http://www.npr.org/sections/deceptivecadence/2015/05/02/403273608/3-d-printers-bring-historic-instruments-back-to-the-future

Which reminds me that I've been meaning to ask :
Anybody here spring for a 3D printer yet?

Plenty of experiments show musicians aren't objective listeners.

I've currently got a number of plastic instruments - recorders, flute and clarinet - and I've been threatening to get one of those plastic trumpets as well. None of them are 3D printed, but I think they show that plastic is a viable material.

I think the folk mentioned in the article are the same ones made a cornett/zink as well. From comments elsewhere it appears they also rely on CNC in addition to 3D printing.

I've always wanted to have a baroque oboe, but it's been beyond my price range (and probably skill level, but still). I suspect that one could be created from a 3D printer, but this guy printed a musette and got mixed results - the main issue being the roughness of the airway.

I don't know if using a DLP (digital light printer/direct light processing) would offer better results, but I've certainly been watching the 3D printer scene with this in mind.

OK Pat,

If I do spring for one, can I copy that old Stradivarius you been keeping under your bed?

Later,

One way to get around the investment cost of a 3D printer or CNC machine is to join a fabrication club or hacker space.

Pat, ++ HERE ++ is a link to the Winston-Salem hackerspace webpages.

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THIS!

I'm a trombone player and a member of the trombone forum.

When the pBone (a plastic trombone) first came out there was a lot of interest and two opposing views soon became very obvious.

Predictable there were the lovers and the haters.

The lovers could see the potential for a practically indestructable trombone ('bone slides are SO fragile), that weighs next to nothing yet still sounds very good from in front I.E. what the audience can hear.

The haters mostly would not even bother to consider them worth trying, let alone allowing that they might even sound acceptable.

The reality is not that simple:
1) From an audience perspective, it is pretty well impossible to hear any difference, as shown by blind recordings. The sound is mostly determined by a) the players natural sound and b) the SHAPE of the air column - particularly the bell flare.

2) From the players perspective it is more complicated. Most of what a trombone player hears is NOT what's coming out of the bell of the instrument, but what radiates from the BACK of the bell and the tubing near the players left ear. This makes the MATERIAL the instrument is made from critical to the player, BUT NOT THE AUDIENCE. Anything that changes the way the bell vibrates changes what the player hears.

OK, so which side is right - I reckon BOTH are, but from different points of view.

One thing is certain, some players quickly get comfortable with the change in aural feedback and some don't, but this does not affect the audience who can't hear that feedback anyway.

Another thing is that a significant section of the trombone playing community "listen with their eyes" I.E. "it's plastic so it must be cr@p". An example of where this is inconsistent is I bet not one of them can tell the difference between the sound of a wooden and a plastic clarinet.

For myself (I own several pBones of different colours), I MUCH prefer to play brass because the better aural feedback makes it easier for me to play and because the feedback is more "lively" than from plastic I don't tend to overblow the horn.

So when do I use my pbones?

• 
  a) for novelty value - it often "wow's" audiences with the bit of fun it creates, especially when they hear how good they really sound (there's less bias there)
  b) when I want to have a bit of fun
  c) introducing people to a trombone without fear the natural clumsiness that comes from holding something unfamiliar won't damage my expensive brass horns
  d) MARCHING - these things are sooo light in comparison to brass that I will NEVER march a brass horn again.

Sooo, even if you can get all the deficiencies of 3D printing sorted when related to the instrument (eliminating rough sides for the air column etc.) you are STILL going to get haters who only listen with their eyes.

OK, who spilled he beans about the strad under the bed? ;-)


Seriously, I think these will change the way we think about small purchases. For example, instead of manufacturing small items to sell on EBAY, then paying to ship them... I foresee people licensing or selling 3D models that can be downloaded and printed at home immediately upon purchase.

People won't be selling musical instruments... they'll be selling MODELS of instruments. Fascinating technology!

Today I saw a CNC laser on JumpStart which is made largely from 3D printed parts. They offer the option of buying it outright, or buying the kit's 3d models at a substantially reduced price, then assembling it yourself.

Now that is creative marketing! I have to wonder how many other things will be sold as models and not as hardware as more people own 3D printers.

There have been plastic guitars, ukeleles, and even violins.

Here's a site devoted to open source 3D printing of brass instruments. Not too much to show, yet.

There are currently plastic versions trumpets and slide trombones, with plastic cornets and flugelhorns out Real Soon Now. They still will be using metal sleeves and pistons, so it's not something you can just get out of your 3D printer (yet).

Then again, does anyone remember the Tiger Trumpet? A cool idea, but also poorly designed (the valves would quickly fail) and overpriced. The company's website it still up, but the product doesn't seem to be available anywhere except on Craigslist and eBay. Oh, cutting edge technology!

It'll be interesting to see where this leads.

as far as the printing of playable instruments is concerned, at present the size of printable objects is limited by the travel of the printer's axes. average size on affordable 3D printers is 8" x 8" x 8". An 8 inch long instrument would be a toy.

But people will eventually get clever about designing small components that snap or screw together to make items that are bigger than the volumetric range of the printer

Models for Items like capos are already available.

I used both Envistiontec DLP and 3DSystems SLA type 3D printers in my previous job. I can tell you that neither of these would yield acoustic-use instruments that would compare with wood or metal construction originals, mainly because the resonant properties of the materials themselves do not lend to similar sounding results.

There's way more natural damping in the plastic than in tonewoods or metals.

-Scott

This would be the case for string instruments, which use resonating chambers to amplify the vibrations of the strings. Still, if you check out the links I supplied, you might be surprised how much of the instrument quality is not dependent on it being made of wood.

For woodwinds, there's even less contribution from the material. You actually don't want the body of a woodwind to be vibrating, anyway.

You might think that the metal is a major factor in the timbre of brass instruments, but it's not - check out this video, for example.

So as long as it's sufficiently stiff, plastic should work fine for woodwind and brass instruments.

I hadn't realized that someone has actually 3D printed a 3D saxophone:

I have only heard a plastic trombone for real, other plastic instruments I have only heard off Youtube video, and that includes a trumpet, however they have been manufactured in either moulding or extrusion machines where the bore will of course be nice and smooth. What the resultant sound would be like from a 3D printer I can only guess as it does depend on the finished condition of the bore, as it will influence the air flow and therefore the resultant sound.

However, I want a 3D printer that can produce e pint of good beer, or even the breakfast toast from a picture, then I might be interested.