The Adventurer Travel Violin project represents a radical departure from earlier Rickert & Ringholz
travel violins, which were essentially improvements, ergonomically as well as acoustically, of instruments that were invented a long time ago. A photo of a "Box Violin" in the Albert & Victoria Museum sent by Don Rickert's Australian colleague and fiddling thought leader "down under", Dr. Jerry Everard inspired the undeniable box shape, which allowed for more air inside (more air is one of the variables important for achieving big sound). The Adventurer Travel Violin design study, photos of which are shown below, in addition to utilizing a box shape, also shows a definite departure from traditonal sound holes and use of porting in the quest for power and volume (yes, we know that the sound holes look like a smiling face!). This instrument also had a new experimental system for attaching a standard shoulder rest.
This instrument sounded very promising; however, the shoulder rest adaptors were a bit much for users to deal with...attaching the carbon fiber rods, and so forth...but it was the beginning of what has become one of Rickert & Ringholz's most popular instruments and the revolutionary Adventurer II, which will be introduced in several months.
A YouTube video of an unfinished version of this instrument (utilizing a different shoulder rest adaptor concept) reveals that we were on our way to achieving BIG sound from a little instrument that fits into a 4" diameter tube (with the full-size bow tucked underneath).
Click on any of the thumbnail images below for a full-size view.
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