Thanks for your comment re: shape! The shape is largely driven by the print constraints, but I decided to really embrace the angles and design something, like you said, that embraces the fact that this is not a traditional violin! I’m glad you like it.
I like the green one.
I'm listening on laptop speakers, but even so the wooden one sounded cleaner, more harmonic, and had less echo. That said, the 3d printed ones, any of them, would be a very inexpensive way for people to learn to play, and they're not awful sounding. At least with these speakers.
I wouldn’t imagine it to sound too different from the other 3d prints, but I wonder how it would sound with a wood-infused filament?
Hovalabs has a new one-piece body version now. Might want to give that a try to compare it with their older version.
jdcamc yeah definitely! My printer isn’t big enough, but that could change...
I think if they go standard bridge and standard tailpiece I think we’ll be close in sound. And of course with the larger body there’s the potential for a louder, more full sound!
David Perry I just printed one out and the only two complaints I have is that it comes with its own supports. When trying to remove the supports, it damaged the body, almost ripping a hole in the bottom. I think you would need a fine blade to place between the body and the support to remove them but I couldn’t guarantee that would work. Also, my printer has problems with layer shifts at the top half of the print. This probably could allow for weakness in the upper part but I’ll just have to string it up to find out what problems may occur because of it.
jdcamc nice! You’re printing a Modular Fiddle next, right? :-) I’d love to hear how they compare.
Yeah supports can be dicey like that. My first couple Modular Fiddle prints had bad layer shifts and they still worked okay. Fingers crossed your Hovalin does, too!
David Perry yes, I’m going to print yours next. I just ordered some cool filament to make it look really snazzy. I’ll send you a picture when it’s done. Also, quick question, I was going to put a couple of coats of glossy polyurethane on the body and neck but I'm nt sure if I should spray the fretboard? Any suggestions? Thanks!
Lmao Your 3D design is by far superior. Have you tried annealing the parts? Or wood/metal plating the inside? You should try Hatchbox's Wood filament made with 20% real wood fibers
Thanks! These days I only build up bodies with ProtoPasta's carbon fiber PLA. The original carbon fiber PLA is best, but the HTPLA-CF works well, too. I have annealed the HTPLA-CF, and did not notice a change in the sound quality, but it did give me a fiddle that can survive high temps!
I haven't tried plating, nor have I tried any wood filled PLA. Most wood fill PLA doesn't offer much increase in stiffness. Plating is an interesting idea, I wonder what electroplating the outside might do... good thinking!
@@openfabpdx I'm jealous, I really want to try ProtoPasta's filament. But I'm glad I could help. Keep up the great work!
@@villyvillians5614 is there other filament with more % or is that new on the market?
How does printing material affect the sound? I'd imagine PLA being more brittle would have a better ring than PLA+ or ABS?
Great design and printing work. But the sound says it all.
I'm going to assume the sound is good. 🙂
What about acoustic differences between wood filament and plastic filament?
You'd make violin at any price sound good I swear
How many days/hours did that take to print? Very cool stuff and it sounds amazing for being printed.
Justin Moore, the body takes about 16 hours to print, and prints in one piece with soundpost and bass bar in place. The neck is about 6 hours, and the pegbox is about an hour. The bridge is nice at ten minutes! And thank you! The sound is pretty good. What surprises me is how pleasant it is to play, it’s super responsive.
@@openfabpdx Thank you for sharing. My son is very interested in learning to play so this may be a fun project to enhance that. Thanks for the response also.
I like sounds of green
me too
Could you test out a 3D printed Stroh violin?
That's a great idea! There is a design for a Stroh and I would love to build one. Maybe one day! First I want to try putting a resonator inside. :-)
That modular one really sounds good. It has a lower mellow sound. The havolin sounds flat. The wooden one has great resonance. I do like the darker sound of the orange one.
What type of filament did you print with; ABS, PETG, PLA?
Soo amazing and inspiring.
Thank you!
I think the Hovalin still may sound better resonator walls are thicker, or filament is less ringing. Otherwise there is something from bucket timbre. I think ABS is better for resonator than PLA ("Thus far, we've only printed the violin in PLA"), but it requires enclosed print. It may be either boxed printer or some cardboard enclosure for printer (the last requires forced airflow into stepping motors drivers).
Alexander Belov generally speaking we want the stiffest material possible. A carbon fiber filled ABS may be good, but PLA is much stiffer. I’d love to see someone print a body in ABS just to see what happens!
@@openfabpdx The walls shall absorb excessive overtones, otherwise they are ringing. ABS is a kind of resin that supresses overtones. With ABS Hovalin should sound like dry wood, while with PLA it sounds like stiff plastic bell.
May I just ask you a question: I'd like to start learning how to play on of those beasts, but I'm not sure whether print the 5 or 4 strings. I read only that the 4s is used in preatty much every classical composition. That would be my goal, at least for now. I'm not sure whetherever the 5 strings plays even better than the 4s.
What would you suggest?
I would definitely recommend that you start with the 4-string. It will be easier to play and to learn. Once you’re feeling comfortable on that then I’d say build up another violin and make it a 5-string!
@@openfabpdx with how many walls should I print the body.stl? And which pattern of infill? Have you tested the full-honeycomb?
The CAD-generated bridge sounds to me as if you were using a mute on a normal bridge. Do you have to be careful with choice of plastic and angle of print to stop parts delaminating? And does the fingerboard wear down over time? I imagine normal PLA wouldn't last as well as a normal wooden fingerboard - or be as smooth.Thanks for sharing.
Great questions. I haven't had any issues with delamination, but using a carbon fiber reinforced material is much better. PLA is nice and stiff, but stiffer is better. Using a carbon fiber PLA, the bridge still needs to be printed almost entirely solid or else it will sag over time. For the fingerboard I would say yes, it probably does wear faster than ebony (which is the wood typically used for fingerboards). That said, I have not had any issues with wear. Even the hardanger fiddle with a wound D string, which is very abrasive, is still OK after a couple years of regular use. And it can certainly be sanded to be as smooth, but I would argue that isn't actually necessary. I usually use a scraper and then 220 grit sanding block and my customers are happy so far. 🙂
Do you have any suggestions on how to build this on a smaller build plate? I have a basic ender 3 with a little more than a 9x9in plate.
Yes - it should be possible to print on an Ender 3. Someone in the Google Group said that they changed their bed size in the slicer settings to 230x230 and it printed well. Give that a try and see if you can fit it!
I notice you aren't using the chinrest for the Hovalin, doesn't that change the sound? With your chin resting directly on the body of the instrument wouldn't that interfere with vibration?
Also, why hasn't anyone made one of these entirely out of wood filament yet? 20% wood may really improve the warmth and sound quality.
Yes in theory there may be a small change without a chin rest, but I don't think we would hear a difference.
And great question about wood filament. Most wood filaments have rather poor mechanical qualities. They use low-quality wood fibers that are inconsistent in size, and when wood is shredded/powdered for use in filament it loses the mechanical structure that makes it a marvelous material! Wood filaments are OK for aesthetic purposes, but the mechanical performance is low. What does improve the sound is a carbon fiber filled filament, which accomplishes the kind of gains that you are imagining for wood filaments.
Not a violinist, but I think the main reason why the Hovalin sounded so quiet was because the bridge, instead of being a thin piece, it was a thick one. That may have muted a lot of the sound.
How would a 3D printed violin sound if it had a wooden bridge?
Are those nonagons for the upper and lower bouts?
Good eye! But I think they are octagons if I remember correctly. If not perfect octagons they are very close.
It's like the 3D print is missing a sound post. The last one do you have it on sale?
I've been inspired by Louis Armstrong with his sterling silver trumpet to have a violin 3D printed of solid silver. I have been told that this is an optimal carrier of sound and would certainly beat out plastic. Do you think this design would lend itself well to such a project? Has anybody yet thought to try? Can you offer me any advice in terms of this idea?
I think that if you try to make a traditional acoustic violin from silver you will need to heavily modify the design. I'm not sure such a thing would work, but I honestly don't know! You might instead try something like a Stroh violin but made from sterling silver. For that instrument the trumpet would be a worthy comparison.
The baseline violin calms me. The 3D printed ones doesn’t have that effect. The green one sounds quite natural though, are wooden fibres used?
where can I find compatible tuners for this violin?
This page on my website has all the info you need to source parts and build your own. openfabpdx.com/modular-fiddle/modular-fiddle-instructions/
Don't you know if NX has the same (or similar) generative alorithms? I'm going to try and persuade my teacher to do a course project of constructing a violin for a 3d printer, and i really liked the sound of generated bridge..
puck spirit I don’t think NX has anything comparable, and Fusion 360 (as far as I know) doesn’t let educators or students use generative design. Your best bet might be to use the Grasshopper plugin for Rhino. Of course feel free to use the Modular Fiddle as a starting point! The neutral CAD (as STEP file) is available on my website.
@@openfabpdx Hey, would you answer another question please? I've made a 3-d model and now i'm at the point when i have to choose technology and material. Is it PLA you use for yours?
puck spirit, what parts are you printing? Yes, I printed all parts in PLA. You want the stiffest parts you can get and PLA is nice and stiff. Some SLA resins might be a good fit, but I don’t know which off the top of my head. Are you ordering parts from Shapeways or something similar?
@@openfabpdx No, I'll order them from some university. I couldn't find any major 3d pinting company in Russia. They say they can print the body as a whole, so there will be onlyy body and a bridge. I heard that PLA degrades pretty fast, didn't you have such problems?
puck spirit, I have not had any trouble with the material degrading. I believe that eventually your top plate will start to deform, but that may take a year to impact the instrument.
If it gets warm, like in a hot car, it will sag and fail. PLA is also sensitive to UV, so it will degrade if you leave it in the sun for a long time (like days). Otherwise it’s a production quality plastic and should hold up well. I have a F-F-Fiddle which is very different from these Modular Fiddles, but has been under tension for five years and is as good as new.
Some folks have had the layers pull apart over time after building the instrument. I would reason that this is due to poor material quality or lower quality prints.
What 3d printer did you use for this? As far as what size is needed
I use a MakerGear M2. An Ender 3 is large enough, but you have to add a couple mm to the bed size in your slicer settings.
A good example of how just because you can doesn't mean you should.
Hovalin have a whole body print which I assume sounds a lot better. I think the biggest issue with the Hovalin is it sticks to a traditional violin form which means a lot of supports, some nasty finishing and fragile areas around the f-holes. Unless it's important to have a traditional form, I think a more angled design would be WAY easier to print without supports and would sound the same.
This dudes gonna wind up with a golden fiddle if he aint careful
wow 😮
How or where I can get one of those truss rods?
You can find them in a variety of places -- it's a 8mm outer diameter, 6mm inner diameter, 330mm length tube. The easiest source is probably Amazon: www.amazon.com/dp/B00TF8UW9C/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_U_x_AQZvDb6Q457WK
Great thanks! you should upload more videos about 3d printing ;)
Just looking at the Hovalin design, I feel like its biggest shortcoming is that really fat printed-on bridge. I'm guessing structural strength was a reason they made it so big, but it also seems like it would make energy transfer really inefficient. By any chance, is there a high level of infill inside that printed-on bridge? Seems like that would absorb a lot of energy. Also curious how they handle things like the bass bar and sound post. The Hovalin sounds very much like a violin that doesn't even have a sound post or a bass bar. For that matter how are you doing it?
Your optimized bridge seemed to have the opposite effect over in that its stiffness made it respond almost too quickly with no damping at all, especially at the higher frequencies. Wood having some inherent softness means there's also some damping as a result. I do feel like when you have limited control over the properties of the material, you have to mess a bit with the design to get similar vibration modes and energy transfer as well as volume of the resonating body.
Yes you are spot on here. I believe that the Hovalin does have a soundpost and bass bar, but I don't know for sure. Yes, the large bridge that is integrated with the top plate, as well as the integrated tailpiece, has a large dampening effect on the Hovalin.
Yes -- a traditional bridge acts as a mechanical filter -- amplifying good frequencies while damping out less pleasant frequencies. The material has a lot of influence, but the geometry has perhaps even more.
The Modular Fiddle has both bass bar and soundpost that are printed with the body, so all of the body is a single print. The soundpost is about the size of a standard wooden soundpost, and the bass bar in the latest design is similar in geometry to a traditional bass bar, where it tapers in thickness towards either end of the instrument.
The printed-in-place soundpost, however, cannot put the plates in tension as it does, or can, in traditional construction. I am still looking for luthiers that would like to build up an instrument and place the soundpost manually. We could find a better position, and I would be very curious to hear any difference.
@@openfabpdx Interesting. That mirrors a lot of what I've been seeing as well from various white papers. A lot of luthiers believe that the old Cremonese masters were using all the same criteria that they do when selecting materials, when their own journals really say it was down to using what was available and only relying on a few key principles about the materials and using things like using both hard and soft woods for example. And most of the art was down to design and craftsmanship. And yeah, all of them experimented and learned from other instruments they made and played around with tiny variations here and there and if they had a long enough career, they eventually settled on a certain pattern that worked for them. I'm sure that if they had other materials available to them like we have today, they'd absolutely be experimenting with them. Modern luthiers are actually far more wedded to tradition than the old masters ever were.
I'd believe that the tensioning effect of an inserted sound post might help -- it probably results in the actual contact patch serving as a vibrational node. I'm aware of some adjustable sound posts, but they are ridiculously expensive... however they use a screw mechanism to lengthen/shorten the post and magnets for alignment/positioning. I feel like you could 3d print a simple mechanism like that, but I'm not sure how much it would really help.
I'd also be curious how much of a difference you can see from messing around with various other body designs. Back in the 1930's Mysore Chowdiah built a 19-string violin that had 12 sympathetic strings laid across the body tuned to the chromatic scale and 7 main strings set up as 3 pairs (much like the paired-up strings in a mandolin) plus a 4th (G) left alone, and it sounded completely horrid, but if nothing else, it was really powerful, which was his real goal. I would also wager that the bad timbre had more to do with the pairing than the sympathetic strings because his usual 7-string violin also sounded pretty horrible. One that I heard in person recently was an old Julius Zoller violin ca. 1945. It's a completely bizarre look with its lack of C-bouts, sympathetic string under the fingerboard and sound holes in the ribs, but it sounded absolutely amazing. Nowhere as powerful as a Strad or del Gesu, but what surprised me is how clean and consistent it sounds throughout the entire range, and the examples I've found on TH-cam of Zoller violins all have those same qualities. It might make for an interesting experiment.
@@parasharkchari Thank you for the info about Chowdiah and Zoller's instruments! I have not seen those. I am particularly intrigued by Zoller's design. Moving sound holes to the ribs is something I have wanted to try. And yes, I fully plan to do some experimenting with different body designs. The body of the Modular Fiddle is actually the easiest part to change out (after the bridge of course), and so is easy experimentation.
I like the idea of designing an adjustable soundpost, but I agree -- how much would it really help? First step is to get a luthier to place one by hand and see what we get.
Ha, interesting about the old school master luthiers being more open to experimentation than modern luthiers. It does seem to me that anyone interested in trying something more different ends up just making electric violins. The world of acoustic violins is fairly uniform. That said, it's also incredibly difficult to make a living making instruments, so we aren't exactly encouraging innovation in the space with our economic models.
Several months ago I came upon the Hardanger fiddle and became captivated by sympathetic understrings. I have since made a Modular Hardanger Fiddle and it came out great -- I love playing it! You can listen to a pro playing a tune on it here: th-cam.com/video/9vT1jGZMFy0/w-d-xo.html
what kind of 3d printers fit for this model? is it ok if i get a regular ender 3 pro?
Yes -- the Ender 3 can just barely fit these parts. You actually have to lie to your slicer and say the printer is a bit bigger than it actually is, though. In addition, some folks have found that Cura still thinks it doesn't fit, but Prusa Slicer allows the parts to fit.
@@openfabpdx that awesome. I havent gotten my 3d printer yet but im gettong excited about what musical improvements i can do with this!! Ive also seem that theres a 20%wooden material called WOOD for the printer, would you recomend its use for a violin?
@@sebastiancanas2467 No, typically wood filled filaments do not improve performance, but carbon fiber does!
Can you please do a Modular Viola
I would love to! The larger size makes for more challenging prints, but a smaller viola could work well. Some day...
@@openfabpdx hi! what printer do you use for your modular violin? or what printer do you recommend? I got access to small printer unable to print your model, and I looking for recommendations
I think if you put a different brige on the second it might do better
Yes! With help from other designers I now have MUCH better bridges and they sound fantastic! New comparison videos coming soon.
PLA or ABS?
These are PLA. Now I use annealed HTPLA for high temp resistance.
hmm, those peak resonance frequencies could come down quite a bit. I think that wood naturally dampens the high frequencies due to its porousness. I Imagine that a heavier body might help lower the resonance frequencies but it could also lower the volume. I wonder what increasing the thickness just under the bridge would do... Just did some googling to look at densities of pla and wood and I can say for sure that wood does not get its advantage through higher density. pla is at a disadvantage here. what I'm wondering is if sound travels better along the grain than it does against it and what that would mean when you're trying to work with a material that doesn't have that kind of bias. Maybe it doesn't matter as much as I'm imagining. But for sure wood get's its advantages by being less dense (more easily moved by the strings), stiff but only along the grain, and it absorbs high frequencies (maybe more so against the grain than along). So here's an idea, you could try creating a violin that's structurally reinforced lengthwise by basically having rows of thick and thin sections but using less material than you did in this video, not sure if the inside would need to remain smooth or not (im not sure how much internal reflections matter), and then if the high frequencies were still a problem you could find a material to put in between the bridge and the body that rolls off anything above 4-8 khz.
wow this does not read well, typing while thinking doesn't seem to work too great sometimes.
Carbon fiber violins can be made as loud, or louder, and have an extremely wide spread of frequencies, than wood, because you can make the CF vibrating plates extremely thin compared to wood, while making it thick elsewhere in order to give it that "woodsy" sound. See mezzo forte violins.
The ludicrous extreme is, of course, the banjo, whose loudness drowns out everything else. Can't get much thinner than a drum.
I think using a 3d printed as opposed to wooden fingerboard is also why your instrument sounds less tinny
Good thought, but actually both the Hovalin and the Modular Fiddle use 3D printed fingerboards!
Have u tried a solid body electric? You could 3D print that easy rather than compete in the acoustic space.
Yes, my first 3D printed violin, the F-F-Fiddle, is a solid body electric. I've got some videos of that one up on TH-cam. It's an OK instrument, but it's not nearly as fun to play as a well set up Modular Fiddle.
Is that a cello or a bass in the background? Are you going to release the files for that one eventually?
The orange one on the desk? That's an earlier version of the ModFiddle. It didn't work very well...
Great work with this project David. The amount of criticism in the comments here is laughable. You'd think that the majority of naysayers are luddite luthiers that somehow feel threatened by your project.
Thanks, Brad! Yeah, I’d agree that the feedback here is quite positive. Of course it is the internet...so there’s the strangely derisive naysaying. I only wish they could be a bit more constructive!
@@openfabpdx I stumbled down the rabbit hole of 3D printed violins from the 3D printing subreddit (someone linked to your video in a recent post). Quickly realized it was you!
@@121bradm haha yeah there is a rabbit hole! Do you play?
Звучание двух последних напечатанных инструментов, не уступает звучанию инструмента из древесины. И это просто шикарно! Но звукоизвлечение... это какой-то Ад... Чётко слышно постоянное занижение на четверть полутона, минимум.
I liked the green one better than the wooden one, which was about the same as the red, but the purple one least of all.
Seems that copying the wooden shape, in 3d plastic is not good.
However, my hearing at 74, is not too good, as I've lost everything above 3 kHz!
Thanks for your comment! Very interesting that you prefer the green Modular Fiddle to the 'regular' wooden violin. I like my Modular Fiddles better sometimes, too. My toddler thinks my wooden violin is always too loud, but sometimes he'll tolerate the Modular Fiddles. :-)
For the purple Hovalin -- the sound is less about the overall shape of the instrument and more about the thickness and construction of the top and bottom plates of the body. Also, they chose to build the bridge into the top plate, which adds a lot of mass right where you want to minimize it.
@@openfabpdx
OoH, thanks for your express reply.
I dont understand why a built-in bridge would be any different from a separate bridge, of the same mass.
Is the sound box built as one piece, or separate pieces, and assembled, like a traditional violin?
The primary trouble with the Hovalin's built-in bridge is that it is very large. You are correct that a printed in place bridge is not necessarily worse than separate.
On the Modular Fiddle the sound box is printed as one part. On the Hovalin it is printed in several sections that are joined together, but not in the traditional manner. It is instead split perpendicular to the body into box sections, such that the top and bottom plates are not continuous material.
@@openfabpdx
Thanks again.
I noticed that the bridges seemed to have a 'central stalk' rather like a mushroom, and I wondered if a separate 'stalk' for each string would be more effective. That way, the vibrations from each string could enter the sound box before being 'mixed' in the bridge. Also I suspect that the construction of the bridge by itself could significantly effect what is transmitted to the sound box. What are your thoughts?
Indeed, I agree! The bridge construction has a huge impact on the sound of the instrument. Between the red and the green Modular Fiddles shown in this video, the only difference is the bridge.
I have also thought that it would be interesting to have separate stalks, as you describe, such that you could tune each stalk for certain resonant frequencies. Thus it could amplify desired frequencies of each string, and could restrict vibrations at unpleasant frequencies.
It's crazy how complex the system of a violin is. If we separated out the string resonances as described, then it's possible you would get many fewer overtones in the instrument as each string excites the other strings as well as the after length sections of the strings (between bridge and tailpiece).
That's part of what I love about the Modular Fiddle -- testing ideas such as this one is very easy! Any part, especially the body and bridge, can be easily replaced.
The Hovalin sounds like the violin version of a hapsichord.
first one sounded like a trumpet second one sounded like it was being smothered, uh good luck in the jam.
maybe with a wood bridge this can be good too
Is becouse your design has a proper bridge
The 3D printed ones sounded really good!... Said no-one ever!
Loved this, but the 3D-printed version sounded like a plastic Fisher Price toy in comparison to an actual violin! I think it may be possible to make a better-sounding plastic than, say, PLA, but there is still nothing that sounds quite like wood.
why dont you take a listen to my wood david
Printed sounds like a full treble fiddle
Watch the video where the guy makes a cnc violin.
As I Look at the Hovalin my jaw drops open. Where's the sound? LOL!!! I've heard toy violins that sound better. Your own plastic violin sounds good, way better than the Hovalin but, wood is king.
Wood is the best, I totally agree!!
The sound of the traditional is apparently the best ,the hovialin is skinny and the modular violin is boxy,that's it .
My gosh hahahah so funny. This 3d things don't make sound. When I put muffer on my violin have more sound. But actually for not disturbing people by practice isn't a bad idea
If you’d have a 5 strings, I’d play it for you on a video, and I have strings, so don’t worry I can set it up… pm me if you like the idea
😉👍🎻🎶
The best test is to blind the listener and just label all the viloins 1 2 3.
Yeah, the wooden one takes this one for me. Your green violin sounded cool, but it was too "straight", but I believe it's because of the material, not the design.
It sounds fine but i cant vibe it well. Feel very ew about 3d violins. The green one does sound better tho.
Yeah I totally get not vibing with violins made with plastic! Check my newer videos for better sound, tho. The designs have gotten a lot better in the last year or two.
I wonder if AI could design the whole instrument. Just need to agree on what is “optimal”.
Out of the 3d prints the 2nd one sounds the best.
no offense to the violin maker but I will take the wooden acoustics any day.
There is no comparison! The Classic first violin is The Best.
Yours is ok the Hovalin is junk and the wooden one is the best!🙏
a larger body would have made a richer sound
Fiddle yes violin no
The "normal" violin isn't the best sounding instrument. I wouldn't recommend it for any but a beginning violinist. The first 3d printed instrument is horrible. The second 3d printed violin is better than the first, but still really horrible. I'll stick with my Amati violin and Guarnieri del Jesu viola, thank you.
Good call, stick with those excellent violins! :-)
Your bow is to tight bro..
Wood good. Plastic bad.
and the violin makers will go bankrupt. This is pure hell. Nasty tinny sound, you just can't replace wood ...
Haha, no, capitalism will drive the violin makers bankrupt. This project will mostly just allow some regular folks to make playable violins on their 3D printers. :-)
Yeah...NO...Wood is good...$50 wood Chinese violin sounds better than any of the 3d printed.
Glen Choitz, yeah, that’s what I thought, too, but the pro violinists I’ve had demo the Modular Fiddle said they like it more than their $300 beater violins. 🤷♂️
@@openfabpdx No sustain, resonance, low end response poor to not at all, harsh...maybe dimension of materials could make a difference, like a thinner top plate, or at least at edges to let it vibrate easier...sound post placement? I am not saying the 'idea' is impossible or bad...but the sound needs work
The printed violins look like cheap toys and sound worse