Factory Violins

December 5, 2016 at 03:09 PM · Yes, factory made violins are in fact hand made.

The methods used in the video are not the orthodox ones.

December 5, 2016 at 04:35 PM · Based on what I've researched, whether a violin is made by hand or not is not precisely the determining factor in the quality of sound achieved by the build. Its more likely achieved with hand made construction, but regardless of how its achieved, the wood has to feature the right combination of areas that resonate with different frequencies. The inherent nature of the wood would contribute to this, as would the thickness of the various sections of the front & back. I understand this is difficult to predict as some areas of the wood would contribute to resonation of a particular frequency, while other areas might have a cancelling effect at that same frequency.

So my question is... does anyone know the standards to which they calibrate at these factories, and how effective are they in achieving well balanced resonation of the various frequencies of sound?

Here's the specific part of the video I'm referring to:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0SvfNhMlnBE&t=3m2s

December 5, 2016 at 04:41 PM · Thank you for sharing that, David. What an amazing video, and mind-boggling, the amount of labor involved. I watched the full 15 minutes! When I think of "factory violin," I confess, I think of machines stamping a lot of it out. Not so, apparently. It occurs to me that it probably takes as much labor to make a VSO as it does to make quite a nice one.

December 5, 2016 at 05:07 PM · Here's the Japanese way of doing it. I work for a Japanese company, so all the data taking, etc is par for the course in both engineering and luthiery!

December 5, 2016 at 05:10 PM · Romanian:

German:

December 5, 2016 at 05:37 PM · Thanks for sharing the various videos. I was pretty interested in the German factory build as it looks very much like my own violin, which was done by a different German company. I had noticed some of the details on my violin and had wondered how they were achieved, so pretty neat to see them doing it in the video.

December 5, 2016 at 05:39 PM · There are some other interesting videos, too. One features the Vettori Family who work in Florence. They don't pretend to make "factory" violins ! And there's Edgar Russ.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTp46vARaJ8