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Thread: Virzi Tone Producer

  1. #26
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    Default Re: Virzi Tone Producer

    Quote Originally Posted by Jeff Mando View Post
    Well, basically it is a baffle. Or more specifically, a tuned baffle. No reason to think it wouldn't work. Baffles are used in a similar way in audio speaker cabinets, pa cabinets/ bass guitar cabinets. etc. to tune, modify, delay, or direct the sound. The question to mandolin players, "is it a better sound?" (that is the real baffle!)
    If this has been an on going debate I think Jeff just settled it. It is a tuned baffle and that is sure to affect the sound. Does it help or hurt the sound. That depends on what you want in a mandolin.

  2. #27
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    Default Re: Virzi Tone Producer

    No different than do you like the sound of an oval hole or an ff hole mandolin, heavy pick, light pick. Comes down to personal preference.
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  3. #28
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    Default Re: Virzi Tone Producer

    While very different in makup than a more standard wooden bass, my Aloca bass now has a Virzi-like structure in it. Since my Alcoa has a trap door, I have had the opportunity to do some experimenting with this. Like the rest of the bass, it's an aluminum plate, having six beech feet bolted onto it, spaced particularly to coincide with the bridge feet and with the slope of the bass top. This mostly flat alunminum plate also has some strategic folds on it to provide sufficent strength allowing it to maintain its primary flat shape and in doing so to prevent rattling. Attached to the bass's top only by the pressure of the sound post, it vibrates freely with the top, spreading vibration through the whole instrument, and it does make a positive difference in tone and volume.

    Experimenting with the Virzi concept with a larger instrument than a mandolin or a violin, and with an instrument made with an extremely vibrant material, provides much less subtle and more recognizable results and is a pretty interesting test bed. My primarly reason for installing this was to spread the sound post pressure over a wider area of the top and in doing so to provide strength for a historical top repair, but the tone and volume results are significicant enough that I can't help but reflect on the Virzi's function in a mandolin...

    When someone says the word "baffle" in a sound related context, I cannot help but think of something that deadens a room. In a sound studio that is the function of baffles.

    I'm not seeing that with this Virzi-like structure in my bass. As I play this bass I can lterally reach inside and feel this plate structure vibrating freely with the top. And if I hold its edges tightly, my hand noticably mutes the instrument. I've carefully tested this with other people listening to make sure it isn't just my expectation-driven perception.

    Sooo, whle a wooden mandolin is a very different creature, I have to wonder if a Virzi in a mandolin is really less of a baffle, and more of a sound board extension. That is more characteristic of what I'm seeing with my bass.

    Edit: From talking with some bass luthiers I am aware that Gibson did make some mandobasses and harp guitars that included Virzi tone producers.

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    Last edited by dhergert; Mar-20-2018 at 2:36am.
    -- Don

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  5. #29

    Default Re: Virzi Tone Producer

    Quote Originally Posted by dhergert View Post
    Experimenting with the Virzi concept with a larger instrument than a mandolin or a violin, and with an instrument made with an extremely vibrant material, provides much less subtle and more recognizable results and is a pretty interesting test bed. My primarly reason for installing this was to spread the sound post pressure over a wider area of the top and in doing so to provide strength for a historical top repair, but the tone and volume results are significicant enough that I can't help but reflect on the Virzi's function in a mandolin.

    I'm not seeing that with this Virzi-like structure in my bass. As I play this bass I can lterally reach inside and feel this plate structure vibrating freely with the top. And if I hold its edges tightly, my hand noticably mutes the instrument. I've carefully tested this with other people listening to make sure it isn't just my expectation-driven perception.

    Sooo, whle a wooden mandolin is a very different creature, I have to wonder if a Virzi in a mandolin is really ...a sound board extension. That is more characteristic of what I'm seeing with my bass.
    I've been amused whenever it's asserted that the tone alteration with the Virzi works purely due to the added mass. It always struck me as identical to claiming that a heat radiator works purely due to its mass, like a heat sink, and that the increased surface area doesn't help radiate away the absorbed heat.

    The aluminum plate in @dhergert's bass just made the comparison more apt, and drove me to point out that "pure absorption" idea.
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  7. #30
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    Default Re: Virzi Tone Producer

    To be clear I think the baffle that Jeff was referring to was more like the baffle in a speaker cabinet. That amounts to just a hole that is shallow or deeper and varying in diameter to effect frequency response in an enclosed speaker cabinet. Unlike the foam put on walls to deaden a room this baffle is totally different.
    THE WORLD IS A BETTER PLACE JUST FOR YOUR SMILE!

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  9. #31
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    Default Re: Virzi Tone Producer

    A baffle redirects the sound or modifies it in some way. Like so many things to call a baffle bad is dependent on what you want to do with the sound. The baffles in a studio directs the sound to a dead end, designed to limit or stop reflective sound. That is good in a studio not in an instrument neither is bad just different.

  10. #32
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    Default Re: Virzi Tone Producer

    It seems that the point of a virzi is to enhance the tone, not simply make it different, which I guess is what a baffle does. If we just want a different tone, theres plenty of simple things that can be done to do just that. Say you want a little lower timbre? Tape some clear plastic tape across part of your soundhole. The more you tape off, the lower the timbre. Sometimes its enjoyable to completely tape off both soundholes. Try it.

  11. #33
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    Default Re: Virzi Tone Producer

    If you taped part of the sound hole it would change the sound. If the change is better is a matter of opinion, some would like it some wouldn't. Same with baffles.

  12. #34
    Registered User Darwin Gaston's Avatar
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    Default Re: Virzi Tone Producer

    I happen to find this website showing some nice photos of Virzi Tone Producer. It states if the Virzi Tone Producer is oval it was intended for a mandolin and a more tear dropped shape piece would have been intended for a guitar.

    The other thing I find interesting is that a real Virzi Tone Producer used by Gibson will have two stamps stating, 'Virzi Tone Producer U.S. and Foreign Pats'.

    http://www.gibson-prewar.com/virzi-t...er-lloyd-loar/
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  13. #35
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    Default Re: Virzi Tone Producer

    The Virzi device continues to be a topic of great interest and endless discussion and speculation. The 1920 patent has been mentioned before but I post it here for convenience.

    The remarkable thing is that tone improvement or modification is not included in the patent claims, even an increase is volume caused by the additional sounding board is not claimed. Are there any patent lawyers among us?

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  15. #36
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    Default Re: Virzi Tone Producer

    What patents claim and what the manufacturer advertises are often different. Obviously they had a no-nonsense patent application and they are patenting the design. Look at how the Orville Gibson patent started:

    Heretofore mandolins and like instruments have been constructed of too many separate parts bent or carved and glued or veneered and provided with internal braces, bridges, and splices to that extent that they have not possessed that degree of sensitive resonance and vibratory action necessary to produce the power and quality of tone and melody found in the use of the instrument below described.

    The object of this invention is to correct these objections and attain the results above set forth, and I have attained that degree of success with continued experiments and manufacture that every portion of the woody structure seems to be alive with emphatic sound at every touch of the instrument-a character and quality of sound entirely new to this class of musical instruments, and which cannot be impart-ed to others by a description in words.
    He went on to basically do what Virzi did and described a method of construction.
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  16. #37

    Default Re: Virzi Tone Producer

    Not a lawyer, but have been involved with these arcane documents. A patent, then and now, is only a potential basis for a lawsuit, and the only thing you need to demonstrate is originality, or novelty. Then, as now, it’s impossible to measure something like sound quality, so that’s useless in court.
    That said, amateur inventors can’t resist saying why their immensely valuable idea is better than ‘prior art’. The Patent Office researches similar patents to see if yours is novel enough, and may ask you to delete any areas where yours overlaps prior ones. Once you get into areas that are very technical, like drugs, for example, things get very complex and difficult for the USPTO.

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