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cellochris99 Registered User (9/20/00 3:26:55 am) Reply	Acoustics I've taken an interest beyond playing and into quality in construction,sound, types of wood, etc. pertaining to string instruments. I've noticed that there are standard models and that luthiers use to pattern their instruments after. What is it that makes one new cello worth $10K and another one worth $28k? What aspect of the construction allows a cello to have good projection? Is it all just trial and error? Chris Edited by: cellochris99 at: 9/20/00 3:26:55 am
TerryM Registered User (9/20/00 2:10:15 pm) Reply	Price does not always equate to quality If there were a simple answer to this question then it would be possible to mass produce great sounding instruments. Obviously, this is not the case. An expensive instrument may have most of its value tied up in who it was made by and the current market value for that maker than the real quality of sound that it produces. If one were to compare a contemporary Italian made instrument to any other make and both instruments had an equal quality of sound and projection, the Italian instrument would most probably command the higher price. Cremona made has a better aura about it than any other these days. There was a good article in "The Strad" a couple of months ago about this very thing. You might want to take a look at it. The quality of sound can be a very subjective thing, but there are many working in the area of physics and acoustics and instrument making that are trying to answer the question you have asked. Are you also aware of the work of the catgut acoustical society. Carleen Hutchins, the founder of that society, and colleagues have published many articles on the acoustical properties of instruments, woods, varnishes, etc. You can find them at: www.marymt.edu/~cas/ There are also several groups on the the Usnet that discuss these topics on a regular basis. Terry
Len Thompson Registered User (9/30/00 6:15:51 pm) Reply	Re: ACCOUSTIC QUALITY This is the most perplexing thing about the cello. I'm aware of many of the concerns in building a fine cello, yet I still find it absolutely perplexing. I'm convinced that the more money you throw at it (use a wheelbarrow) and the more praise you give it, the better it will sound!!!!!! Len
Andrew Victor Registered User (10/1/00 2:44:12 pm) Reply	Re: Acoustics I have a general hypothesis about these kinds of things, and I think it works here. It seems to work with violins, it seems to work with bows, it even works in business management. (This may not account for differences that are due to maker name only.) Roughly it goes that "the first 10% of [$, effort, etc.] buys the first 90% of intrinsic properties - etc." Following this "law of diminishing returns" each successively higher expenditure buys successively less additional improvement. This is a sort of logarithmic law, and if you apply it to cellos, setting a $10M cello as the hypothetically best you could do, then $3,200 cello would buy about half as much of what you were after. Sounds like an awful lot - but consider, if it were an airplane, it probably wouldn't fly! Using this scale, a $28,000 cello would sit at 63% and a $10,000 cello would be at about 57% - not much difference there. My new $3,200 Chinese would sit at about 50%, not so much below those. I have played cellos in the $10K-$15K, $20K. $35K region and remain happy with my own newest. There is nothing they can do that mine can't - they all fly. They have some different tone qualities that I'm not sure I prefer, but if I did, such a cello might be worth paying 10 times more for. I found I liked one of the $15K cellos as much as any of the higher priced ones - in every way - and more in some ways (lesser name though). Often the preferential differences are due largely to the way one plays. Sometimes they only appear to listeners. I spend one summer playing a friend's cello about 35 years ago, with a marvelous pedigree, and I certainly have never found its equal - in fact playing that cello, pretty much put me off cello for the next 35 years, because of relative weaknesses in in my own instruments. I'm back on now with my new cello (which is probably of no lower value than my older ones. Basic assumption in all this is that as a minimum, the cellos considered are reasonably playable for all kinds of music (and often the cellos hovering around the 40% mark ($1,000 and less) are not). When I first joined this board I submitted a post on buying a cello, and I still consider that a minimum test drive for such a purchase. It no longer seems to be accessible, but you can find the same basic thing at Maestronet a little down the following string: fingerboard.maestronet.co...00245.html Andy P.S. The bow you use (and how you use it) can make a big difference and so can the state of rosin deposition on the strings. Edited by: Andrew Victor at: 10/1/00 2:44:12 pm
cellochris99 Registered User (10/2/00 4:33:54 am) Reply	Re: Acoustics Very interesting. Maybe you could help me with another acoustic couriosty of mine. I know the basics of the wolftone mechanics, but there's this very subtle, but annoying thing that my cello also does. All of the notes on the A-string sound great, up and down the fingerboard, exept for one note- F# in 4th pos. Surely this pitch is too high to be a wolftone, but it sounds just like a wolf, just higher. It's rather subtle though, in fact I didn't even notice it when I first bought my new cello about 3 mos ago. Now it drives me crazy. The This one pitch also has less resonance than the surrounding pitches but is harsher in tone. Is this just a new cello "playing in" or a set-up problem.......? Thanks for any input. Chris
Andrew Victor Registered User (10/2/00 10:55:36 am) Reply	Re: Acoustics Is it coincidence that this F# (an octave lower) is also home to most cello walf tones? It does sound like it has some characteristics of a wolf tone. How is your F# 4th position on the G string? What kind of strings are you using? I would try the following. (1) A wolf eliminator on the C string afterlength. (2) Cleaning the rosin off the strings well after (and before - just to be sure) every playing session. (3) Use little rosin on the bow and only about every 4 playing hours or so. (4) Play with the right hand a little higher to change the angle of the bow on the string. (5) Play with a light bow touch to see if/how you can bow around this problem. (6) I assume you are playing with the edge of the bow hair (near you) and not with the hair flat on the strings --for most things. If you get a chance, try with some other bows. I believe some false notes are due to bow-stick resonances (or lack of them) that do not sufficiently damp the vibration of the hair and these feeds back to the string because the hair is moving counterproductively to the motion of the stick. I've noticed this more on cello and viola than on the violin--where the effect of some bows seems more to emphasize or deemphasize some region of the spectrum. If in doubt as to what bows to try, I have found that Arcus Concerto, Coda Classic, and Spiccato seem to not cause these aural problems. In pernambuco bows, those above about $3,000 should not have problems, although there are less expensive bows that will work out fine on most cellos (you just can't be sure until you try a specific bow). Andy
ruthann Registered User (10/2/00 2:53:36 pm) Reply	You can take the man out of China Lake... cello_suttonr@hotmail.com
Len Thompson Registered User (10/2/00 7:04:12 pm) Reply	Re:General Hypothesis! Andrew, I think your hypothesis is not far at all from the actual truth of the matter. Thanks for offering it up. There is so much hype surrounding individual brands and such, it's enough to put one off. I think sometimes a great cello is just a happy accident(not to cast a shadow on good luthiers),just as a perceived great cello will sometimes not sound as good as one costing thousands less! Len
cellochris99 Registered User (10/3/00 6:00:40 am) Reply	Re: Acoustics My wolftone on the g-string is actually an e-flat. My, the Cello is such a wonderfully complex instrument! About your general hypothesis on mentioned earlier about the law of "diminishing returns", I'm rather familiar with this principle and how it applies to high-end audio also; For instance,(all other components being equal) you can spend about $2,600 to get an amplifier that will give you about 90% transparancy from the source(hypothetically). I'm not sure of the exact ratio, but to get that last 10% of transparancy would put you around $60k! There are actually people that I've know that would spend $3,000 just on better speaker cables just to get a 1% improvement on their $20 system! Anyway, so what your saying is that it would take a $1million cello(hypothetically) to get a 90% perfect instrument? Chris
Andrew Victor Registered User (10/3/00 11:28:05 am) Reply	85% (if you believe my nonsense exactly) Fortunately, not all of us can tell the differences (or need to use them). Sort of the same thing as with the highest priced bows. Andy
Andrew Victor Registered User (10/3/00 11:30:04 am) Reply	Actually you can! Ruthann, This sort of thing went in before I ever moved to California. Andy
cellochris99 Registered User (10/4/00 2:39:50 am) Reply	Re: Thanks for the advice
matthias24 Registered User (10/4/00 10:55:45 pm) Reply	Re: Acoustics <"If you get a chance, try with some other bows. I believe some false notes are due to bow-stick resonances (or lack of them) that do not sufficiently damp the vibration of the hair and these feeds back to the string because the hair is moving counterproductively to the motion of the stick."> Very true. I heard some of the wierdest things from my cello while trying out bows. Given that my cello is a student instrument priced around $2000 (what percentage would that be? pretty low, im guessing) and the bows were all in the $300 range, but still, it was wierd. Among the wierdest sounds was a horribly loud rattle when I played an E on the C string (1st position). This only happened with one certain bow. Drove me nuts. Needless to say, I quickly returned the bow and went on to try different ones. ~ Aaron ~
cellochris99 Registered User (10/5/00 5:23:22 am) Reply	Re: Acoustics You know, something just dawned on me. I remember learning something about how human bones resonate to an F# above middle c. The exact same pitch and octave that's in question here! 'Could be the bow! after all. Just a thought. Oh, I also remember hearing from my band teacher years ago, that our bodies resonate to a fixed pitch as well. That pitch will differ from person to person. Chris