Acoustic-electic violin with effects

February 4, 2011 at 06:07 AM ·

Why not?  Of course!  Try it. The effects pedal doesn't care about your violin--only the signal. (Same as with guitars--some are hollow acoustic instruments, others are solid).  But I don't know whether you will *like* the effect or not.  And there are so many things you can do to shape the sound: pre-amps, compressors, etc etc and it is bewildering and I don't have any experience with it other than trying stuff out myself.  Seems like an open field to me--try it and see what you like.

February 4, 2011 at 07:40 AM ·

Thanks heaps, I'll keep that in mind :)

February 6, 2011 at 05:57 PM ·

 Mostly you can. Reverb, delay, chorus, flanger, loopers, etc. will work fine although reverb and delay may make an amplified acoustic more prone to feedback. Overdrive and distortion will usually give you big feedback problems on most pickups especially at higher volumes. You can put foam in the f-holes and increase your feedback threshold somewhat.

February 7, 2011 at 10:37 PM ·

At a recent concert the orchestra played Pink Floyd's Another Brick in the Wall.  Partway through, a violist stood up to play a solo.  He had a pickup on his viola that ran to some sort of processing gear, and he proceeded to do a great rendition of David Gilmour's guitar solo.

February 8, 2011 at 12:11 AM ·

I played fiddle in a irish folk punk band called The Sods and sometimes when playing live i would go through a distortion pedal for fun. I used an acusitc electric Zeta violin. Man i hated the sound of that boxy sounding thing. I once put a nice pick up on my good violin but never ran it through a pedal and took the pick up off after one gig. Somethings are better left undone. theres my long rant for a simple question.

February 8, 2011 at 02:57 AM ·

I've played around with effects pedals on my viola off and on over the years.  Get a hookup for the bridge and not one of those suction cup types.  The suction cup will do damage to the varnish, and when it falls off (which it will), the feedback is horrid!  

Some pedals don't work well with fast passages.  Getting an effects "box" that has multiple 'pedals' pre-programmed is a good way to start to experiment with.  Another alternative are synthesizer programs you can install onto your computer.  With these you can hookup your violin into the computer with a pickup and run it though a wide variety of effects, either live feedback through an amp or by making a raw recording and then run it through various effects.

PS - early Bach is really fun with the "Van Halen" effect.

February 9, 2011 at 07:49 PM ·

 I've experimented lots with them through contemporary music degree and playing in rock and folk bands.  here's a few things I've discovered mostly by trial and error...

The order you hook pedals up in is really important.  Experiment with different orders with patch leads in between and see what works best in your practice, using all the combinations you will need.  You never know where feedback is hiding otherwise.  Sound people can always help with this if you ask their advice.  A really good tip I received is to use a Boss tuner pedal as the first pedal in your line.  these have two outputs, so you can plug different combinations of pedals into each output.  then you have flexibility to switch between the two with your foot, and you can tune onstage visually with the tuner LED display as well (which is good in the middle of gigs when you can't hear what you're doing).  you can also choose to use only one output, and then switch to the other empty one to put your violin down, effectively muting your violin and avoiding any feedback during breaks in your playing.

Emily