Unexplainable - What's good sound?

Episode Date: January 28, 2026

Every hand-crafted instrument from violin maker Michael Doran holds its own unexplainable questions. Guest: Michael Doran of Doran’s Violin’s For show transcripts, go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠���⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠vox.com/unxtranscripts⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠For more, go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠vox.com/unexplainable⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ And please email us! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠[e-mail]⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ We read every email. Support Unexplainable (and get ad-free episodes) by becoming a Vox Member today: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠vox.com/members⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Thank you! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming Ontario. This is unexplainable. I'm Meredith Hodnott. We love hearing from listeners. We read every email you send, and we especially love hearing from listeners that have really cool jobs. Could you read the email that you sent in?

Sure, yeah, let me just pull it up. Hello, Unexplainable. I'm a violin maker, and I really enjoyed your recent episode on A440 and the journey that it's been to get there. Michael Doran makes Viulmin. violins and cellos in Seattle. And he wrote in to share his perspective on our episode last September called What's A?

All about the musical note A and the long and windy road to standardize it around the world at 440 hertz. Instrument makers were on the front lines of that international coordination. And even today, Michael wrote in to us to say that he still thinks about different tunings in his work. One of the interesting aspects that comes up in my work is that some symphonies, notably San Francisco and Boston, are tuning to a sharper A. Then sometimes the soloist will turn, you know, 1 hertz sharper to get a little extra power and projection over the orchestra. I made a cello for the principal of the BSO, and I had to make sure it sounded good at A44,

or even 445. He wanted higher tension strings as well, so all that adds up to more stress on the instrument. but it really is amazing just how a tiny bit sharper can give a lot more projection and brilliance. And it's an interesting puzzle for makers. Lastly, I do my best to protect my hearing, but I do have occasional short-term tinnitus where things will go quiet, and I'll hear a pure tone in one ear for a few moments. And the one in my right ear is a perfect A440, and the left ear is slightly sharp, maybe more like A442.

Cheers, Michael Dorian. Thank you so much for reading that. You're welcome. And I did fact check myself, and I called the principal of the Boston Symphony. And I was like, do you guys really tuned to 444? And he was like, no, we tuned to 441. And I was like, do you ever tune, like, when you're soloing, do you tune to, you know, 1 hertz higher to get an edge? And he's like, I don't need an edge.

So that's wrong. I did think about it when I made the cello. That's true, but it's not true that they actually tuned to 444. I read that Berlin Symphony turns to 442, but that's the sharpest I could find. So 441 is pretty standard. Got it. But the 444 is like pushing it. Super pushing it, yeah.

Although I did have one of my local violinists come in. I actually had their best buddies. They often come in together, Andrew and Max, and Andrew is like a 440. purist. He loves the 440 and he thinks you should just play at 440 and then Max is a 443 guy and he calls it a happy A like you tune just a little bit more

and he loves that A443 and it was so fascinating to have both their violins in the shop at the same time and one was tuned to 440 and one was tuned to 440 and just the tiny difference in the sound. Max's violin just sounded so much more like direct and focused and and kind of like edgy. It almost made me like just a little bit uncomfortable to listen to. And then the 440, you play it and you're just like, oh, it's just kind of size.

You can kind of sink into that A440. So it's just very interesting how these teeny changes make such a difference. Yeah, I feel like it's so subtle. It's almost subliminal. Yeah, it's just interesting because there's such different players too. Andrew is he has sort of a more delicate touch, a lighter touch with the bow. Not that he can't play forcefully, but that's just not his default. And I feel like Max just almost, he attacks the violin with his bow.

And he can play softly too, but just in general, he likes sort of a heavier bow hand and more movement. And then Max just got these super duper fancy literal gold strings. They just came out, and they're like super expensive, and they're wrapped in actual gold and whatever. Fun. But gold is heavy and tends to give sort of a warmer sort of a sound. So he's got this, like, edgy playing style, but then he wants the slightly warmer strings. And, you know, maybe in the end, do they get to the same spot? Like, we've got a delicate player playing with edgy strings and an edgy player playing with warm strings.

So, like, maybe we're getting to the same point in the end. When you hear these notes, what are the different ways that you're interpreting the vibes of these different tunings? Yeah, right. It's totally like a vibes thing. It almost feels like a presence in the notes, something around the edges. Because it's still an A, right? Like, it's close enough that, like, you would call it an A. But it's just a little bit juiced, a little bit, almost like, anxious. something like that. And the 440 feels sort of like a little more spread out, a little more relaxed. It breathes a little more. I wonder what, I don't know, I've never, I never hear a 439.

So like, I wonder if that's even more relaxed. It's interesting too, because like when you're talking about these numbers, right? The 440, the 439, the 444, it's like literally how much energy is going into that note. Yeah, totally. So 440 is 440 cycles per second. So like literally the wave that is traveling through the air is literally oscillating back and forth 440 times a second. And so there's a way in which it has a sharper energy because it's literally sharper when it's moving through the air because those little waves are smaller as they get to your ear. Right.

And then, I mean, on top of all this, like there's the pure tone, the A440, right? Violins are so neat because they play all of these notes around the primary note. We don't always want everything to be as efficient as possible, because then it sort of turns into, you know, this pure sine wave kind of a thing, right? Like, I don't actually want all of the energy to go into making that pure tone. I need some of it to go into the overtones and the notes around the note. And that's where you think about, like, tone colors. Like, that's how violinists talk about, like, you know, a sweet tone or a piercing tone.

And you should be able with the same instrument to mold the sound to do both those things, depending on what passage you're playing and what the player wants. Like sometimes you need a great, you know, emphasis staccato and maximum fortissimo, right? And then sometimes you need the instrument to just sort of like speak with like minimal bow pressure and just lightness. And that's part of what makes violin sound so complex and interesting. It's actually quite close to the sound of the human voice. We make all kinds of overtones and things. That's why each singer's voice is distinct and different.

And you can, you know, easily tell the difference between my voice and your voice or Beyonce. voice or whomever. Speak you with yourself, I sound exactly like Beyonce. Well, I wasn't going to say it, but, you know, it's uncanny. It's amazing. It's the same way with violins. And so all of those little overtones are changed when you change the primary frequency. So I think a lot about, you know, when I'm doing adjusting, like there's high notes,

high upper partials to the note in the like 18,000 hertz, 20,000 hertz, like just on the edge of what humans can hear. And that can also influence this presence. So I feel like when you're tuning higher, maybe it changes some of those partials and things that just kind of influence how you feel about the sound. Right, right. That makes a lot of sense. I come from a cooking background.

So the analogy that's coming to mind is like you can use vanilla extract or it's just the pure vanilla, which is the chemical that tastes like vanilla. or you could get this tropical orchid pod that came from Madagascar and got fermented and dried in the sun and has all these other overtone chemicals that round out the taste and make it something much beyond that one primary note. Oh, absolutely. That's a great metaphor because, you know, you get this beautiful sort of combination

of all of the different vibrations that are vibrating with the room and the air and the bow and the violinist and everything that gets. gets to your ear. It's incredibly complex. I mean, like, violins are, are one of the most complex vibrating machines that humans have ever made. I feel like after 400 years, we're like, just now starting to get an understanding of how these things actually work, how they, how they radiate sound, how they vibrate at different frequencies. I mean, it's astoundingly complex, which is what keeps it interesting for me as a maker, right? There's, there's, there's, a mountain top in the distance, but you can never quite reach it because, you know, every piece

of wood is different and every player is different and every interpretation of sound is different. So you have this wonderful range of what is a good sound. And I mean, that's what we're talking about here with A440. Yeah. As a violin maker, do you have any unexplainables, any unanswered questions that remain a mystery in the world of instrument making? Oh, my goodness. I mean, like, Like so many, so many, like, unsplaintable questions. Like, I mean, that's kind of my job, right? The real problem with the experiment of violin making from like a scientific point of view is that there are so many variables. You change one thing and it changes five others.

Okay. It's so hard to get like an actual control on the things that you're trying to test. And you can never have the same piece of wood twice. So every piece of wood, even if it's from the same. tree is a little bit different. And so my job as a maker is to take the materials that I have and what I want to make, the sound that I'm going for, and somehow find the narrow path in between those two things to get to it.

But like, we're just nailing down some of those basic questions, like, what is nice sound? And like, how do you feel about it? And, you know, what are we even going for here? And so in my job, it's like, if I do this, What happens? Right. I think of it more like in my job, I'm like, I like can push the sound sort of one way

or I can push the sound another way. And with every choice, I'm sort of guessing that it's going to do a little bit more towards this side of things, a little bit more towards that side of things. Yeah. Like there's this dowel, a post. In Italian, the word for soundpost means like soul of the instrument because it's so important.

This skinny little dowel, exactly where that post is to the tenth of a millimeter is so important for the sound it's not glued in or anything it's just fit perfectly tap the sound post back a tenth of a millimeter

does that change the sound do we like what's going on you know does it emphasize the G string more or the A string more and tap tap tap that's like playing the game operation and then oh maybe we need a post that's two tenths of a millimeter longer

let's try that what are some of the choices that you have to make, like, right at the outset as you're envisioning the future sound. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Sort of generally, I try and think about making something sort of like brighter and more powerful and projecting versus sort of warmer and, like, more chocolatey and perhaps a little bit more intimate. And that's sort of the broad palette that I think about, right? And how do we balance the two? How do we get both? Ideally, getting both of those things is like, that's like the mountain.

Yeah. You know, something that is so sweet and rich and gorgeous, but then you can also, it's very loud and you can hear it at the edge of the hall when you want it to be loud. And, you know, that's sort of like the, that's the mountain top that we're going for, right? Yeah. Is there a Doran violin or a Dorian cello sound? Well, I mean, probably. I mean, I like to think of my instruments as siblings, not twins, right? Like, no two are exactly the same.

But I was at a violin-making competition. They judged the instruments for like three or four days, and during that time, nobody can interact with the judges or see the instruments because it's all done, you know, blinded. So it's a lot of waiting around and being slightly anxious in a hotel room. And at the end of the competition, they open up this enormous ballroom where all the instruments are, and there were about 500 instruments in there,

200 violins and 100 cellos and 100 violets. And so players come in, makers come in, and you can look at all the instruments, and you can play them if you want. So it's just a cacophonous sound. People playing a hundred different pieces in all the corners of the room. But several times I would be talking to somebody,

and my back would be turned to the cello section, and I would hear a cello, and I would say, oh, that's my. my cello. I can tell, that's my cello, and I'd look around and somebody would have been playing my cello. So, can I recognize my instruments? I think maybe. I mean, you know, we'd have to do an actual study to check that out. But at least in those instances, I did. And I was able to pick it out. Wow. Wow. That's so cool. I was wondering, could you take me on a little tour of your studio if you're nearby? Oh, sure. Yeah. Oh, that would be, I would love to.

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That's a front. Okay, so let's see. Here is the studio. It's a one-car garage that we turned into my studio. But, you know, there's this smell to the shop. It's kind of a mixture of like wood and varnish and possibility. and the machines and the music and it all just kind of like rolls together.

People who come into the shop are often like, oh, I love that smell. That's the smell of the workshop. And yeah, I love that. That's one of the things I love about the job. And I mean, you're like starting off with wood that I'd recognize in a fireplace. It looks like a chunk of wood.

It doesn't look like a two-by-four at lows. Yeah, totally. That's how the wood comes to me. It often comes in these wedges, and then I take away everything that isn't a violin. A la Michelangelo, right? If it's a big tree, this big spruce tree, could make a couple hundred violin tops easily.

Like, I thought about this. You know, in my lifetime, I would be very lucky if I made 400 instruments, you know, maybe less. 500 would be pushing it. I mean, there's no way. And so, like, the output, if my output of my whole life,

my whole career as being a professional violin maker, could potentially be covered by like one tree. If you had the entire tree, you could make all the instruments for your career. A lifetime's worth of instruments. Yeah. So, but I don't often get to buy the entire tree. Yeah.

Let's see. I have over here all of my old vintage power tools. I bought all the power tools in my shop are, are restored antiques that I like to take apart and fix and tinker with. What's your favorite tool of the moment? Oh, favorite tool. Oh, man. I know.

Choosing between your children. That's my favorite tool. Favorite tool. Okay. Okay, I got it. Yeah. Yeah. So, hold on.

I got to move some stuff out of the way. So, let's see. Let's put this. There. So we have here my, it's one of my favorite tools, and it's also a very iconic violin maker tool. It's called a finger plane. And so a plane holds a blade at a specific angle and you push it and it shaves the wood a little bit, right? And so there's big bench planes that make things flat that you use with two hands. And then as they get smaller and smaller and smaller,

you start to call them palm planes or block planes, right? And then they get even smaller and they call thumb planes, right? And then you get even smaller and they're called finger planes. And they're like the iconic violin maker tool. So I have large finger planes like this. So it almost looks like a little shoe, but like you put your finger in there and then you can like push to shave just a little bit off. Yeah, exactly.

And the neat thing about these sort of little shoes, they fit your hand very well. And the soles of these are very, very slightly rounded. So I can carve into an instrument and make that sort of hollow, right? Because the outside is a convex curve and the inside is a concave curve, right? So I can thickness that very precisely. And so these are the big ones. I guess it's about two inches, two inches long, something like that with a three-quarter-inch wide blade.

and then I have the little teeny, teeny, teeny ones that are about an inch long and maybe a quarter inch wide. This is mostly for violins for, you know, a little, get right there in by the channel or something like that. Yeah, you went from like small child shoe size to like doll shoe size. Doll shoe size, exactly. But I have all different sizes. I have about 20 of these.

And the neat thing about these is that I made them. So they're a very like personal thing to me. they're like a part of my making that I'm the only one who has this exact set of tools and the shape that I carve with these tools is kind of endemic to these tools and my hands and how they work and you know I've adjusted the soles a little bit over the year so it's like this plane is shaped so that it cuts the shape

that I want with my hands it's a very it's a very like personal personal part of the work is how you get that line, letting the tool do the work, right? Right, right. But then almost it's like your fingerprints on it because you know exactly what those tools are and they're unique to you. Someday, you know, probably my son will use it

and he'll make his own fingerprints on it someday. Yeah. And how much time do you spend in your studio here? In the shop? Oh my goodness. All of it. I mean like every moment I can, basically. Yeah.

When I'm not hanging out with my son or my family, like, you know, this is what I love to do. Like if tomorrow I got all the money in the world and I didn't have to work anymore, I would still show up to work here every day. Absolutely. Because this is what I love to do. I can't imagine doing anything else. That's why I'm here to, you know, climb the mountain a little bit. What you're hearing right now is a Michael Dorancello, played by Minzo Kim.

If you want to learn more about A440 and the road it took to get there, please listen to our great episode, What's A by Emily Siner. And when you listen to it or any other of our episodes, we want to hear from you. Like I said, just always, but especially if you have a cool job out there that has something to do with an unexplainable episode, Let Us Know. We're at Unexplanable at box.com. This episode was produced by me, Meredith Hoddonaut. We had editing from Joanna Salatarov with help from Sally Helm, mixing and sound design from Erica Wong, and music from Erica and Ileon Mansell. Melissa Hirsch checked the facts. Julia Longoria and Jorge Just are

our editorial directors. Christian Ayala and Amy Padula are the Sharma are the darkest days around. And as always, thank you to Brian Resnick for co-creating the show with Noam Hassenfeld and Bird Pinkerton. If you'd like to support this show and the journalism that Vox does, we would love it if you'd become a member. It's easy to do. Just go to Vox.com slash members, and you'll get access to all of Vox's journalism. If you sign up, because you love Unexplanable, let us know. We, again, love to hear from you. Thank you, so much. If you love the show, but you can't join our membership, that's totally fine. Please leave us a nice review on your favorite place to listen to podcasts. It really helps

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