mf | solo Violin

About ten a year. One of them may be yours.

The mf | solo violin is not made to order, it is selected. Only about one body in twenty that leaves our workshop reaches the acoustic properties this line requires. Which one it will be, we do not know in advance.

If none is available right now, the wait is usually no longer than four weeks.

How we find them

Carbon has its own version of what violin makers call a golden sample in wood: bodies that stand out acoustically because of minute variations in fibre structure and resin distribution. We identify them early and move them into a line of their own. Three stages decide:

• Audiometric analysisFrequency spectrum, volume, overtone behaviour. Measured, not estimated.
• Four-ear principleTwo independent professional players test it blind. Both must agree, or the body stays in mf | core.
• Finish inspectionOnly when tone and surface are both flawless does it go on to finishing.

What happens in those four bars

What you notice at once are the reserves. The instrument does not saturate even under full bow pressure, and it opens a range of colour that meets solo demands. The projection carries effortlessly through large halls.

The response comes without resistance, in pianissimo as in fortissimo. Doing and feeling sit closer together than you are used to.

What it is made of

Carbon fiber is pure carbon, drawn into filaments seven thousandths of a millimetre across. A material that was reserved for aerospace for decades. We build violins from it.

The body is made by vacuum infusion, in one piece, with no glue seam. Then comes the part you look at every day: sanded, lacquered, sanded again, lacquered again, finally polished by hand. Two full lacquer cycles, each one checked separately.

That effort is the reason the pattern shifts instead of sitting flat. Under stage lighting your instrument looks different with every change, and people will ask you about it.

Alternatively the Orchestra Finish: a wood appearance to your specification, colour, flame, one-piece or two-piece back. For anyone who wants to blend visually into a string ensemble, and for anyone who simply prefers the look.

Specification

• Anima Nova carbon sound postA fitted sound post sits where it sits. This one adjusts in length inside the instrument, to within hundredths of a millimetre. You change the tension between top and back whenever you want.
• Milo Stamm Royal bridgeHand carved, from the hardest wood available. More overtones, more brilliance.
• Pirastro PerpetualPowerful, complex, with strong projection.
• Wittner fine tuning pegs with Swarovski crystalsThe visible mark of this line. You tune at the peg, precisely and without slipping.
• CITES-free composite fingerboardFeels like ebony, lasts considerably longer. And no protected wood to raise questions at a border.
• Grooves in the lower ribsSo your shoulder rest stays where you put it instead of sliding off in the middle of a movement.
• 5 year warranty on the bodyYour security. The actual service life is far longer. Carbon fiber does not fatigue, and nobody yet knows where the limit lies.

Optional: hybrid

The Cordasonus pickup is built in. No retrofitting, no glue, no box on the body. A proprietary treated crystal from a German ceramics technology company sits in the bridge and registers pressure changes there and nothing else.

Acoustically this changes nothing. Unplugged, the instrument sounds exactly like one without a pickup.

Amplified you get a natural tone without the hardness of conventional piezo systems, a frequency response from 10 Hz to 80 kHz and low feedback sensitivity. Connects through a 6.3 mm jack, no battery.

And one particular feature: the pickup rotates in the bridge. In 45 degree steps you change the tonal character, mid-performance, with no tools and no equalizer.

Available exclusively as a four-string instrument in the configuration described. Custom finishes are not available, because any additional treatment would alter the acoustic integrity of the selected body.