*Finished* Solid electric violin build

DartmoorHedgehog

@Andyjr1515 Thanks - I'm certainly happy with how it worked out.  Turns out I'm better at making violins than playing them

@Rox I'll try to get her to record something when she's got more used to it.

It didn't work out too expensive either - about £150 all-in, and more than £50 of that was the tailpiece, chin rest and viola fingerboard.  And actually there's about £25 of strings on it, but I already had all but the C in my spares stash.

Rocker

Fair dues to you @DartmoorHedgehog. Looks very well.  And you get to enjoy the sounds that Alice makes with it.....

DartmoorHedgehog

Thank you @Rocker ;

Funkfingers

Any progress on posting a few sound clips?

DartmoorHedgehog

Funkfingers said:

Any progress on posting a few sound clips?

We've been away for a bit until yesterday.  I'll see what we can do in the next few days...

DartmoorHedgehog

OK, I managed to get Alice to let me record a couple of test clips.  She gets impossibly self-conscious as soon as recording is mentioned, so wouldn't play anything fancy, but I managed to get her to jam along over some chords with my acoustic and play a bit on the low C-string.  The clip with the guitar (forgive my plonky playing) has a little bit of reverb and chorus on the violin, the other one is just a dry signal.

Hope these links work...
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B0qdfKHxY5AGWkxiY0pqMDRnNW8
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B0qdfKHxY5AGVmctYnd5N2prRGc

She's doing pretty well adapting to the 5-string.  The string-crossing angles are smaller than on a 4-string so there's much more chance of accidental double-stopping (did happen a couple of times in these recordings) but she's coping really well with that.  She's bought herself a Zoom G3 so she's got a looper to copy Ed Alleyne-Johnson's style, which is sounding really good but I couldn't convince her to record any of that yet.

One of the aims of making this violin was to encourage her to play more for fun now she's at the "music lessons are boring" age, and that seems to be paying off - she's played more without nagging since she's had this.

And it looks really cool - I wish I could play it (you really don't want to hear a recording of my attempts!)

paulnb57

Wow! Ten out of ten you both!

Funkfingers

Hopefully, the Zoom G3 has Distortion presets. Instant John Cale.

DartmoorHedgehog

paulnb57 said:

Wow! Ten out of ten you both!

Thank you  It's not easy to extract music from an almost-teenager who doesn't really want to be recorded!

Funkfingers said:

Hopefully, the Zoom G3 has Distortion presets. Instant John Cale.

It does pretty much anything you can think of actually - I've not played with one before, always used a few discrete pedals, but it's pretty amazing really.  She was using my pedal board before with a clip-on pickup on the normal violin, but wanted a looper.  We noticed the G3 for sale on here and she had money left from last birthday.  I've never answered the "is it OK if I buy that with my birthday money?" question so quickly  She's bought a case for the 5-stringer as well (purple of course).