Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Another noteworthy Vega instrument line was the cylinder-back mandolin family. This included mandolins, mandolas, mandocellos, and a small number of mandobasses and acoustic guitars. Vega also produced a line of brass instruments. [1] In 1909, Vega purchased the Standard Band Instrument Company of Boston incorporating their line of horns.
The cylinder-back is a style of mandolin manufactured by the Vega Company of Boston, MA between 1913 and roughly 1925. The design patent (US patent number D44838) for the instrument was issued on November 4, 1913 to David L. Day, who was director and chief acoustical engineer for the stringed instrument division of the Vega Company.
Octave mandolin construction is similar to the mandolin: The body may be constructed with a bowl-shaped back according to designs of the 18th century Vinaccia school, or with a flat (arched) back according to the designs of Gibson Guitar Corporation, popularized in the United States in the early 20th century.
Flatback mandolins use a thin sheet of wood with bracing for the back, as a guitar uses, rather than the bowl of the bowlback or the arched back of the carved mandolins. Like the bowlback, the flatback has a round sound hole. This has been sometimes modified to an elongated hole, called a D-hole.
The innovation was the use of a thinner, synthetic back, because of its foreseen acoustic properties. Unfortunately, the seam joining the sides to the thin back was prone to breakage. To avoid the problem of a structurally unstable seam, the engineers proposed a synthetic back with a parabolic shape. By mid-1966, according to Ovation, they ...
F-holes in instruments from the violin family, archtop mandolins and in archtop guitars; C-holes in viola da gambas and occasionally double-basses and guitars; Rosettes in lutes and sometimes harpsichords; D-holes in bowed lyras. Some instruments come in more than one style (mandolins may have F-holes, round or oval holes). A round or oval hole ...
[37] [39] The new wire strings required that he strengthen the mandolin's body, and he deepened the mandolin's bowl, giving the tonal quality more resonance. [37] He did not introduce the bent soundboard, as it was present in some of the instruments made by the previous generation for bronze strings.
Main page; Contents; Current events; Random article; About Wikipedia; Contact us; Pages for logged out editors learn more