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An electric violin is a violin equipped with an electronic output of its sound. The term most properly refers to an instrument purposely made to be electrified with built-in pickups, usually with a solid body. It can also refer to a violin fitted with an electric pickup of some type, although "amplified violin" or "electro-acoustic violin" are more accurate in that case.
Electrically amplified violins have been used in one form or another since the 1920s; jazz and blues artist Stuff Smith is generally credited as being one of the first performers to adapt pickups and amplifiers to violins. The Electro Stringed Instrument Corporation, National and Vega sold electric violins in the 1930s and 1940s; Fender produced a small number of electric violins in the late 1950s. There has been a great deal more commercial success of well known manufacturers of electric violins since the 1990s for both well known, established companies and new makers too.
Acoustic violins may be used with an add-on piezoelectric bridge or body pickup, or a magnetic pickup attached to the fingerboard end. Alternatively, a magnetic String pickup can be installed under an acoustic violin's fingerboard avoiding interference with any tone-producing parts of the violin, and so keeping its acoustic resonances and tone intact without feedback problems.[1]
To avoid feedback from the resonances of the hollow body under high amplification on stage, many instruments have a solid body instead. The timbre (tone color) of a standard unamplified violin is due in large part to these resonances, however, so depending on how the signal is picked up, an electric violin may have a "rawer" or "sharper" sound than an acoustic instrument. This raw sound is often preferred in rock, pop, and some avant-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 than electric guitar or bass. Hence, there are many variations on the standard design, such as frets, extra strings, machine heads, "baritone" strings that sound an octave lower than normal, and sympathetic strings. Luthier Yuri Landman built a 12 string electric violin for the Belgian band DAAU. The strings on this instrument are clustered in four groups of three strings tuned unison creating a chorus. Also the instrument features an extra pickup in the tail piece for extra amplification of string resonances.
Acoustic 5-string violins are becoming more common,[2] 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 electronic processing, in the same way as an electric guitar, to achieve a desired sound. This could include delay, reverb, chorus, distortion, or other effects.
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Electric violins commonly use either magnetic or piezoelectric pickups. Guitar /coil type magnetic pickups require the use of violin strings that have ferrous (iron-containing, as in steel) metal wraps or cores. A few single-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.[3]
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.[4] 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.[5]
Piezo pickups have a high (capacitive) output impedance, and must be plugged into a high impedance input stage in the amplifier or a powered preamp (a charge 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.[6][7]
Although the violin is an instrument used extensively in classical music, electric violins are generally employed by classical performers only in the performance of contemporary classical music. The electric violin is more frequently used by non-classical musicians in popular genres such as metal, rock, hip hop, pop, jazz/jazz-fusion, country, New Age, and experimental music. Famous electric violinists include:
It is used extensively in folk rock; one prominent exponent in the area being Dave Swarbrick. Folk metal band Turisas also puts a lot of emphasis on the electric violin in their compositions. Finnish folk metal band Korpiklaani also focuses in Jaakko Lemmetty's electric violin parts. It has also found its way into modern musical theater, a recent example being Whistle Down the Wind by Andrew Lloyd Webber. Several popular bands that use the electric violin are Zox, Operator Please, Doll Factory, and pop punk band Yellowcard. Urban Blitz of protopunk rock band Doctors of Madness used the instrument to original effect in the mid 1970’s; also using baritone Violectra. Classically-trained violinist Emilie Autumn has also made extensive use of the electric violin, particularly on her instrumental Laced/Unlaced album.
Several Irish fiddlers have adopted electric instruments. The fiddle is quite prominently featured in such bands as the Celtic punk bands Flogging Molly, and The Levellers. Eileen Ivers played a blue Barcus-Berry electric fiddle during her tours with Riverdance during the 1990s, later switching to a custom-made blue ZETA Music Systems Strados acoustic-electric fiddle (which ZETA later marketed as the "Eileen Ivers Signature Series").
Laurie Anderson's tape-bow violin, an electronic instrument developed in 1977, resembles an electric violin but does not have strings. It produces sound by drawing a bow, strung with a length of recorded magnetic tape rather than hair, across a magnetic tape head mounted on the instrument where the bridge would normally be. This somehow anticipates the later technique of "scratching" in rap and hip-hop music, where a vinyl recording is turned back and forth on a turntable.
In the mid 1980s, Zeta Music developed a prototype violin for Laurie Anderson that, through the employment of a custom pickup and a conversion module, sent MIDI data, allowing the violinist to control synthesizers. This design was later refined and turned into a commercial product. Unlike most pickup designs, the Zeta pickup has the ability to output the signal from each string on a separate audio channel. Using a multi-pin cable to their pitch to midi interface, this allows for polyphonic MIDI control with each string set to an independent MIDI channel.
Most recently, Keith McMillen of Keith McMillen Instruments, a founder of Zeta Music, announced the 'StringPort' polyphonic string-to-USB 2.0 converter which will connect with the Zeta polyphonic pickup and other modern polyphonic violin systems.
Whilst no other dedicated violin-to-MIDI systems have been manufactured, more generic pitch-to-MIDI systems like those from Roland, and Yamaha can be adapted to use standard electric violin output. Most systems allow only monophonic operation — only one pitch can be detected and digitised at a time — but through the use of proprietary pickups, some limited MIDI polyphony can be achieved. Some pitch to MIDI interfaces from Axon/TerraTec will give full per string polyphony, interfacing with the multi-pin output from the Zeta MIDI pickup.
Notable artists who have performed using a MIDI violin include Jean-Luc Ponty, Charles Bisharat, Drew Tretick, Gregory Docenko, Dorothy Martirano[10] and Boyd Tinsley from Dave Matthews Band.