e
one that has to use the wood and carve the plates. The advice giver
has no culpability in the process. You hold the bag. Many people
are listening to violin makers that are using the wrong wood as well as
the wrong conventional wisdom. Don't get caught in it.
As for the
spruce tonewood and plate graduations, you can find both in my store. Those are
the answers right there. I have motivation here to not lead you astray. I sell the answers for many newcomers and floundering violin makers to get to the next level of great sound. I want people to have success with the tone of their violins. If they don't have success with tone, well then I lose a customer. I need customers to come back to make this a business worth doing. The biggest impediment to my business has been the nebulousness of the rules to making great sounding violins. What I have tried to provide with this site is give people clear rules, answers and direction in violin making. Concentrate on wood and plate thicknesses. Release yourself from the confusion that has been created. Facts are not nebulous. Grab them and use them. Let others try to grab "facts" from the nebulous cloud of violin making wisdom. Most violin makers not at the top are barking up the wrong tree(s)! There is not another place on the web that I am aware of that says things as bluntly as I do. Few have had the courage. Most are caught in the loop.
I know that some of you reading this have a stock pile of wood. Go ahead and try the graduations on the wood you have. You will get excellent results if the wood is decent. But be sure to
not "leave it heavy at the sound post and around the f's". Go straight for those graduations, don't dink around tapping and leaving it slightly heavy. If anything, go slightly thinner in any area that is over 2.8mm, rather than thicker. If the map says 2.9, there is nothing wrong with 2.7. Great sound does not show up until you are all the way there!
I also want to comment on the randomness of great sound. After 260 violins, one of the conclusions I had was that not every violin has the capability to be extraordinary, but many do. Using the correct formula is still not going to give you blow your mind great tone each time.
The formula will give you great sound, and quite often the extraordinary sound we seek. The reason is that yes, the violin is very complicated. So complicated that minute variables will make a difference. Human hands make the violin. Variables can be controlled rather tightly, but there are still tiny differences. These tiny differences that are hardly measurable, or not measurable at all are the randomness of an individual violin. An example would be the thickness of the top plate having some small variation in thicknesses that work exactly right for that spruce top along with its other components. In other words, the map (the formula) got the violin maker really close to ideal thicknesses but the randomness and slight variation in the thicknesses were the perfect chance event to make extraordinary sound. From my sample size, I believe this is exactly what goes on. You have to give yourself the highest probability to get great sounding violins. There will be the occasional extraordinary sounding violin that has the sound that is everything you want. One of those violins that is "alive". Generation 7 I had at least one of these out of 6 violins, 3 others were extraordinary. Two others were great. With the right wood and the right thickness maps I gave myself a high probability to get extraordinary sound.
As for what maple to select for your violins, here is the
answer.
In 2007 or 2008, I sent one of the violin makers in Ann Arbor, Michigan an Aspen viola
back, along with some spruce tops. The aspen back was no charge, just for him
to try. We talked on the phone, he said thanks, but he could not put it to
use. I knew that Strad had used willow occasionally for violas, and aspen has a similar density and wood structure. Perhaps this top maker would like to try this nice piece of wood. In the conversation I asked why he would not consider trying it. I
indicated that it was cut and split the same way I do the spruce, from a perfect
splitting no twist log etc. It should have great acoustics. His confidence and
sureness in his methods was obviously the reason. As we talked, I asked him
about the specific gravities he liked for maple backs. We discussed Red Maple,
Bosnian and Euro maple in general. I had told him that the aspen back was about
.38 SG, and some Red Maple that I sell was typically .60 to .63. I asked him
straight up, what SG does he like for backs? He said about .55 SG. Of course
he was not going to try the aspen back. When you know the answer, why waste time? He does not need to experiment anymore. (By the
way, I made about 20 aspen backed violins and violas with great results. not
loud instruments, but "sweet" sounding. The tone was raved about by many of
their owners. I remember two customers with aspen backed violins bought a
second aspen backed violin from me.)
Here you have one of the best in the world, with a
straight answer. This discussion was several minutes, not just cursory, or an
approximation. I learned later that he at least once spent tens of thousands of dollars on a European violin wood buying trip. Hmmm. I keep saying, when you have the answer, you know what to do. I am sure the wood trip was mostly maple, and it sure as hell would have been in the kill zone of his desired density! You buy it when you can get it, when it is right! You know that when you are at the top of the profession, the other guys also at the top, with the answers, all want the same wood as you. It does not sit and wait for you to buy 3 violin backs at a time! As an aside, it has been my theory that the top tier and second tier violin makers in the world get the best density spruce from Europe say .34 to .40, and certainly the best density maple, .53 to .60. Order wood on a onesy twosy basis and then measure the SG. Most of it is way too high for spruce. Probably maple too.
So, what to do with that solid data? First, recognize that Euro
maple is sometimes in that density range, say .53 to .57, that is what smart
violin makers should buy. Sometimes European Maple is heavier but just try to buy the lighter weight stuff if you find it. You want the stuff in that SG range, any
continent, any species of maple. The other key is do not buy stuff with funky grain. Funky grain is unstable! Nice even, consistent figure is what you want.
There is nothing wrong acoustically with one piece plain sawn violin backs. Nothing. They look awesome, are stable if they do not have funky grain. Maple that is up to .65 SG can still be used effectively, so don't worry, you can use what you own right now. Just make sure that the next maple you buy is in the kill zone of SG at .53 to .6 SG. Much of the Red Maple in the USA is about at .63 SG. Would this pro in Ann Arbor use Rock Maple or Sugar Maple at an SG of .65? Hell no! You can do what you want. Follow a guy that figured out a major variable, and make it a constant. (Note: I have had good success with Red Maple plain sawn backs with NY, OH, PA origin in the .60 to .64 SG range. However, my violins are not at the level of the violins of the person I wrote about here.)
