TwoSetViolin needs to see this!

This is an engineering marvel!

This plays so beautifully, literally brought a tear to my eye. the man who tuned this should open his own business for tuning them, he did it near perfectly. a rare thing considering there are 4 seperate instruments here.

WOW this is really incredible... I just stumbled across the name "phonoliszt" in something I was reading and Googled it. Brought me here, totally blown away. What a fascinating machine... so intricate, and it really sounds incredible.

whoever created this machine took the job of making a music box way too seriously xD

Wow, the other Phonoliszt-Violinas I've seen on youtube don't sound nearly as good as this one! Great job on this restoration!

Such a wonderful restoration. I worked for a summer at a musical museum in St. Louis MO in the 1960's and they never had theirs tuned well, what a difference it makes when its all working correctly. I also remember my Grandfather telling me about a machine that played a Violin with Piano at a tavern type location when he was young he used to enjoy it. It turned out it was still there and they had an auction but even though it was dirt cheap by todays standards I couldn't out bid a collector of the time.

imagine where this might've been a hundred years ago, and how fascinated people must've been to see it play

That's such a well done instrument of it's kind. I haven't seen anything like it. I have seen many other devices that play music but this one may be the finest yet. Considering the time period when it was built, it's a real jewel of imagination and design.

It sings from the soul! 😊

What a beautiful piece of engineering art.

Excellent! A very good restoration. Thank you.

The vibrato feature works shockingly well and keeps the music from sounding mechanical. The “fingers” don’t appear to slide vertically to allow smearing of notes (instead it’s more like a fretted instrument) but I don’t really miss it. It looks like instead of sliding it plays each finger quickly in sequence and that replicates sliding and ends up not sounding staccato at all. Would love to better understand the mechanism that controls the bow speed. Would also like to know what the various controls on the roll are. Guessing vibrato x3, violin notes x3, violin tilt x3, bow speed, 88 keys, damper.

Close your eyes and it sounds like a person is actually playing. It's amazing how good it sounds

The iconic thing about this Gizmo is that the Violins have Geared Tuners like a Guitar which makes them easier to tune up.

Ah yes, one the many things I want really bad but am too poor to buy or trust with my country’s postal system, also it is a very well crafted and restored machine, on the ground it takes up the space of a piano and is short enough to fit in most houses, it both complex, beautiful and well made yet it does not take up too much space and can fit in most homes. Great job

Wat een mooi antiek instrument, en geweldig goed gerestaureerd, mijn complimenten. Prachtige wals ook van Ohlsen

If I was ever at a party with this, there'd probably be a conversation like this; "Sir, you haven't taken part in the festivities all evening! Don't you wish to converse with the other people here?" Shoosh, I'm watching the violin! "But sir, it's onl-" Op, shhhh, violiiiiiin! "*Sigh* very well, sir, enjoy the violin." Thank you. 😂

@TwoSetViolin where are yall?? This is better than the modern sAcRiLeGiOuS robots playing a violin😂

Many thanks for the restoration!!!

A very fine machine! Plays the music with such expression! Uncommon, in my humble opinion, for these types of machines!

Absolut beeindruckend wie die Drehzahl des Bogens an das Musikstück angepasst wird und wie die Violinen entsprechend mit dem richtigen Druck an den rotierenden Bogen gedrückt werden. Bitte wenn möglich weitere Songs von diesem Wunderwerk der Ingenieurskunst hochladen.

This is the way I know how to play any "instrument" !

Sensational! Sounds beautiful.

In perfect working condition - in opposition to so much modern technology that is built to be thrown away. Please post more videos with recordings of these instruments! 🙂🙂🙂

I wish I could have something like this, this is amazing. I would have this thing play whenever guests were visiting.

WOW THIS IS INCREDIBLE !!!!!

Wow. What an amazing instrument. Thanks for sharing :)

This is great! +Wintergatan would love this.

Beginning the paper jolts inward. that's my favorite part.

Schitterend gelukte restauratie! Petje af hoor! Groeten, Wim van der Baan

On April 1st, 1911, another patent was filed, US patent #1,025,397, entitled "Expression Device for Mechanically-Operated Violins", also, of course, filed by Gustav Karl Hennig. This patent is the only source I can find on the internet which completely explains how the Phonoliszt-Violina's violin expression system works and shows it clearly. A glance at Figure 1 shows not only the large pneumatic which moves the violin towards the bow, but also how that is restricted in its depth of travel by a cam on the end of a lever, which allows the depth of the violin into the bow to be changed. This cam-lever (shown as "d" in the drawings), is moved by a connecting rod, linked eventually to a pair of pneumatics, which are also ganged to simultaneously actuate a slide-valve connected to the wind-motor which turns the bow. Thus, as the expression pneumatics change the depth of contact the violin has with the bow, the speed of the bow is also changed, much like a real violinist will change bow speed and pressure to get dynamics. Of course, in the production instrument, I would assume these parts are adjustable, so that fine expression changes can be made, with bow speed and pressure independently adjustable: patents.google.com/patent/US1025397A/en?inventor=Gustav+Karl+Hennig

What a gorgeous machine ❤️ it plays so beautifully

Amazing!

Best self playing violens on the block this thing should perform again it’s made to

I'm pretty sure I've seen this before but it's always fascinating to watch. Built in 1910 right? 108 years ago this was built. This machine doesn't get the credit it deserves. I would love to see one in person sometime but I doubt there are many left.

wow, such a wonderful creation!!!! I am dream to have one in home even we have iphone today.

Amazing machine.

The final item to understand about the Hupfeld Phonoliszt-Violina is the roll note scale, which is given in the books "Treasures of Mechanical Music" and also in "The Golden Age of Automatic Musical Instruments". Amazingly, all piano and violin functions and expression are controlled by a roll with only 77 hole positions! (This is because the same paper width and hole spacing were re-used from Hupfeld's popular earlier "Phonoliszt" expression piano, which in turn was based on the 73-note "Phonola" home player piano, which I *think* was, in popularity, to Continental Europe what the 65-note player piano was to the UK and USA at that time. The piano part of the Phonoliszt-Violina is based on a Phonoliszt expression piano system and design). I believe the piano plays around 39 notes automatically, and also has a treble coupler and treble separator so that it can play either in octaves, or an octave higher, in the treble, giving the piano greater range than would be available from the scale. Of course, each violin only has one playing string, and three other strings which I believe are kept tuned, but are there for sympathetic resonance only. The violin fingers are cleverly multiplexed in the roll scale; in other words, one set of holes controls almost twice that number of fingers, since most holes have the ability to control two different fingers for a particular violin. The way they make that work is that there is a separate "note switch" multiplex hole which tells the finger holes in the tracker bar for a particular violin which of the two different fingers they're connected to. When the "note switch" hole is not open, the finger holes are connected to the valves for the first group of fingers for that violin. When the "note switch" hole is open, the finger holes are then connected to the valves for the second group of fingers for that violin. Since each violin only uses one finger at a time to fret the string (or none, for open string playing), this works. It's not like the piano which needs to be able to play chords with the note holes. Finally, the violin expression is actuated by a mere handful of holes which control different expression levels / bow speed and pressure, plus a couple to allow for "violin on strongly" (for accenting), etc. Some examples of the Phonoliszt-Violina have an automatic violin mute which is applied or taken off automatically under control by its own track in the roll, for the "con sourdino" sound. The tremolo is controlled by a single track which you'll see in the far right margin as a series of small holes which come up, and which you can immediately correlate with what you're hearing. The action in this is single-stroke, so it shakes the violin once for every hole that appears in the roll. Thus, the (genius) arrangers can get remarkably realistic effects by changing the hole spacing for the tremolo track and thus changing the speed (actually, here an exact ratio of the music, which is even MORE realistic) of the vibrato/tremolo to suit the dynamics, and mood and character of the piece. In my opinion, this is the single most crucial thing separating the Phonoliszt-Violina from the Violano-Virtuoso in expression abilities... the single-stroke totally controlled and variable tremolo/vibrato, versus the Violano's one-fixed-speed, on/off tremolo/vibrato. Just my opinion.

Beautiful machine. It makes me want to play rollercoaster tycoon

WONDERFUL LOVED IT. THANKS

That sounds perfect!

I bet the musicians back then were not too happy about these machines.

Los inicios de la música totalmente digital. IMPRESIONANTE INGENIERÍA.

Do they ever make anything like this today? So much craftsmanship!

It’s still amazing

First i thought, whats that rotating thing on top... then i realized: its the Bow. cool Instrument 👍👍

volumin, revealin, revolvin,

awesome!!!!

Am I the only one that hears a heart beet in the background

Freaking amazing !

I love this song!!! it would be great to make new videos about this nice tool!

Old but gold

you messed up by not playing the soundtrack to westworld

WTF! This wooden automaton plays violin 100 times better than me.

This is indeed an engineering marvel 👍👍👌👌

It's so AMAZING!

Wonderful!

Mechanization is gonna take our jobs!

this is how they listened to music without youtube

whew.. this is really cool

Fabulous!

I have always preferred the Phonolist to the Violano Virtuoso a much more mellow sound.

excellent done

Какой сложный инструмент! Какой гениальный мастер делал это!

J'adore ! Merci

i'd love to own a cd of this beautiful machine playing music

I picked up a music box miniature of a church organ and found it had spaces in upper compartments for violins and wondered if it was for music or storage. This settles that question.

Very nice indeed. I hope you can replace the missing fretwork too one day. Wonderful instrument.

Mind is blown 🤯🤯🤯🤯

eccellente..un vero gioiello...

jesus now ive seen it all

Anyone wanting to understand more about how this instrument works would do well to check out US patent #1,079,046, invented by Gustav Karl Hennig, and filed May 27th, 1909. This patent covers much of the basic principle of the Hupfeld Phonoliszt-Violina (although not all things shown in it went into the production models, and in fact, some ideas shown in this patent appeared to have been suggestions / for experimentation only) which can be downloaded here: patents.google.com/patent/US1079046A/en?inventor=Gustav+Karl+Hennig

They could design such a technical marvel 100 years ago and yet today they cant design a head light for a car properly without half the car needed to be dismantled to change a single light bulb.

Very well done! Playing as if it was in the show room... Arrangement could be less condensed though..

A marvelous instrument! I never heard or saw it before! Very well restored! Can still be new music be "programmed" into it?

Fenomenalna maszyna! Brzmienie skrzypiec jest idealne, jakby grał człowiek.

1:09 largest flash memory

Magistral !!!

The violin moves and changes the playing dynamics. No slide legato tho.

Why aren’t the piano keys moving??

Why do these violins have 4 strings if they use only one per violin?

Anyone know the name of the song and where I can find a MIDI file for it?

this song is so underrated

How is the machine rendering vibrato on the violins? I would expect the tone to be more straight from the look of the machine?

Why in the freaking worked did you mix in that other audio file??!!!! Seriously wrong! Or was there actually a rock band playing next door? I had to turn off the big speakers.

I knew a lady in West Chicago,IL who had e of these in her home. She is now deceased, I hope it found a good gome?

So I know the song is "Lotusblumen Waltz" by E. Ohlsen but I can't seem to find a recording of it anywhere, can someone shoot me a link by chance?

See, if they had that on the Titanic, the band could have snuck "Nearer thy God to thee" on the spindle, snuck off on a life boat and saved themselves....

Lotusblumen Walzer

1:42 this is best part Also “Oh boo hoo let me play a sad song on the worlds largest violin”

¡Extraordinario!

Aren't piano keys supposed to move? Wonderful restoration!

A logical question, from someone familiar with the regular hand-playing of violins, would be "why does the bow turn in one direction, and not reverse direction?" After all, human violinists using conventional bows will get certain sounds by bowing in different directions, or by rapidly reversing bow direction back and forth. Well. Mr. Hennig had this idea and tried it out around 1913. I don't know if it actually worked (it doesn't appear to have been put into production), but he filed a patent for it (I should add here that there were German original patents for all of these ideas; the American ones were so that people in other countries like the USA wouldn't rip off his idea. This was commonly done by many inventors). The patent is US #1,131,930 "Automatic Violin-Bow" and can be found here: patents.google.com/patent/US1131930A/en?inventor=Gustav+Karl+Hennig

These are fascinating machines - but can you tell me why the speed of the 'bow' changes? I would guess that it may be because certain notes need a particular speed and pressure of engagement - I note that chords are not often played on the violins.

Diesen Automaten beim Musizieren zuzusehen hat etwas unheimliches.

"E. Ohlsen", I wonder about the name... never heard of Him/Her. Is there a partiture (music sheet) to this piece? I loved this melody! Plus the "apparatus" is impressively GENIOUS!

The proper name for the tune is Lotosbluma Waltz.

I saw and filmed one of these at the Nethercutt Collection in Sylmar a couple months ago. Just amazing piece of engineering and craftsmanship! Today, I posted some of my videos on Instagram and someone asked me if the tour guide (who also does the restorations) provided any explanation for why the violins are upside down. I'm assuming it has to do with how the spinning bow needs to come in contact with the strings, as well as the position of the bow in relation to the motor. Can you provide more insight to this?

I'm confused...the roll seems to be going in the wrong direction...