First, not all guitars use planetary gear styles, the notable exception being traditional flamenco guitars.
The reason as i understand it is that peg weight is a factor in the resonant frequency of the violin body/neck combination, which is a factor in tone and response. Changing mass changes resonance.
Nothing preventing you from installing a fine tuner on another string other than the E. Perhaps you weren't aware of these tuners?
You can use a fine-tuner (bridge screw adjuster), particularly with steel strings. Other than that the trad ones have served perfectly adequately for some centuries. You need to rub the mating surfaces and the grooves the strings run in with a bit of powdered rosin when you change strings, and learn to tune sharp with the pegs. Then you stretch the string by pulling it side to side hard until the pitch comes down. This might also involve transferring some of the tension into the unplayed length near the peg.
It's best to take an approach like this when tuning a guitar too.
It's best to take an approach like this when tuning a guitar too.
He might be surprised that so many of his violins lasted this long, and especially that they're so valuable.
This is a great question, the same sort of question that some DBT's like in the article might answer. I've heard about acoustic guitars "breaking in," but the time period claimed is at least several months and up to a couple of years. I've played a few guitars but never noticed this phenomenon. Even if I had, I'd tend to trust a DBT if it went against my own senses, knowing how unreliable human perception and memory can be.
There should be a few around, some guitarists remove the whammy bar from their Stratocasters.
Maybe someone could add a whammy bar to this guitar.
Well, you can certainly put a lot of spin on the story, and like most journalists are trained to do, they chose the most controversial and headline-grabbing one.
Reading the article (before I saw this topic) what I took from it was a few could (tell the old italian instruments from the new) and most couldn't. That is not particularly different from my own experiences with many listeners of HiFi ... I know of a few ears that are almost always bang-on whether double-blind or otherwise and I know a lot that allow preferences to steer the boat under either condition. I saw nothing new or unexpected in the article there.
Also, the players ... who are musicians let's not forget, and musicians do not "hear" like non-musicians; they fill in sounds and notes within their heads and can do it listening to $3 radio or a five-figure system with equal and usually unchanging consistency; fidelity is not a prerequisite ... simply preferred to play the modern instruments to a large extent.
When a musician prefers one instrument over another, it often comes down to more than just sound. That does not necessarily mean they didn't like the classic violins; they were all "good" violins and they would probably be happy with any of them.
It is true, however, that our brains are not purely analytical tools and are almost never free of a bias, although it's a learned bias that is designed to reduce the workload on the brain, not come up with the perfect answer. Thinking hard is, well, hard, and the brain avoids it at all costs whenever possible, and even when we fully intend to subject ourselves to the intense workload it, being the master of the machinations, will happily subvert our best intentions and hide that from us. *
Having said that, is it true that since we are, after all, sub-conciously intent on satisfying ourselves first, and being correct second, that the conclusions we come to are somehow faulty?
I do not think it is; if we conclude there is something "wrong" then regardless of what is true or whether it is true or not, there is something wrong, since music and audio reproduction isn't there to please anyone else; it's sole purpose is to please the individual alone. Thus, the conclusion must be right since it meets 100% of the criteria.
The oscilloscope or distortion analyzer might disagree with our rankings, but last time I checked, my test gear has never fell off it's wallet to buy HiFi and doesn't even care to purchase a single CD. I can't even get it to choose a favourite radio station; it seems white noise is as good as any to it. So, either it offers clues useful to us to achieve our criteria, or it is irrelevant, since pleasing the Tektronix isn't even 1% of the purpose of the quest.
Frustratingly, this is true whether the listener has a trained ear or is stone deaf; if it is right for them then it is right, period, full stop. So we toil at our hobby while others settle for whatever meets their own needs, and that is exactly whose needs it should meet. To claim one is "right" and the other "wrong" when two disagree, is missing the point.
* Modern science gives us literally hundreds of examples, but just one is when we are given a choice we compromise in a very predictable way. One such study, summarized:
At a budget store if we are given a choice between BillyBob tomatoes and Contessa tomatoes (you can guess the prices) we prefer the Contessa (ignoring the fact that we may still actually buy the BillyBob; the test is about what we want, not what we do, and is based on looking at the brain activity itself with our arsenal of fancy machines).
If we, next week shop at a swanky store where Contessa is the cheapest of the offerings, we prefer the President over it even if we know the Contessa is a perfectly tasty tomato and in fact tastes no worse than the premium President offering. The brian always consults it's set of biases before making a decision even when we know perfectly factual information about the choices.
We create the set of biases as we grow and learn from infant to adulthood and beyond, because they allow the quickest response with the least effort, a skill our minds stubbornly adhere to as a survival tool. Regardless of the activity, the vast majority of our decisions are sub-concious and executed without actual thinking about the problem; rather we simply react. Even when we think hard about a problem, there is a huge set of biases used to frame the problem in the first place; the idea we can be objective about anything is inherently silly. Without that ability, walking and chewing gum at the same time ... perhaps even walking, period ... would be impossible.
Reading the article (before I saw this topic) what I took from it was a few could (tell the old italian instruments from the new) and most couldn't. That is not particularly different from my own experiences with many listeners of HiFi ... I know of a few ears that are almost always bang-on whether double-blind or otherwise and I know a lot that allow preferences to steer the boat under either condition. I saw nothing new or unexpected in the article there.
Also, the players ... who are musicians let's not forget, and musicians do not "hear" like non-musicians; they fill in sounds and notes within their heads and can do it listening to $3 radio or a five-figure system with equal and usually unchanging consistency; fidelity is not a prerequisite ... simply preferred to play the modern instruments to a large extent.
When a musician prefers one instrument over another, it often comes down to more than just sound. That does not necessarily mean they didn't like the classic violins; they were all "good" violins and they would probably be happy with any of them.
It is true, however, that our brains are not purely analytical tools and are almost never free of a bias, although it's a learned bias that is designed to reduce the workload on the brain, not come up with the perfect answer. Thinking hard is, well, hard, and the brain avoids it at all costs whenever possible, and even when we fully intend to subject ourselves to the intense workload it, being the master of the machinations, will happily subvert our best intentions and hide that from us. *
Having said that, is it true that since we are, after all, sub-conciously intent on satisfying ourselves first, and being correct second, that the conclusions we come to are somehow faulty?
I do not think it is; if we conclude there is something "wrong" then regardless of what is true or whether it is true or not, there is something wrong, since music and audio reproduction isn't there to please anyone else; it's sole purpose is to please the individual alone. Thus, the conclusion must be right since it meets 100% of the criteria.
The oscilloscope or distortion analyzer might disagree with our rankings, but last time I checked, my test gear has never fell off it's wallet to buy HiFi and doesn't even care to purchase a single CD. I can't even get it to choose a favourite radio station; it seems white noise is as good as any to it. So, either it offers clues useful to us to achieve our criteria, or it is irrelevant, since pleasing the Tektronix isn't even 1% of the purpose of the quest.
Frustratingly, this is true whether the listener has a trained ear or is stone deaf; if it is right for them then it is right, period, full stop. So we toil at our hobby while others settle for whatever meets their own needs, and that is exactly whose needs it should meet. To claim one is "right" and the other "wrong" when two disagree, is missing the point.
* Modern science gives us literally hundreds of examples, but just one is when we are given a choice we compromise in a very predictable way. One such study, summarized:
At a budget store if we are given a choice between BillyBob tomatoes and Contessa tomatoes (you can guess the prices) we prefer the Contessa (ignoring the fact that we may still actually buy the BillyBob; the test is about what we want, not what we do, and is based on looking at the brain activity itself with our arsenal of fancy machines).
If we, next week shop at a swanky store where Contessa is the cheapest of the offerings, we prefer the President over it even if we know the Contessa is a perfectly tasty tomato and in fact tastes no worse than the premium President offering. The brian always consults it's set of biases before making a decision even when we know perfectly factual information about the choices.
We create the set of biases as we grow and learn from infant to adulthood and beyond, because they allow the quickest response with the least effort, a skill our minds stubbornly adhere to as a survival tool. Regardless of the activity, the vast majority of our decisions are sub-concious and executed without actual thinking about the problem; rather we simply react. Even when we think hard about a problem, there is a huge set of biases used to frame the problem in the first place; the idea we can be objective about anything is inherently silly. Without that ability, walking and chewing gum at the same time ... perhaps even walking, period ... would be impossible.
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There is one thing that doesn't have to be forgotten: There are more people who could distinguish between violinists by listenig than they could between violins.
The player plays an important role in how an instrument sounds. And he does have to feel comfortable with it.
It is indeed astonishing and surely a sign of quality that the instruments by the old masters still "work" that well. Apart from that the work of the old masters is defintely something that the modern luthiers still profit from.
Regards
Charles
The player plays an important role in how an instrument sounds. And he does have to feel comfortable with it.
It is indeed astonishing and surely a sign of quality that the instruments by the old masters still "work" that well. Apart from that the work of the old masters is defintely something that the modern luthiers still profit from.
Regards
Charles
Quote of the day!
It's interesting, though, that one can listen to old recordings of Clarence White and newer recordings of Tony Rice playing the same guitar and the sound is almost instantly identifiable. More surprising since the mikes (huge sources of coloration) are almost certainly different as well.
After reading the article, it wasn't so much that they couldn't pick the strads, it was more that they preferred other violins. The test was not to find whether they could identify the strads. Clearly they could because one of them was apparently not liked by a number of the players.
This to me says they clearly could pick the strads, it's just not what they were asked, they were asked which instrument do you prefer....
@SY I have no doubt
since an acoustic guitar has a large resonant box each of which will have it's own "signature" I'm sure someone familiar with it should be able to pick it.
Tony.
This to me says they clearly could pick the strads, it's just not what they were asked, they were asked which instrument do you prefer....
@SY I have no doubt
since an acoustic guitar has a large resonant box each of which will have it's own "signature" I'm sure someone familiar with it should be able to pick it. Tony.
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