experimental bridge designs
Posted: Sun Jan 10, 2016 4:44 pm
I've been reading a lot about mandolin's lately and found this today; http://www.murphymethod.com/index.cfm?e ... ntentId=87 which I found quite fascinating to browse through.
It's a quite involved blog on researching bridge designs for archtop mandolins, in particular F type, so I thought there might be some relevance to archtop guitar. I further researched violin and other violin family bridges, and the whole idea of sculpting the bridge to influence the travel of the vibration path seems well accepted, with most people using a design pioneered by Stradivarius, I think. So it seemed to me that this should have fairly direct relevance to archtop guitar, and wondered why it hasn't shown up on many instruments? I've just found a couple of instances of non-adjustable bridges. Everyone seems to use some variation on the two wheel adjustable bridge, or a ramp adjustable bridge, neither of which pay much attention to the way the vibration travels through the bridge. Benedetto devotes a paragraph to this but admits that the research hasn't been done. He says the one-piece violin style bridge is acoustically superior but almost never uses one on the guitars I've seen.
Any thoughts on this?
Brian
It's a quite involved blog on researching bridge designs for archtop mandolins, in particular F type, so I thought there might be some relevance to archtop guitar. I further researched violin and other violin family bridges, and the whole idea of sculpting the bridge to influence the travel of the vibration path seems well accepted, with most people using a design pioneered by Stradivarius, I think. So it seemed to me that this should have fairly direct relevance to archtop guitar, and wondered why it hasn't shown up on many instruments? I've just found a couple of instances of non-adjustable bridges. Everyone seems to use some variation on the two wheel adjustable bridge, or a ramp adjustable bridge, neither of which pay much attention to the way the vibration travels through the bridge. Benedetto devotes a paragraph to this but admits that the research hasn't been done. He says the one-piece violin style bridge is acoustically superior but almost never uses one on the guitars I've seen.
Any thoughts on this?
Brian