Electric Violin

The summer is over, and Gabi Weinreich, Joseph Curtin, John Bell, and I have Returned from our various summer hideaways to reconvene in Ann Arbor. Our early fall meetings have yielded some stimulating new ideas, and a clearer, more exciting vision of our digital violin’s form and function has crystallized. One development in particular shows tremendous research potential: a method to include active feedback, which will allow us to alter the instrument’s feel and playability on the fly. Implementing such a mechanism could produce many innovative practical applications as well as valuable research opportunities, and we are excited to explore these in the coming months.

Creating an electric violin capable of sounding like a high-quality acoustic instrument (e.g. Stradvarius, Guarneri del Gesu, or Amati) is a difficult task, one which has not yet been achieved on a marketable scale. Over the summer, John Bell has worked hard to program a proof of concept which will test our approach to synthesizing the sound of an acoustic violin. He is using an FPGA board to prototype and will design custom hardware once programming is finalized.

My efforts have been divided among several areas. While creating production-quality 3D models of certain essential areas of the violin, I have also worked to design more efficient bridges. Moreover, I have devoted substantial energy to the visualization and development of numerous design concepts for the digital violin. The recent evolution of the project has dramatically altered the technical requirements of the instrument, however, so most of these designs will need to be scrapped or greatly adapted. All in all, though, things are coming together well. I look forward to our continued progress on the project.

Above, left: the team (left to right: Joseph Curtin, John Bell, Alex Sobolev, Gabi Weinreich); right: the FPGA board.

Tags: Design • Electric Violin • FPGA Board • Gabi Weinreich • Industrial Design • John Bell • Joseph Curtin • Programming • Prototype • Violin