Tone-Rite in last Sunday NY Times

[EdHanrahan]

April 4, 2010
Using an Electronic Device to Break in a New Violin
By KEVIN DELANEY

No one knows how the violins of Antonio Stradivari sounded when they first left his workbench in Cremona, Italy, hundreds of years ago. But those fabled instruments probably did not reach their full potential until they were played. And played. And then played some more.

Musicians have long known that the more a stringed instrument is used, the more responsive and resonant it becomes. But for those who cannot afford a vintage violin, cello or guitar and who lack the patience to wait years for the tone of a new one to develop, there is an electronic humming device.

The ToneRite slips over the strings of an idle instrument and begins emitting subsonic noise that is intended to mimic the physics of actual music making. The result, the maker claims, is a greatly accelerated breaking-in period.

“You can’t take a cheap plywood guitar and turn it into a vintage Martin,” said Ryan Frankel, chief executive of ToneRite of Gainesville, Fla. “But the fullness and the warmth of a good instrument will really come alive.”

While there is no scientific study to back up its claims, a number of musicians think the device works. John Sherba, a Grammy-winning violinist with the Kronos Quartet, said that the results were subtle but noticeable especially on a newer instrument.

“I found the fiddle just rang more,” he said.

ToneRite was started in 2007 by Agapitus Lye, known as Augi, a musician and electrical engineer who had been working on systems for unmanned intelligence drones at Prioria Robotics in Gainesville, when he bought a new cello. Too busy to break it in himself, he remembered a newspaper article about a museum in Italy that paid musicians to keep its priceless instruments in shape. Inspired, he began to tinker.

The rudimentary device he put together improved the instrument’s tone enough after a month that the cello’s maker, or luthier, encouraged Mr. Lye to patent and market it.

With the help of Mr. Frankel and Hans Yeakel, guitarists and engineers who also worked at Prioria, Mr. Lye has been refining his invention ever since. The three men work out of an office in downtown Gainesville that Mr. Lye calls “typical of small start-ups — coffee cups everywhere, late nights, jury-rigged stuff.”

They have sold thousands of the vibrating gadgets that fit violins, violas, cellos, double basses, guitars and mandolins. Prices range from $186 to $311.

They plan to release the third generation of the ToneRite with redesigned “feet” to better transfer the vibrations.

Any fine stringed instrument is built of precisely calibrated and meticulously joined wooden parts, all of which must “learn” to vibrate sympathetically. Mr. Frankel said he and his colleagues had experimented to pinpoint the frequencies to speed that process and how best to transfer them to the instrument.

Musicians continue to debate the effectiveness of the device. Paul Helou, a guitarist in Sea Cliff, N.Y., remained somewhat skeptical after a weeklong treatment. “It was only a slight difference, to my ears,” he said.

But Jeffrey Zeigler, a cellist with the Kronos Quartet, thinks it simulates heavy playing. “Unfortunately, it doesn’t simulate practice,” he said. “You still have to do that yourself.”
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NY Times, 4/04/10

[MikeEdgerton]

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