While on a visit to the violin and guitar maker, Mr. Vladimir Proskurnjak from Varaždin in Croatia, friar brother Antun Mrzlečki gave the first impetus and the idea for the development of a new violin chin rest. Vladimir Proskurnjak invented than the first model of the new chin rest fixed without the metal spins.
The problem is that the usage of a commercial chin rest suspension, the violin sound is deformed, while at the same time, the body of the instrument is beeing demaged.
To develope the idea, it was necessary to establish a company which would further develop the product. Behind the idea of commercializing the product stood the family Hanžek, the father Mato and his son, Dejan from Varaždin. Through the selfless effort of Dejan Hanžek, the spiritus movens of the whole project, it was able to come to an agreement by selling the patent rights of Vladimir Proskurnjak to the new firm VŠP d.o.o.* The engineer Darko Mesek, who was knowledgeable about product development and marketing, joined the project during this time. Together with Mato Hanžek, he was able to give new impetus to the final development of the product. The direction of the product on its way to the market, went through many small steps, from the design development, ergonomics, to the technology of manufactoring.
After the beginning phase, an original solution to fix the violin chin rest was developed, so that it was now ready for testing. The testing of the models for the violin and viola was set in motion on ca. 30 Croatian and foreign instruments. During the next two years, many functional changes on the product were undertaken, resulting in an improvement in the design and function of the product. The development of the finished product called for new decisions, resulting in a new patent registration. The influence of the new chin rest on the acoustics of the violin was analyzed in Zagreb (Croatia) at the Research Institute „Ruđer Bošković“ in the Laboratory for Coherent Physics in the study „Research of the influence of the chin rest to the properties of vibrations of the violin body with the aid of digital holography“. It was then confirmed that the new chin rest caused less demage to the sound of the violin than the conventual one with metal spins.
The conclusiuon read follows: „Based upon experimental results and statistical estimations, it can be concluded that the new solution for fixing the chin rest to the violin body has a significantly lesser influence on the vibrational properties of free resonator than the standard solution with metal spins. In other words, the innovative chin rest suspension is better than the standard one because of the preservation of original free violin resonator properties.“
The advantages of the innovation with the new chin rest design are:
– minimal influence on the authentic sound and beauty of violin tone
– light, completely wooden structure
– does not contain the metal pins elements
– ergonomic shape
– design reflects violin form
The new chin rest „Violeaf“ had its premiere at the well-known inernational music fair „Mondomusica“ 2011 in Cremona, Italy. As claimed by the violin profession, the manner of fixing the new chin rest is revolutionary and totaly new in the world of violin.
Up to now, some world renowed violinists have recognized this new innovation as beeing ingenious and are using it.
So we wish „Violeaf“ a lot of succes !
* V.Š.P.d.o.o.
Široke Ledine 28
42000 Varaždin
Croatia
E-Mail: dejan.hanzek@violeaf.com
VSP Ltd. /Varaždin/Croatia/E-mail: info@violeaf.com