Phonograph Violin Project (Stroh Violin)
Posted: Sat Mar 21, 2015 12:57 pm
My "Stroh Violin" project was started several months ago. For years I have wanted to acquire an original Stroh Violin, but since the price for a good original exceeds $1,000, I couldn't rationalize purchasing one just for display. When I was young, I played violin but unfortunately did not continue with it, so I have remained obsessed for years. After starting my phonograph collection, I realized that this instrument was a close relative of early phonographs and was used in the acoustic recording process for early records and cylinders.
First a little background from Wikipedia:
Stroh violin, or Stroviols, is a trade name for a horn-violin (Romanian: Vioara cu goarnă), or violinophone—a violin that amplifies its sound through a metal resonator and metal horns rather than a wooden sound box as on a standard violin. The instrument is named after its designer, John Matthias Augustus Stroh, an electrical engineer in London, who patented it. On 4 May 1899.
Stroh violins are much louder than a standard wooden violin, and its directional projection of sound made it particularly useful in the early days of phonographic recording. Since regular violins recorded weakly with the old acoustic-mechanical recording method, Stroh violins were common in recording studios, but became rarer after record companies switched to the new electric microphone recording technology in the second half of the 1920s. The Stroh produces significantly more volume, and it has a surprisingly good tone, nearly comparable to that of a standard violin. On early records the violin can almost be recognized by its thin whining tone. The Stroh violin successfully replaced that limitation with a full, nearly accurate violin sound.
Now, on to my project. I started by collecting odd parts with an idea of someday building one. First, I found a generic reproducer that seemed to be the right proportions for my project. Next, I found a trumpet horn that had been cut down and used for a phonograph horn (I hated the idea of taking a perfectly good instrument and destroying it), so that was a start. I wondered about what type of wood to use, but the answer became apparent when I found an Edison DD console machine which had been gutted and discarded - 100 year old Edison mahogany. The next part was a little harder to find, but doing a search on eBay for broken violin brought up just the right candidate for recycling. I needed the original neck and scroll along with the other parts like tailpiece, adjustable tuners, etc.
I started drawing designs for the body of the violin and made a template of the approx shape I wanted... From there it was cutting pieces from the Edison cabinet and gluing them to make the correct size to cut on my band saw. Finally, I could see that it might actually come together in a logical way... Whenever I do projects from scratch, I am constantly thinking ahead to see what might foul me up at a later point. So, I started by cutting and shaping the body, then trying to determine the best way to install the reproducer and connect the horn to the whole thing, while keeping in mind the correct angle necessary to align the donor violin neck to make the strings align properly with the bridge. The other problem was figuring out how to actually attach the bridge to the reproducer, allowing enough movement to avoid dampening the vibrations from the strings to the reproducer, while maximizing the the vibrations to the needle bar...
Anyway, here is my progress so far...
First a little background from Wikipedia:
Stroh violin, or Stroviols, is a trade name for a horn-violin (Romanian: Vioara cu goarnă), or violinophone—a violin that amplifies its sound through a metal resonator and metal horns rather than a wooden sound box as on a standard violin. The instrument is named after its designer, John Matthias Augustus Stroh, an electrical engineer in London, who patented it. On 4 May 1899.
Stroh violins are much louder than a standard wooden violin, and its directional projection of sound made it particularly useful in the early days of phonographic recording. Since regular violins recorded weakly with the old acoustic-mechanical recording method, Stroh violins were common in recording studios, but became rarer after record companies switched to the new electric microphone recording technology in the second half of the 1920s. The Stroh produces significantly more volume, and it has a surprisingly good tone, nearly comparable to that of a standard violin. On early records the violin can almost be recognized by its thin whining tone. The Stroh violin successfully replaced that limitation with a full, nearly accurate violin sound.
Now, on to my project. I started by collecting odd parts with an idea of someday building one. First, I found a generic reproducer that seemed to be the right proportions for my project. Next, I found a trumpet horn that had been cut down and used for a phonograph horn (I hated the idea of taking a perfectly good instrument and destroying it), so that was a start. I wondered about what type of wood to use, but the answer became apparent when I found an Edison DD console machine which had been gutted and discarded - 100 year old Edison mahogany. The next part was a little harder to find, but doing a search on eBay for broken violin brought up just the right candidate for recycling. I needed the original neck and scroll along with the other parts like tailpiece, adjustable tuners, etc.
I started drawing designs for the body of the violin and made a template of the approx shape I wanted... From there it was cutting pieces from the Edison cabinet and gluing them to make the correct size to cut on my band saw. Finally, I could see that it might actually come together in a logical way... Whenever I do projects from scratch, I am constantly thinking ahead to see what might foul me up at a later point. So, I started by cutting and shaping the body, then trying to determine the best way to install the reproducer and connect the horn to the whole thing, while keeping in mind the correct angle necessary to align the donor violin neck to make the strings align properly with the bridge. The other problem was figuring out how to actually attach the bridge to the reproducer, allowing enough movement to avoid dampening the vibrations from the strings to the reproducer, while maximizing the the vibrations to the needle bar...
Anyway, here is my progress so far...
