An open source 3D printable acoustic violin

[cperciva]

From the FAQ: You may use the hovalin for commercial purposes if you agree to send 10% of your gross revenue from use of the design to HOVA LLC every six months.

It may be open source, but it's not open source as I've ever encountered it before.

(Also, I don't think I've ever heard someone claim that copyright law allows them to demand royalties on the use of a musical instrument. Is a musical performance a derivative work of the instrument design?)

[naz]

I think that's referring revenue from printing and selling your own copies of the completed violin, rather than from musical performance.

[jononor]

Requested them to release the sources, not just the .STL.

Releasing just .STLs is more akin to freeware than open source, as the sources are the project files uses to produce the .STL (which is similar to a compiled binary).

[marcosscriven]

I couldn't find the source - only the .stl files

There's a repo on GitHub, but it looks old https://github.com/matthova/hovalin

[leni536]

I can't help it: https://www.xkcd.com/743/

[ant6n]

Golden, especially with the .stl discussion in this thread.

[netcan]

That's one of the most unbelievable XKCD references ever.

[jeremiecoullon]

I went on the comment section purely to see if someone had posted this. Nice one.

[AlphaWeaver]

You beat me to it...

[yummybear]

Is it just me or does it not sound very good? Kind of tinny and not clear and bright? It might just be me.

Nice technical achievement though.

[TheOtherHobbes]

It's not just you. No orchestral professional is going to want this over a wooden instrument. And given that, the pricing is just silly.

It's a good example of bad (naive) modelling. There's a lot more to making a violin (guitar/lute/anything...) than cutting out parts with the right shape and hammering them together.

Choice of wood, glue/joint mechanics, and thickness/composition of the varnish are at least as important.

[louhike]

I suspect it is hard to achieve the acoustics of an instrument traditionnaly made of wood with plastic.

Thinking of it, I don't remember hearing an instrument made out of plastic which sounded nice even though I'm a musician. I'm not saying it cannot be done, it is just not common for now.

[catshirt]

cmon now

edit: now that i see the price... yeah you could say it sounds a little tinny

[mentos]

To me the idea of printing my own violin would be to get a cheap yet decently functional Violin. The price point of $70 is 2x what it needs to be in my opinion. Going on ebay there are entry level violins for $40.

Would be cool to see an open source piano

[apendleton]

The fingerboard looks much shorter than on a standard violin. Maybe the materials can't support being cantilevered out over the body like a regular wooden fingerboard? If so, bummer... seems like it would have a pretty adverse effect on range, fingering options, etc.

[mattsouth]

Is it just that the head is smaller than a typical wooden violin (no scroll etc)?

[eric-hu]

Pretty cool achievement. The prices ($300, $450, $600) for the different kinds of kits make this seem like a poor investment if one is just looking for a violin.