History shows that stringed instruments provide a very popular form of music. Some of these stringed instruments use sound boards, which is a substantially solid material usually made of wood. Typical of these instruments; which use a sound board; are a guitar, a violin, a cello, a bass fiddle, a viola, a mandolin, a harpsichord and a ukelele. Other stringed instruments may also use a sound board.
These instruments have a pleasing sound due to the vibration of the sound board. Resonance is transferred to the sound board by the vibration of the strings. Because the resonance of the wood in the form of a sound board within the instrument produces a unique sound, it is extremely difficult to efficiently and accurately amplify the sound of a stringed instrument.
Other stringed instruments produce sound with a flexible sound medium, wherein the string vibration causes vibration of the sound medium. A typical instrument in this class is a banjo. It is also difficult to amplify instruments of this class.
These stringed instruments are very effective and very powerful in a small room setting. However, they cannot always be played in a small room setting. It is sometimes very desirable to play one or more of these instruments in a large auditorium. In this case, the sound of the instrument must amplified.
The desire to connect a stringed instrument to an amplifying device usually requires an electronic pickup to be inserted in the instrument. This electronic pickup goes to a sound replicating device. The sound replicating device receives the sound from the instrument and permits it to be hear throughout the auditorium.
Such transfer of the sound from the instrument implicating is not consistently good. While it is not desired to be bound by any particular theory, there is a postulate, which may explain the replicating deficiency. The postulate is based on the structure of the sound replicating device. The loss of total quality of the stringed instrument is believed to be caused by the inability of the speaker to duplicate the sound vibrations of the sound board of the instrument involved.
No good method or structure is known to overcome these problems of amplification of stringed instruments. As such, a stringed instrument can lose its impact before a large audience, in a large auditorium or similar room. This loss of impact is clearly due to a lack of faithful reproduction of the instrument sound.
This sound board, as contained in the instrument, makes the instrument very suitable for a small venue, where the instrument can be heard directly. In a larger venue, it is sometimes required to amplify the sound. The amplification loses the second quality in that the resonance of the sound board in the instrument cannot be accurately duplicated.
Various attempts have been made to overcome this feature. Sometimes an electronic pick-up device is put right in the instrument. This electronic pick-up device is then fed to an amplifier. The amplifier, in turn, feeds a speaker for the purpose of making the instrument to be heard throughout the desired hearing area.
Such electronic replication of the instrument does not permit the actual sound of the vibration of the board to be produced. It is very desirable to produce this actual sound based on the vibration of the wood in the sound board of the instrument. However, no effective mechanism for achieving the same is no known.