Digital Violin


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The Violin is Dead
The Giant Tone Radio Violin
Long Live the Violin

GIANT-TONE RADIO VIOLIN by STARZL (1927)


A satisfactory definition of an electric violin is casually agreed to be largely determined by design and method of amplification. An electric violin is specially designed to use a pick up as an integral part of the instrument, the traditional hollow body often dispensed with. R.F.Starzl is acknowledged as a known maker of electric bowed stringed instruments and authoratively credited with being an inventor of the Giant-Tone Radio Violin. However, from the evidence published at the time of invention, in 1927, Starzl more accurately experimented with attaching a pickup to an acoustic violin and thus created an instrument both acoustic and electric. Although this method of electrifying the violin is certainly adopted today it does not strictly qualify as pure electric. Be that as it may, this is an invention appearing as a direct precursor to the electric violin and is one of the earlier examples of what successfully became the so-called semi-acoustic or electro-acoustic amongst other names (e.g. amplified) violins. The key point warranting inclusion here is that the device is described as capable of being directly mounted on the violin by drilling a hole. To some, this defacing or marring of a perfect instrument is the only certain path to electric violin.

The Giant Tone Radio Violin

from Radio News - April, 1927 (Vol.8 No.10)
Hugo Gernsback – Editor and Publisher (Experimenter Publishing Company, 230 Fifth Avenue, New York)

…And more recently it has been found possible to make the leading violin louder than an entire orchestra by attaching a small microphone to the violin itself and amplifying it to such a degree that the violin will over-shadow a 50-piece orchestra without difficulty...(Gernsback)


"Radio Gives a Small Violin Foghorn Volume" (by R.F.Starzl)

“A Dance orchestra leader, who also plays the violin, asked the writer recently if the violin music could be amplified electrically, so that it could be heard all over a large dance hall above the music of a piano and the loud wind instruments. He thought this would be a profitable novelty and would, as well, improve the quality of the dance music by making the director’s instrument dominate all the others. The first suggestion to present itself was to put a microphone on the orchestra stage, hooked up to an amplifier in the usual way, with a horn speaker for the output, but when this was tried out the resulting bedlam was terrible. The louder instruments monopolized the microphone and the sound feed-back, due to the proximity of the speaker and the echoes of the hall, produced a fiendish howl. Then it was decided to mount the microphone directly on the violin. The expensive studio microphone was returned to the local college from which it had been borrowed, and one of the small carbon buttons (which can be had for about a dollar) was purchased. At one end of this unit is a small screw for attachment to a microphone diaphragm. No diaphragm was used, however. Instead, a small brass screw was soldered to the reed where the diaphragm is supposed to go, and in this way the unit was mounted by means of a brass nut and small washer in one of the sound holes in the top of the violin. A more workmanlike job would be to drill a small hole, but in this case the owner did not want to deface his instrument; hence the makeshift. It will be seen that the microphone will respond to the vibrations of the violin only. The weight of the button, or rather, its inertia, provides the mechanical reactance for the vibrating reed to work against. The carbon button should be mounted as near the edge of the violin as possible. Up near the bridge the amplitude of the vibrations is so great as to cause distortion. For that matter, almost any part of the violin vibrates sufficiently to give good volume when the carbon button is fastened to it.

Building Up An Impedance
The microphone was connected in series with a six-volt storage battery (which also operates the amplifier-tube filaments), and with the primary of a transformer which matches the low impedance of the microphone to the high impedance of the first amplifier tube. Modulation transformers for this purpose can be bought; or a good one can be made out of an ordinary telephone coil, which may usually be had for nothing at the local telephone exchange. The primary of the coil is used “as is”. The secondary is brought up to the proper impedance by winding on about 2 or 3 ounces of No.36 D.S.C. enamelled wire. The outside end of the secondary (which is wound over the primary) is first uncovered and soldered to the end of the additional wire. The secondary is then covered with insulating tape or empire cloth, for considerable voltage difference will be developed between the two sections. It would be impossible for anyone not equipped with a winding machine to lay the turns on nice and straight; but for this purpose it is neither necessary nor desirable to do so. A kind of a “jumble-bank-wound” effect is secured instead by winding as shown in the drawings. This is very easy to do. It reduces distributed capacity and simplifies insulation, because the potential between adjacent turns is low, and the wires lie in a kind of honeycomb arrangement. This method of winding flattens the characteristic curve of the transformer, which improves tone quality. The homemade modulation transformer should be soaked in paraffin for insulation. The secondary of the transformer is connected to the first tube of a two-tube amplifier ...(the circuit of which is shown)... A 201A-type tube and a semi-power tube were found sufficient for all purposes. A standard “B” power unit supplied the plate voltage. A concert model loud-speaker unit was used in connection with a 6-foot collapsible horn built of light boards, which could be folded and packed on the running-board of a car. If extreme amplification is desired, the push-pull power amplifier circuit ...(shown)... can be used. Tubes V and V1 are the 201A-type, while V2 and V3 are semi-power tubes. Standard push-pull transformers are employed.

Enormous Amplification
The performance of this violin amplifier is phenomenal. The violin alone can be made to supply as much volume as an entire orchestra, yet its characteristic timbre is preserved. In combination with four or five other instruments it makes an orchestra that cannot be equalled for snap and power by orchestras using more than twice as many musicians. The great amplification causes the violin, which often carries the melody, to dominate all other instruments, and to be heard above the shuffle and murmur of the dance hall. Very probably the same method of amplification could be used on all stringed instruments."

::: ELECTRIC VIOLIN : MAKERS : VINTAGE :::
BAH

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