MEASUREMENT OF ACOUSTIC VIOLIN SPECTRA AND THEIR INTERPRETATION USINGA 3D REPRESENTATION

This paper describes a method to find a correlation between a violin's acoustic spectrum and its tonal qualities. Since the measurement of t he acoustic spectrum of a violin is quite critical, a sophisticated me asurement arrangement consisting of a dedicated exciter and an array o f eight microphones in a semianechoic chamber was developed. A great p roblem is still the recognition of the tonal qualities from the acoust ic spectrum. To ease the interpretation of acoustic violin spectra a n ew representation of the spectrum is presented using a 3-D picture. Ev ery fundamental tone of the playing range of the instrument is grouped together with its harmonics, which thus enables a much more direct co mparison with the acoustic impression when playing the instrument. Thi s 3-D representation gives a global picture of the acoustic qualities of an instrument and many discussions with musicians and violinmakers have shown that clear indications of the acoustical qualities of an in strument can be deduced. The arrangement described here is installed p ermanently at the Cremona Violin Making School, Corso Garibaldi 178, 2 6100 Cremona, Italy.