[ David Sharpe wrote in 060909 MMDigest:

> ... they should have known about the Mills Violano Virtuoso ...

One would think so.

> But anyway, is it really a player violin? ...
> Do the magnets drive the blade?

So it seems.  Think in terms of a loudspeaker driven by an amplifier
supplied with a signal from a MIDI file.  It doesn't seem to consist of
anything more than that; the 'string blade' is nothing more than an
electromagnetic driver that vibrates the violin's bridge instead of a
speaker cone.

> Does the bow and string blade just add the slightly "scratchy" sound
> of a bowed string?

I can't figure out the bow, either.  When I saw the action of the bow
and compared it to what it would be if the bow was actually playing
the violin, it looked totally bogus.  And the description they give
is unclear enough (added resonance from the other strings?) that I
suspect that the bow is principally for show, and that the thing would
play as well if you replaced the 'string blade' and its driver magnets
and the rest of the violin with a good old medium-power twelve-inch
speaker.

The machinery he shows in the box beneath the instrument seems legitimate
enough; we use servomotors like those at the science museum in Columbus.

Mark Kinsler