Viotar/Proof of concept

Realisation and Proof of concept William Schattevoet David Duwaer Eric Backx Arjan de Visser Subpages: Main page Working principle of the violin and predicting it’s behavior Ways to exite the string Hardware Design Software Design (Quantifying the signal we want to see) Realisation and Proof of concept Patent Research Background information: Interview with Hendrick Zick Recommendations Welcome After al the designing was done the actual Viotar was assembled. All the part were ordered and put together. The results are viewed on this page. Motivation During the last century electronic instruments became immensely popular, the electronical guitar as an excellent example. Electronic bowing instrument on the other hand never really became popular. This leads to the questions, why didn’t the electronic bowing instrument become as popular as the electronical guitar? There are several reasons that can explain this phenomenon. The existing electronical bowing instruments are modeled the same way as the traditional acoustic bowing instrument. Therefore these instruments also have the same shortcomings and difficulties the traditional acoustic bowing instruments have. These shortcomings are: Very difficult to play (a wrong combination of bowing speed and bowing force results in a scratching sound). The traditional acoustic bowing instrument have a very limited sound range. It’s impossible to play chords, at most 2 strings at the same time. The traditional acoustic bowing instrument don’t have the good ergonomics guitars have. These points motivated us to make an electronical bowing instrument that doesn’t have these shortcomings. This means that we want to make an instrument which can play chords. Or, to be more specific, an instrument on which more than 2 strings can be excited at the same time. Therefore it is not possible to use a bow anymore, because with a bow it’s only possible to excite 1 ore all strings. Because of this the ergonomics of the traditional acoustic bowing instrument can be changed into something more hand able. With the new instrument exciting the string with the right combination of bow force and bow speed is not longer the responsibility of the player. The Viotar has to make sure that the right combination of bow force and bow speed is used. These demands imply that some kind of mechanical bowing device has to be used to excite the strings. This device has to be able to bow all combinations of strings and do that with the right combination of bow force and bow speed. These demands also made us decide that a electronical guitar would be a good instrument for a prototype.