We had the opportunity and the pleasure to involve this year again a team of teachers-researchers and two students in the project with our instruments.

While the first works of François Gautier and his students in Le Mans were focused on the “Bridge – bascule bridge – membrane” system, Jean-Christophe Valière and his students of ENSIP were working on the transfer function of the Stroh instruments’ horns. A digital modelling has been realised to compare the theoretical principle and the measurements. The results were very similar!

This work also enables to compare the versions 1 and 2 of the “resonator – horn” system of the Stroh-bass. We could hear the result was audible to the human ears, but we have now a benchmark in anechoic chamber: the intensity level gain of the second version of the Stroh-bass is from 5 to 7 dB in the playing frequencies and a significant increase of nearly one octave in low frequency.

A big hand for Laurent Cadilhac, Robert Kieffer and Christophe Boutin for their work on this new Stroh-bass version,
and many thanks to all the PPrime Laboratory and ENSIP team members and students that took part to this project.

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Here is a look at this installation/meeting/performance about the story of sound recording.

It gives you an idea of how we want to share this Stroh Project with multiple dimension with the public (here with the public of the media library of Poitiers and of the “Expressifs” Festival)

It was with obvious emotion that we discovered the Charles Cros collection. This collection is focused on sound recording and its first range of machines.

As soon as you enter the collection’s exposition room (17^th floor of one of the 4 big tours of the BNF), you are welcomed by numerous horns of many different sizes, shapes and colours. And guess what was placed in the middle, in a display cabinet: a Horn-violin!

We asked Xavier Loyant, curator of the collection, about the probability that this violin is a Stroh-violin or a Tiebel-violin (same type of instrument of the same period).
He explained that after our request for a visit, he carried out some research and noticed that the BNF owns many instruments of this type: another Stroh-violin – which looks like the Stroh instruments of the Musée de la Musique – and a phono-fiddle which certainly predated the Stoh patent.

In the end, we both left the meeting totally delighted. For me because I found another place in Paris where the Stroh Project could have a particular relevance (from a scientific and historical perspective). For Xavier Loyant because he (re-)discovered a beautiful phono-fiddle!

Our talks will undoubtedly continue in the next months.

Here are some pictures taken during this meeting and the link to an article of the IRMA (Information and resource centre for contemporary music) that enabled us to discover the collection

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