In Search of the Ultimate Electric Violin

I’ve tried a number of pickups over the years, with an acoustic violin (French, school of Caussin, about a hundred years old). I began with a Barcus-Berry (piezo built into the bridge and used with a Barcus-Berry pre-amp) but found it a bit trebly and screechy. I’ve heard that their new pickups are an improvement but haven’t tried them myself. I tried an Ashworth pickup once, which I didn’t like at all. Ditto Fishman and CDucer. I’ve also tried the Accusound ribbon-across-the-body system. It is admittedly more of an acoustic sound but is prone to feedback if you are playing in a moderately loud band. These pickups are also very fussy to put on and take off. Not a serious contender as far as I’m concerned. Headway make a kind of ribbon pickup called The Band which is different to the Accusound – the pickup is inside a plastic band and it’s very easy to install but again the sound is too coloured, too uneven, for my taste. The Autolycus, from New Zealand, differs from most pickups in that it is not built into the bridge but is clipped onto the f-hole. It is not at all bad considering the low price of it but I found the sound somewhat uneven – a bit like the sound of an oriental folk instrument perhaps.

For a while I used the L. R. Baggs pickup with the Baggs Para Acoustic D.I. box, (a pre-amp with a parametric EQ). I found the sound to be a bit raw with a distinct ‘piezo quack’ and I had to use not only the Para Acoustic box with it, but also a Boss 10-band graphic equaliser as well. The resulting sound is heavily modelled and not much like the sound of an acoustic violin and you can never really get rid of the ‘quackiness’, which gets to be tiring on the ear and the brain. I’ve stopped using the pickup but I do not regret getting the Para Acoustic box, which is marvellous and an asset for any studio or stage set-up.

By far the best of the pickups I’ve tried is the Headway VL1, which has a much cleaner sound than the Baggs and minimal quack. The VL1 plugs into a pre-amp without tone controls, that you wear on your belt. Like all pickups it does amplify handling noise to a certain extent, but it is better than most in this respect. This can be easily remedied by judicious use of EQ so I’ll be hanging onto the Boss pedal as well. Rolling off the frequencies below the G-string is not a bad idea with any system. I’m now on the waiting list for a VL3, which uses the same bridge pickup but has a more versatile pre-amp with tone controls that enable you to eliminate low end noise and to generally tweak the sound.

There are a number of microphones available for the violin and these may be suitable if you are playing in a string quartet or a quiet band. I intend to get one so that I have the option of having a more realistic acoustic violin sound if the situation permits. It is also possible to have a dual system with the mic going through the PA and the sound from the pickup coming through the monitors. That way, you avoid feedback and the audience, at least, gets a real violin sound. Watch this space for an update.

The other way to go is of course to get a purpose-built electric violin. I have the entry level Yamaha ‘Silent’ Violin, which uses a piezo pickup under the feet of the bridge. It has quite a thin tone, though it is even throughout its range. The Yamaha is excellent for playing in the middle of the night if you want to practise without disturbing anyone sleeping elsewhere in the house but it has a strange feel to it, which results in dodgy intonation. I have tried to work out why this should be as it has the same length as my acoustic violin and the height of the nut seems to be the same. It should be exactly the same from a technical point of view, but in practise it seems to be rather unforgiving to the player if that is the right choice of word. It might be OK for some styles of music but try for instance playing the notoriously difficult first 23 bars of Bach’s Chaconne from the D minor Partita for Solo Violin, with its finger stretching four string chords, and you are likely to come to grief. It is not very satisfying to play.

Trying out the Bridge electric violin and doing a direct comparison with the two instruments mentioned above was illuminating. The Bridge has a hollow body (without sound holes) so I would describe it as a kind of electro-acoustic violin. I’m not sure if this affects the sound from the piezo pickup but it is much richer and rounder than the Yamaha. It has quite a bassy, mellow sound even with the built-in tone control turned fully up in the treble direction. Normally electric violins have too much treble but with the Bridge I found that I wanted more top as the sound tends towards what I would describe as muffled. But it is probably better for the sound to be biased this way – it is easier to add brightness to a mellow sound than to add body to a trebly sound. The Bridge is not so even across the range though – the G and D strings sound fine but the A and E are not quite as smooth. This is a general tendency with all violins, I think, but it is more apparent with the Bridge though I would rather have this slight imperfection than the Yamaha’s even but more sickly tone. The Yamaha has that quality that you hear in an Ovation guitar, that I would describe as ‘plasticky’. The moment I started playing the Bridge I immediately noticed that it felt right – it feels much more like an acoustic to play and there doesn’t seem to be that awkward playability that I get with the Yamaha.

No survey of electric violins would be complete without mention of the Zeta, which is marketed as the Rolls Royce of violins and has a price tag to match. I have heard one being played and I was not exactly bowled over by it. It didn’t really sound all that much better than other electric violins I have heard. I have spoken to players who have been very disappointed by them and of makers who have been very deprecating about the craftsmanship. It has a MIDI capability, which is apparently very unstable and unreliable. Approach with great caution and bear in mind the words ‘emperor’ and ‘new clothes’.

One thing to bear in mind though when trying out a new violin – the violin that you are used to is always going to feel better to play. If you are comparing the sound of a solid body electric with an acoustic-with-pickup you need to be able to hear the sound coming out of the amplifier without hearing the acoustic instrument so close to your ear. Furthermore, as the acoustic is clamped between your jaw and collar bone you are also getting vibrations from the fiddle passing directly through your flesh and bones. Comparisons should be made ideally with recordings of the sound coming directly from the respective transducers.

With electric violins there is another possibility and that is to use ‘octave’ strings which are now readily available. As the sound is coming from a pickup the body size of the instrument is not critical so you can get most of the cello range - apart from the lowest string – on a violin, without having to change your technique to any great extent (though I have found that it is better to use a cello bow). The thicker strings are a little bit harder to play but even the Yamaha sounds reasonable with a set of Sensitive strings ('Sensitive' is the manufacturer's name). Bridge make an octave violin, which I hear is very good, though I haven’t yet tried it.

Make sure that the amplifier that you are using is not a guitar amplifier as these are specially biased to suit the guitar. For the violin you need an amplifier with a completely flat response. I use a Marshall Acoustic AS100 D and I can heartily recommend it – I used a Roland Jazz Chorus for many years before I found out about this - usually with the bass turned up full and the treble turned to zero.

I intend to update this page as and when I come across new electric violins or amplification systems. If you are an electric violinist of any description and you think I have missed out a better solution, I would like to hear from you.

Meanwhile, the search goes on.

Useful links

Judicael Strings
Has a well researched review of many pickups and microphones. The VL3 is also recommended here.

Achieve Instruments
Andy Holliman has a book about making electric violins and a guide to electrification amongst many other things violinistic.

Fiddle Forum
Madfiddler's site and a chance to rant about electric violins.

Digital Violin
Ben Heaney's site about the history of the electric violin and the Fender in particular.

Headway Electronics
Manufacturers of my favourite pickup.

Bristol Violin Shop
My friendly neighbourhood violin store - excellent violin makers, repairers and suppliers not only of fine violins but also of Headway, Bridge, Yamaha etc.

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