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.jpg) Front, back and headstock detail of a Leo Fender's Electric Violin | |
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Anelectric violin is aviolin equipped with an electronic output of its sound. The term most properly refers to an instrument intentionally made to be electrified with built-in pickups, usually with asolid body. It can also refer to a violin fitted with an electricpickup of some type, although "amplified violin" or "electro-acoustic violin" are more accurate then.
Electrically amplified violins have been used in one form or another since the 1920s; jazz and blues artistStuff Smith is generally credited as being one of the first performers to adapt pickups and amplifiers to violins. TheElectro Stringed Instrument Corporation,National String Instrument Corporation andVega Company sold electric violins in the 1930s and 1940s;[1]Fender advertised an electric violin in 1958 (first production model pictured at the head of this page) but withdrew it at the point of production.[2][3] AfterFender was bought by CBS, the electric violin went into production in 1969 until 1975.[4]
Barcus Berry have been producing electric violins since the mid-1960s[5] and in the early 1970s Max Mathews began developing an electric violin[6] which reached completion in 1984[7] During the 1980s more companies were formed producing their own brand of electric violin, such as RAAD[8] or The Amazing Electric Violin[9] and ZETA.[10] There has been a great deal more commercial success for manufacturers of electric violins since the 1990s, both for well known, established companies and new independent makers too.
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Acoustic violins may be used with an add-onpiezoelectric bridge or body pickup, or a magnetic pickup attached to the fingerboard end. Alternatively, an electrodynamic pickup can be installed under an acoustic violin's fingerboard avoiding interference with any tone-producing parts of the violin, and therefore keeping its acoustic resonances and tone intact.[11]
To avoid feedback from the resonances of the hollow body under high amplification on stage, many instruments have a solid body instead. Thetimbre (tone color) of a standard unamplified violin is due in large part to these resonances, but so depending on how the signal is picked up, an electric violin may have a "rawer" or "sharper" sound than an acoustic. This raw sound is often preferred in rock, pop and someavant-garde genres. Several "semi-hollow" designs exist, containing a sealed, but hollow resonating chamber that provides some approximation of acoustic violin sound while reducing susceptibility to feedback.
Solid-body electric violins typically have a non-traditional,minimalistic design to keep weight down. Lately, materials such as kevlar, glass and carbon fibres, are used in the build process.
They are often seen as "experimental" instruments, being less established thanelectric guitar orbass. Hence, there are many variations on the standard design, such asfrets, extra strings,machine heads, "baritone" strings that sound an octave lower than normal, andsympathetic strings. LuthierYuri Landman built a 12 string electric violin for the Belgian bandDAAU. The strings on this instrument are clustered in four groups of three strings tunedunison creating achorus. Also the instrument features an extra pickup in the tail piece for extra amplification ofstring resonances.
Acoustic 5-string violins are becoming more common, and it is not unusual for an electric violin to have 5, 6, 7 or more strings. The typical solid body also accommodates the extra tension caused by more strings without stressing the instrument too much. The extra strings are usually a low C string for 5-strings, a low C and low F for 6, and a low C, F and B♭ for 7.
Electric violin signals usually pass through electronicprocessing, in the same way as an electric guitar, to achieve a desired sound. This could include delay, reverb, chorus, distortion, or othereffects.
Today electric violins are even being used to reinvigorate music education. NBC, for example, recently featured a "music camp that combines rock and orchestra" by Mark Wood, who was chosen as the "person of the day" and featured onToday for bringing fresh interest to music education with rock performances all on electric violins where proceeds are donated back to school music programs.Today stated "The perfect blend of classical instruments and rock and roll is giving kids across the country a whole new appreciation for music."
Electric violins may usemagnetic,piezoelectric, orelectrodynamicpickups. Guitar/coil type magnetic pickups require the use ofviolin strings that have ferrous (iron-containing, as in steel) metal wraps or cores. A fewsingle-coil guitar-style magnetic systems are available, The small body size and arced string arrangement of a violin limit the amount of space available for coil placement.One unusual acoustic/electric violin system uses the string itself as a linear active pickup element. Made to fit standard acoustic violins, the only requisite is that the string is electrically conducting, so the common synthetic or steel core strings can be used.[11]
Generally, piezoelectric pickups are inexpensive and more common. Piezo elements come in the shape of ceramic discs, cylinders or a plastic film. They detect physical vibrations directly, sometimes placed in or on the body, or in some cases actual string vibrations directly, but more commonly general bridge vibrations are sensed. Some piezo setups have a separate pickup (or two, or even four in the case of some Barbera Transducer Systems pickups) within the bridge under each string.[12] A few systems use transducers oriented in various directions to differentiate between bowed and plucked string motion. Operating a switch then selects the preferred mode.[13]
Piezo pickups have a high (capacitive)output impedance, and must be plugged into a high impedance input stage in the amplifier or a poweredpreamp (acharge amplifier is best). This buffers the signal to avoid low frequency loss and microphonic noise pickup in the instrument cable. Preamplification is often done by an external signal processor, but some electric violin body designs provide internal housing for preamp circuitry.[14][15]
Essentially, amplifying an electric violin is exactly the same as amplifying a guitar. They both produce an audio output which is transferred through an audio cable into an amp or PA. For this reason, there are few amps that are specifically for violin, and even those can be repurposed for guitar. Most electric violinists use standard guitar amplifiers. The advantage with using guitar amps is that they have been used for years and their sound is reliable, though not all guitar amps will give a desired tone. Some prefer the more mellow tone of tube amps over solid state amps and digital PA's for violins.[16] Similar to how electric guitar amplifiers are typically used for electric violins, guitar effect pedals, oreffects units can be and are used for electric violins.
Although the violin is an instrument used extensively inclassical music, electric violins are generally employed by classical performers only in the performance ofcontemporary classical music. The electric violin is more frequently used by non-classical musicians in popular genres such asmetal,rock,hip hop,electronic music,pop,jazz/jazz fusion,country,new-age, andexperimental music.
It is used extensively infolk rock; one prominent exponent in the area beingDave Swarbrick.Folk metal bandTurisas also puts a lot of emphasis on the electric violin in their compositions. Finnish folk metal bandKorpiklaani also focuses inJaakko Lemmetty's electric violin parts. It has also found its way into modern musical theater, a recent example beingWhistle Down the Wind byAndrew Lloyd Webber. Several popular bands that use the electric violin areZox,Operator Please,Doll Factory, andpop punk bandYellowcard.Urban Blitz ofprotopunk rock bandDoctors of Madness used the instrument to original effect in the mid-1970s; also using baritoneViolectra.
Artists such asTracy Silverman andDaniel Bernard Roumain have popularized violin "looping". Instead of playing strictly with a band or as a traditional soloist, these musicians use a loop pedal to layer sound and effectively become a one-man band. Using a variety of pedals and techniques on the violin, these musicians yield a wide array of sounds, allowing original compositions and arrangements for electric looping violin of popular rock and hip hop tunes.[17]
Classically trained violinistEmilie Autumn has also made extensive use of the electric violin, particularly on her instrumental Laced/Unlaced album.
In Brazil, the electric violin appears in the work ofMarcus Viana, likeSagrado Coração da Terra (Sacred Heart of the Earth), a symphonic prog/progressive rock band, and Transfonika Orkestra (soundtracks), besides many others.
SeveralIrish fiddlers have adopted electric instruments. The fiddle is quite prominently featured in such bands as the Celtic punk bandsFlogging Molly, andThe Levellers.Eileen Ivers played a blueBarcus-Berry electric fiddle during her tours withRiverdance during the 1990s, later switching to a custom-made blueZETA Music Systems Stradosacoustic-electric fiddle (which ZETA later marketed as the "Eileen Ivers Signature Series").
Daiana Mazza is another violinist from Brazil. She appears in works of Rock, Brazilian Music, Brazilian Gospel, Jazz and Folk, like Braia, Kernunna, Carol Carolo, Os Minervas, Leonardo Araujo, Transfonika Orkestra, Sagrado Coração da Terra, etc.
In the mid-1980s, Zeta Music developed a prototype violin forLaurie Anderson. Through a custom pickup and interface, it sendsMIDI data, allowing the violin to controlsynthesizers. This design was later refined and turned into a commercial product. Unlike most pickup designs of the time, the Zeta pickup has the ability to output the signal from each string to a separate audio channel. Using a multi-pin cable to their pitch-to-MIDI converter, this allows for polyphonic MIDI control, and each string may be set to an independent MIDI channel.
In 2010, Keith McMillen, a founder of Zeta Music, announced the StringPort polyphonic string-to-USB 2.0 converter for the Zeta polyphonic pickup and other polyphonic pickup systems.[22] While no other, dedicated, polyphonic, violin-to-MIDI systems are manufactured, there are a number of general, pitch-to-MIDI violin systems, and general pitch-to-MIDI computer accessories available today. General, monophonic pickup-to-MIDI systems, such as those manufactured byRoland andYamaha have been available for decades, and may be adapted to standard, electric violins. Without polyphonic instrument output, these systems[citation needed] tend to be monophonic, allowing onlymonophonic operation—only one pitch can be detected and digitised at a time— but through the use of proprietary pickups, some MIDI polyphony can be achieved. Some pitch to MIDI interfaces from Axon/TerraTec will give full per-string polyphony, interfacing with multi-pin output from Zeta MIDI pickup.
Notable artists who have performed using a MIDI-enabled violin includeL. Subramaniam,Jean-Luc Ponty,Charles Bisharat,Drew Tretick, Gregory Docenko, Dorothy Martirano[23] andBoyd Tinsley fromDave Matthews Band.[citation needed]
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