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Thread: Spring Reverbarator---1901

  1. #1
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    Default Spring Reverbarator---1901

    Have any builders added the spring resonator device featured in the home page of "On this date, November 5" Featured is the patent drawing submitted for patent in 1901. What opinions, knowledge, beliefs do you hold as to its efface?

    I am very curious if any of you have built a mando or violin with this feature?

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    Registered User Charles E.'s Avatar
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    Default Re: Spring Reverbarator---1901

    https://patents.google.com/patent/US685920

    This looks like a totally absurd invention. The mandolin already has the string tension putting stress on the instrument so I doubt it would be a good idea to add a metal spring to the head and tail blocks. And to what aim? I cannot imagine any positive "improvement" to the tone.
    Last edited by Charles E.; Nov-06-2022 at 3:18pm.
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    Default Re: Spring Reverbarator---1901

    I do not know if the intention was to increase tension--perhaps the spring was intended to have a sympathetic response to the strings?

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    Registered User Charles E.'s Avatar
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    Default Re: Spring Reverbarator---1901

    Again, to what aim? So what if it vibrated sympathetically with the strings? I think there is a good reason (I believe) that no one else beside the inventor ever incorporated into their mandolins or violins.
    Last edited by Charles E.; Nov-06-2022 at 6:45pm.
    Charley

    A bunch of stuff with four strings

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    Registered User Charles E.'s Avatar
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    Default Re: Spring Reverbarator---1901

    Pelone, to be fair, I do not believe that 99.9% of violin and mandolin builders today are even aware of the "string reverberator" that was patented in 1901. So of course they would not consider it.
    Charley

    A bunch of stuff with four strings

  6. #6

    Default Re: Spring Reverbarator---1901

    Quote Originally Posted by pelone View Post
    I do not know if the intention was to increase tension--perhaps the spring was intended to have a sympathetic response to the strings?
    The OP can read what was claimed in the patent.
    There are instruments with internal springs: the snare drum, the yueqin come to mind, but the purpose is completely different. There also was, for a while, an actual reverb made out of coil springs and appropriate transducers, but also different function.
    A coil spring, exactly like any of the playing strings, is going to resonate at just one frequency, and harmonics. But even then, it isn’t going to couple energy to the air or, as described to the most rigid parts where it’s attached, so the idea is pure, but not atypical, goofy.

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    Default Re: Spring Reverbarator---1901


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    Default Re: Spring Reverbarator---1901

    Speaking of springs, I often wondered if a truss rod with a tensioning spring would self adjust.

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    Default Re: Spring Reverbarator---1901

    Charles E......Wow...I seemed to have hit a nerve. The written description seemed to make many claims--I simply wondered if any builders had tried this device---if so, what outcomes? Are you disparaging all of them...to what do you owe your cynicism?

    I will be more cautious in future posts so as not to rile you up.

  11. #10

    Default Re: Spring Reverbarator---1901

    In the late 1960's, I remember several of the bluegrass guitarists in the St. Louis, MO community installing a spring between the neck & tail blocks of their instruments. The springs were of the type used to close screen doors. It was a short lived and presumably unsuccessful experiment.....

  12. #11
    Registered User Charles E.'s Avatar
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    Default Re: Spring Reverbarator---1901

    Quote Originally Posted by pelone View Post
    Charles E......Wow...I seemed to have hit a nerve. The written description seemed to make many claims--I simply wondered if any builders had tried this device---if so, what outcomes? Are you disparaging all of them...to what do you owe your cynicism?

    I will be more cautious in future posts so as not to rile you up.
    Pelone, it's all good, sorry I came off sounding so harsh. I spent most of my career as a luthier and violin repairman for a professional violin shop in NC. When I see an illustration of metal spring attached to the head and tail block of an instrument it makes me cringe.
    At the turn of the 20th century there was a lot of innovation in the music world, Orville Gibson was about to change the mandolin world forever with his carved mandolins and guitars for example. This "string reverberator" seems to predate the Virzi Brothers "tone producer" by two decades. If one were to look at the patent records concerning musical instruments from this time period you would find a number of designs for "improvement" concerning them. Some better than others.

    All the best.
    Charley

    A bunch of stuff with four strings

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  14. #12

    Default Re: Spring Reverbarator---1901

    Quote Originally Posted by Richard G View Post
    Speaking of springs, I often wondered if a truss rod with a tensioning spring would self adjust.
    Interesting idea. I guess you mean that as the strings, say, pulled harder to bow the neck, the rod becomes increasingly tensioned, if the neck starts to bend. What I think you’d get is some kind of balance between three “springs” - the strings, the elasticity of the neck, and the spring-mounted rod. This balance calibrated to keep the neck straight. Basically, considering the very large forces (hundreds of pounds) that a tensioned rod exerts against the hundreds of pounds it takes to bend the neck, versus the relatively small component of the string tension pulling up at the neck (something like the sine of the included angle times, say 200 lbs), it’s really a very unequal balance, if intended to compensate for, say string tension change.
    However, I think you actually describe how the rod does work, considering that it’s bedded in compressible wood and has some elasticity itself, so if the neck were to start warping upwards, the rod does pull harder to prevent that. That is, if you put a strain gauge under the rod nut, what it reads will change with time and temperature. To actually engineer this, we’d have to know something about the mechanical properties of the neck, which I think is individual to each, so the present arrangement is probably pretty good, as I understand these rods are very seldom adjusted.

  15. #13

    Default Re: Spring Reverbarator---1901

    Two things sprung to mind immediately.

    First, the discussions which spring up regularly on electric guitar forums on best ways to damp the "reverb" from installed spring tremolo units. Occasionally some people even explore ways to amplify/maximize it.

    Secondly, and predating all this, are the hardanger fiddle and the nyckelharpa, which came about in the 1600s. These instruments deliberately use sympathetic strings for a denser sound.

    Upon first glance at the drawing, it looked like a designer had thought about how to get a hardanger sound with a simple addition. That possible goal of the designer would be an obvious reason for adding such a thing even with just a moment's thought.

    However, given the wisdom of hindsight, we know at this point that an effective sympathtic reverberation system requires more support/reinforcement, like the physical systems built into sitars and nyckelharpa, or the pickups and amplifiers for spring reverb systems.

    With all the possibilities, advantages, compactness and power/volume of electronic devices like the Tonewood Amp and the EHX Ravish Sitar pedal, I can't see the advantages of a physical system at this point, but would happily read of anyone's experiments.
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    Martin Stillion mrmando's Avatar
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    Default Re: Spring Reverbarator---1901

    I put these in all my instruments. They are very useful in discouraging players of spoons, harmonicas, kazoos, triangles, and diddleybows from wanting to jam with me.
    Last edited by mrmando; Nov-07-2022 at 1:36pm.
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    Registered User TheMandoKit's Avatar
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    Default Re: Spring Reverbarator---1901

    Quote Originally Posted by Explorer View Post

    * * *

    With all the possibilities, advantages, compactness and power/volume of electronic devices like the Tonewood Amp and the EHX Ravish Sitar pedal, I can't see the advantages of a physical system at this point, but would happily read of anyone's experiments.

    Well, there's this: https://www.aspri.com/

    Not the same as the patented device, but it seems to use springs and provide some reverb. It is for guitar, and seems to couple to the bridge saddle rather than the neck/tail blocks, but....

    Never heard or seen one other than the website, but it's an interesting idea. Not sure I would use one, though. 🤷
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    Default Re: Spring Reverbarator---1901

    The words, wheel and re-invent spring to mind.

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    Mando-Accumulator Jim Garber's Avatar
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    Default Re: Spring Reverbarator---1901

    Joseph Bohmann installed a non-spring contraption in some of his mandolins and violins which consisted of four metal rods that would vibrate sympathetically. I think they were in the tail blocks. These all fall into the same category as double tops, Virzi tone producers and similar additions to alter the acoustics. Usually not worth the effort but I find them all interesting nonetheless.
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    Barn Cat Mandolins Bob Clark's Avatar
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    Default Re: Spring Reverbarator---1901

    Quote Originally Posted by Marty Jacobson View Post
    Thanks for this post, Marty. I can't say as I want one of these, but I'd love to play around with it for an afternoon.
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