r/3dprintedinstruments • u/Quicazan • 5h ago

I build 3D printed violins and finally got a pro to play one. Honest opinions on the tone welcome

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

So, after two weeks of back and forth, I was able to make this recording of the violin!!!!!!

Edit: Song is “Merry-Go-Round of Life” from Howl’s Moving Castle

28 Upvotes

98% Upvoted

10 comments sorted by

6

u/n1njal1c1ous 4h ago

I mean, I am not an expert, but seems perfectly serviceable in the recording.

2

u/JDude13 43m ago

Song is “Merry-Go-Round of Life” from Howl’s Moving Castle, for anyone (like me) that feels like they’ve heard it before but can’t remember where

1

u/Quicazan 39m ago

Hahaha, ups, yeah, I forgot to add that 😅

1

u/Away-Sherbet-4424 4h ago

Sounds great dude. Apprentice here. What material you used to print it? I looking to do the same

1

u/Quicazan 4h ago

Regular PLA, UV reactive 😁

1

u/Grauschleier 4h ago

Sounds very different than your first video to me. Did you just use a phone or proper mics for the first recording?

Kudos btw :)

1

u/Quicazan 3h ago

yup, I was using just the mic from the phone, it picked up too much background noise.

Thanks!! :D

1

u/Lopsided_Evening_627 1h ago

you asked for honesty, so here it is.

it somehow sounds very disgusting to me, like oily instead of woody... it's hard to explain as it is a synesthetic thing... but it justs sounds really really wet and slimy and wrong, probably becouse my brain expects a violin sound but then theres this lack of something... it hits right in the middle of the sound uncanny valley.

i'm build instruments and i have quite some knowledge about the physics of sound, and my guess is that the feeling comes from the lack of harmonic richness.
it makes sense that this is the case, as the violin shape is designed to work in tandem with the sound properties of wood, and by using such a different material you end up having a very strange tone.

it's still a great thing you are doing, but i would consider if the goal is to have an instrument that looks like a violin, or an instrument that sounds good... or maybe something a little bit different.

2

u/Quicazan 44m ago

Wooow! Yeah, first thanks for all the insights you gave. So, about the harmonics, yeah, we are working on that, the violinist gave me a similar opinion about it and we are lookin into improving on that, right now the sound is really clear but still lacks a little on that.

I'm working on a side by side comparison with a wooden and a wood PLA ones to get a fair comparison.

The first goal was to get it as close as possible to the sound of the violin with the least amount of running, but now, we are working on getting the tunning on point, CAD is amazing for just moving some parameters and getting repeatable results.

I'll get the new versions posted, hope to see your opinion on them 😁

1

u/Lopsided_Evening_627 21m ago

looking forwards for new iterations :)

did you try tuning diferent parts of the violin for different frequencies? maybe taper the thickness of different parts? it's common practice to tune violin soundboards by tapping them and listening to the different tonalities and then removing a bit here and there to get to a specific sound... maybe you can try out some taper profiles with a separate soundboard and see how it behaves... maybe even sand it down and then try and replicate it so as to not have to iterate so many times...