It’s commonly believed in the electric string world that electric violinists should avoid using guitar amps. Apparently, the same trait that makes guitar solos sound “flashy” makes electric violins sound shrill and screechy. Well, not necessarily.
To demonstrate what I mean, I give you this video of electronica/progressive rock violinist James Sudakow playing with his band through a Marshall guitar amp. This song is called "Orange" from his album Green.
Goddamn right! I love this song and his sound.
Does he sound shrill and screechy through that amp? Not at all. In fact, his C string tone has some serious balls. Remember, guitar amps are the amps with the great tubes, and as guitarists have found, tubes are synonymous with good tone. So take advantage! If a problem with screeching does arise, well, that's why there's an equalizer on the amp.
Take note of what Sudakow is using in this video: a Zeta Strados 5-String Violin with the Strados Series Pickup and, according to his MySpace page, a Marshall JCM2000 TSL half stack. For a better look, his promo pictures give great close-ups of his gear. Unfortunately, his effects pedals aren't visible anywhere; I'd love to know what they are.
The Strados Pickup is worth mentioning because it's an active pickup (in contrast to a passive pickup) and can deliver a fat, low-impedance, noise-free signal to his effects and amp, which is always a plus. There's nothing wrong with passive pickups per se, but their signals are susceptible to RFI and sound a little weaker to me than active pickups' signals. If you have any thoughts about the two, feel free to leave a comment.
My point is: don't follow what people say, follow your ears. Electric string players have many, many options of pickups, instruments, bows, cables, amps, pedals, etc. available to use and it's up to them/us to put everything together and make a sound that evokes that devil inside (or some other feeling of satisfaction). Go play and listen to as much music as possible to teach your ears how active pickups sound versus passive ones, solid state amps versus tube amps, Yamaha Electric Instruments versus Mark Wood's instruments, etc, etc, etc. Only after discovering the possibilities and learning some basics about electronics can one truly "go out and get" the sound that's in one's head.
One last thing, I recommend that you check out James Sudakow post haste. He's great.
12 comments:
Hi...stumbled on this blog and it's quite nice to hear about what other amplified string players are up to!
My usual setup is an acoustic cello with a K+K big twin pickup with various pedals and a looper...I've started experimenting with running this through a tube amp and have been quite pleased with the results...especially when the loops push the amp just to the point of breakup...nice creamy distortion.
I definitely agree. There's nothing quite like tubes pushed to the edge. Do you use a guitar, bass or keyboard amp?
I've never heard of the K+K pickup before. I'm working on a post about pickups, so I'll research that one and write about it in the future.
Thanks for the comment!
Hi.Im play both passive and active pick up electric violins and i find that my distortion pedal doesnt work as well with the active as the passive.is there a reason for this?im using a marshall avt 150.i have tried connecting the pedals through the fx loop on the amp and it makes no difference....can someone help?
Hi, sorry for the late reply. I'm not sure exactly what you mean when you say that your pedal "doesn't work as well" with one instrument rather than the other, but my best guess would be that this is a gain issue. Active instruments put out larger signals (more gain, that is) than passive instruments, which would cause a distortion pedal to distort more than with a lower-gain signal, such as one coming from a passive instrument.
In my experience, getting a truly satisfying distortion sound from an electric string instrument is tricky. I'm betting that your pedal is getting pushed too hard from your electric instrument, and therefore sounds too distorted for your taste. Try either turning down the instrument's volume knob or turning down the input gain knob on your pedal.
Another trick that I just discovered is turning down the bass EQ knob. I had it turned up to get a chunkier sound, but the extra low end just ended up cluttering my sound. As soon as I got rid of it, everything sounded much better to my ear.
Another thing about distortion: the typical guitar sound that is loved by so many comes from distorting the *power tubes* of the amp, not the preamp tubes or a distortion pedal. Experiment with your amp's gain settings to try and slam the power tubes with as much signal as you can. Or, see if you can use your pedal as a gain booster, and use it to send a higher-gain, but only slightly distorted signal into your amp's distortion channel.
Hope that helps,
Dean
Prety nifty, would like to see this in person!
Hey guys, i am a guitar player and i was wondering if there are amp restrictions with active pick ups... I mean i am not gonna blow away my amp, am i??
Squier Tele with EMG-t set (active)
Marshall Avt 150 with one speaker only
Will i have problems???
No, there are no amp restrictions with active pickups. In fact, your EMGs will send a nice, high-gain signal to your Marshall helping your tone.
Thanks Dean Capper!! it was really bugging me!!
This informative post has the potent to give precise info about this string instruments that have positive effect on music. Electric Cello is also one of the best musical instrument which can bring your music in perfect rhythm.
I use a Fender Blues Junior with BillM mods, some smoother tubes, and a Cannabis Rex speaker. Unbelievably great sound.
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