Adventurous Muse

Photos of the Mountaineer Backpacker Fiddle by Don Rickert Design

Here is a whimsical and kind of scary picture of our new tiny backpacker fiddle with a huge sound (anticipate a YouTube video soon. Click on the image for a larger view.

This photo shows an optional chin rest installed.Additional photos can be seen at our Picassa photo album site. The fiddle is currently available as a kit (as in the kind you complete yourself) at the Adventurous Muse Store in order to keep the price nice and attractive. There are a number of options available to "trick out" this cool little (but full 4/4 length) fiddle.

NEW Rickert Mountaineer Backpacker Fiddle in Development

As mentioned in a recent post on the Don Rickert Design and the Don Rickert Design Blog, we are going to be dumping unfruitful musical products and will definitely continue with musical instruments of our own design.

In addition to our successful current lineup of Octave Violins, historic pochettes and modern travel violins sold via Adventurous Muse, and the new Overtone Fiddle synthesizer project, we have a new Octave Fiddle on the drawing board as well as a really skinny (but full 4/4 length) travel fiddle that is extremely durable for the most punishing environments. We have some concept sketches of the new travel fiddle, which we are currently calling the Rickert Mountaineer Backpacker Fiddle, shown with an optional Wolf center-mount chin rest installed. The instrument is 2" wide and standard 4/4 length. It is intended to be played with a full-size bow. As usual, you can expand the images by clicking on them.

One can see the the Mountaineer Backpacker Fiddle is definitely an outgrowth of the design work on the Overtone Fiddle.

The following photo shows an actual Wolf Special center-mount chin rest on a regular violin.

The Rickert Mountaineer Backpacker Fiddle is designed to be fit with a center-mount version of the StoweMaster shoulder rest with the attachment hardware permanently mounted to the instrument rather than being held in place with the chin rest (impossible with the Wolf Special chin rest anyway). Some photos of a standard side-mount StoweMaster on a regular violin are shown below. We will have some photos of the special StoweMaster on an actual Mountaineer Backpacker Fiddle pretty soon.

Will the Rickert Mountaineer Backpacker Fiddle sound as good as the Adventurer IIb or IIc?

No--not even close; however the target sell price is not much more than the other cheap travel fiddles on the market.

Active Acoustics Collaboration Pochette Update

We have already mentioned in prior posts that Don Rickert Design is doing much of the ergonomics/instrument acoustics/lutherie part of a collaboration with Dr. Dan Overholt's and colleagues' Active Acoustics (a new kind of NON-MIDI synth technology) Project at Aalborg University (Copenhagen). As mentioned earlier, you will have to wait until the scholarly papers start being cranked out Q2 2010 to find out the details on the signal processing/synthesis part.

It is probable that a commercial embodiment of this instrument will be available through Adventurous Muse in the future.

Custom Pochette for Active Acoustics Experimental Work:

The instrument pictured below is being built specifically for the “Active Acoustics” project in collaboration with Dr. Dan Overholt of Aalborg University in Copenhagen Denmark. The instrument is essentially a pochette with a standard violin length and a 2” external width. The internal cavity is 1.75” wide in order to accommodate a specific processor board. The overhanging top and back, in addition to adding to the vibrating surface, and thus, sonority, of the instrument, also provide mounting surfaces for external components such as batteries, preamps, and so forth. The extra width provided by the overhanging top and back serve playing ergonomics and aesthetic goals as well.

Click on the image for a larger view.

The observant and knowledgeable reader will notice the tribute to the late Dr. Carleen Hutchins in the peg head box design.

Neil Gow Pochette and our New Leather Case

This Neil Gow Pochette (Dancing Master Kit or Pocket Fiddle) and our new period leather case by Don Rickert Design, similar to the one that Thomas Jefferson used for his pochette is off to a customer in Japan. The fiddle and the case are both available at the Adventurous Muse Online Store.

Best Instrument We Have Made and it is a Backpacker Violin (revision)

Just did initial playing of tweaked design of the Don Rickert Design Adventurer II Travel Violin and astounded even Dr. Don Rickert, the designer and luthier on the project. The new instrument is being called the Adventurer IIb for now. We'll get some video ASAP! This is no bull...go to the Adventurous Muse online store now, because only two people are going to be getting these for free, assuming that they buy over $1500 worth of stuff. Suggested purchase scenario: Buy a new Adventurer IIb and a bow and, there you have it, you can get a second one for free.

What happended was a customer who had purchased a Travel Master Pochette was not satisfied with the sonic power of that instrument and asked us to do better or give a refund. Well, we knew that the Adventurer II would be more satisfying to our customer, but we decided to ensure that this would be the case by tweaking the design. No, we are not going to tell you how we did it...we are in communication with our Registerd Patent Agent. This instrument is louder and more full-bodied than ANY standard violin or fiddle in our studio, and we've got some good ones! We will be taking initial digital metrics later today.

How does this relate to the FREE Adventurer II Offer?:

Simple, only the next two purchases of greater than $1,500 get this instrument. Everyone else gets the older design or will have to buy one. We could end the free offer any minute anyway, but we will keep it going long enough for two non-sissie musicians to take advantage of getting the new Adventurer IIb.

Adventurous Muse Now has a www.Amazon.com Storefront

Twitter followers Note: Had to change the title of this and re-submit to get the Twitter short URL to work.

We were invited by the Musical Instruments group at Amazon.com to be a primary seller of high-end violins and fiddles. We have some items at www.Amazon.com  that we don't currently sell at http://www.adventurousmusestore.com/. Some of these instruments are WAY beyond the empirically observed spending limits of http://www.adventurousmusestore.com/ customers...purchasing behavior is VERY concretely measurable.

Here's what we are selling at www.Amazon.com:

Instruments that ARE available NOW from www.AdventurousMuseStore.com(and have new names at www.Amazon.com)are:

The Neil Gow Pochette $1399 w/ case (Amazon link: Pochette 18th C. (Aka Pocket Violin, Kit Fiddle, Travel Violin) )

The Cradle of Harmony Octave Violin $2600 w/ case (Amazon link: Baritone Violin, W. S. Mount Model )

Maggini Violin by Don Rickert Design $2410 w/ case (Amazon link: Maggini Violin)

Octave Violin Type II $2600 w/ case (Amazon link: Baritone Violin, Darci Jones Model)

High-End Christian Benker Violin $1585 w/ casw (Amazon link: Christian Benker Professional Model Violin)

Instrument that will be available in the next few days from www.AdventurousMuseStore.com:

Fiddarci Lutherie Professional Model Fiddle $2250 w/ case (Amazon link: Fiddarci Lutherie Professional Model Fiddle, USA)

Instruments ONLY available at our www.Amazon.com store for the time being:

Violin, Stradivarius Model 1718, by E.H. Roth, Germany $4160 w/ case

Georges Michel Model Violin, France $4790 w/ case

Joseph Guarnerius del Gesu 1736 Violin $5350 w/ high-end Bobelock case

We will have photos of all of these instruments in some posts tomorrow, but it is getting late and it has been a long day!