A procedure for the characterization of a music instrument vibro-acoustic fingerprint: the case of a contemporary violin

Violins are wooden musical instruments, whose quality is mainly evaluated on the basis of their aesthetics, as well as depending on the historical relevance of their makers. However, their acoustic quality remains a key evaluation parameter for performers and listeners. The instrument perceived quality, in turn, depends on one side, on the player, the environmental conditions and on the listeners’ psychoacoustic factors. On the other side, the quality of a violin depends on its materials, constructive and set-up parameters, that impact on the vibro-acoustical characteristics of the instrument. This work investigates a procedure for the vibro-acoustic characterization of a violin, here called vibro-acoustic fingerprint, as an example of vibro-acoustical characterization of a wooden music instrument. The procedure was applied, as a case study, to an Italian contemporary violin, built on the basis of a Guarneri del Gesù model in the year 2011.