Learning from Martin Schleske

[Mustafa Umut Sa]

Martin Schleske is number one violin maker in the world. He uses most advanced technologies to make the closest copy of a multi million dollar Stradivari.
I frequently visit his site and read the papers. One of the paper is from Catgut Acoustic Society named as CAS TONAL COPIES.
You can find it at publications section.
One thing I learned from him is to divide the vibrations of the instrument in to a asymetric plan not symmetric.
If you vibrate a instrument , it creates vibration patterns. If you can see them by holography or more basic way free sand particles for bass notes , you see there are two or more interacting vibration zones on the instrument.
If you keep these zones + and - different phase zones equally , you get a dead instrument.
You must make one of the vibration phase faraway larger and stronger than the other phase. By this way you can create lots of volume from the instrument.
For to do that , stronger section made thinner , patterns follow the thinned section.
If you want to understand what is going on , I advise you to visit Scientific American articles on violin plates by Carleen Hutchins.
Every wood piece is different and must be treated with sinewave generator , loudspeaker and sand powder for bass notes.
If you want to experiment for higher notes , powder is not suitable for many interacted vibrations.
Lesson , bass patterns strongly influence the final quality and
very important lesson is to do this experiment to completed instrument and than carve from the outside.
I am not a engineer but all I understand practically is this.

Best ,

Mustafa Umut Sarac

Istanbul