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Comment by Retric | Hacker News Reader

We don't use high tech manufacturing because people assume violins should be made to look and sound like Stradivarius. That and it's also a tiny market.

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The technology suite available today makes a big difference even for a largely by-hand process. Things like temperature and humidity control, digital micrometers, strain gauges, magnifying imagery. And having reliable supply chains for reproducably formulated lacquers, varnishes, glues, etc. There is a ton of technology helping in the background even if it isn't front and center.

Most of which was available in 1950, and a surprising amount could be found in the 1800's. EX: For cooling, Spring house, cave, imported ice, or just location. The first thermometer dates back to ~1612.

High tech IMO imply's more. For example: http://www.industrial-lasers.com/articles/2008/03/ornamental...

I agree making things reproducible is a big deal, but that's mostly a question of cost not capability. 3d printing or computer control in general allows for beyond human levels of accuracy. Or even just computer modeling to find new and adventitious shapes.

While the technologies to do some of those things may have been available I wonder how many of those things the instrument makers of the time actually knew mattered, and to what extent did they understand it?

Temperature and humidity are very obvious and important if your doing woodworking so I would assume that quickly become common knowledge. But, it would be interesting to research it.

Though I think it's important to remember it was a high tech process for the time. At the time few things required that level of precision or complexity. And considering the size and physical effort involved few things have that kind of volume.

Yeah, but in the end, we are just replicating a 400 hundred years old process. The main difference this technological advances have produced is that the replication is reproducible and we can churn out Stradivarius like there is no tomorrow.

I wonder when the computer emulation will be so good as to be indistinguishable from the original. And I don't mean just a synthesiser, that's probably not going to be perfect ever, I mean a simulation of the friction of the strings, taking into account the propagation of the sound in the resonance chamber and its material proprieties, the characteristics of the array of speakers and the relative position of the listener.

Physics-based synthesis is an active research area, and will be for decades, I think. We are still pretty far from the mark.

Given that manufacturing and design also advance when computer technology advances, I suspect that the agglomerations of atoms will also get better, and better agglomerations of atoms will often be more economical than simulations of said atoms.

Relevant article by a violin maker who is interested in innovation: http://josephcurtinstudios.com/article/innovation-in-violinm...

"It must be remembered that the violin is a cultural icon as well as a working tool, and iconoclasts – those who smash of icons – cannot expect a warm welcome at the temple gates."

He won a MacArthur grant. More articles: http://josephcurtinstudios.com/article-category/innovation/

We don't use high tech manufacturing to make high-quality instruments because high tech manufacturing produces instruments that sound and play like they were made by machines.

So why is it that Carleen Hutchins managed to improve on violins and she actually filled in the gaps of the range they have.

http://www.sciencefriday.com/segments/building-better-violin...

This view that high tech produces instruments that sound an play like machines is highly reductionistic. If we understand how things work, we can improve it through that understanding.

That's not exactly what I've read from press on 660 Guitars:

https://www.facebook.com/660guitars/

Granted, I've not put one in my hands but I doubt it would have any catastrophic effect on my ability to play or get those thick toanz.

You're missing my point completely. I'm not talking about an aluminum guitar that's good enough to run through a triple rectifier and effects chain on stage and look cool for the crowd. You may consider these high-quality, but I don't. This isn't a bad thing, there's obviously a lot of benefit to having cheaper alternatives on the market. I myself have owned a mid-market Ibanez for almost 10 years now that I absolutely love, but I don't pretend it can stand next to Steve Vai's Flo. I've had the fortune to play a few high-quality instruments in my lifetime, the most notable being a silver-plated Selmer Mk 6 alto sax produced in 1953, if I remember correctly. Most probably wouldn't understand the differences between that and even the next horn off the line, but there is a difference. High-tech manufacturing techniques are designed for consistency, which entirely ignores the fact that no 2 instruments will sound the same. When you're talking about instruments of this caliber it becomes much more complicated than just 'better' or 'worse', because they each have their own unique characteristics. A good instrument maker is able to craft an instrument whose unique subtleties complement each other. A machine is not capable of doing this yet; when you buy an instrument made by a machine, you get an instrument that sounds like whatever the machine happened to spit out. It might sound good, but it's more likely going to be a mess. When we can build a machine with good taste, things might change.

And you're missing my point completely too. The nature of the production, to me, is nearly irrelevant to the finished product. You're putting arbitrary parameters on the discussion, which is fine for your own points to be made, but I simply don't share the purist angle that you're going for, which, I must say, kind of rambles and doesn't make a lot of sense, other than "I know the difference and most people don't" which is a fallacy I don't care to engage.

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