Electric violins
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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 intentionally 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 String Instrument Corporation and Vega Company sold electric violins in the 1930s and 1940s; Fender produced a very small number of electric violins in 1958 (first production model pictured at the head of this page), and resissued it again in 1969 until 1975.
Barcus Berry have been producing electric violins since the mid-1960s and in the early 1970s Max Mathews began developing an electric violin which reached completion in 1984 During the 1980s more companies were formed producing their own brand of electric violin, such as RAAD or The Amazing Electric Violin and ZETA. There has been a great deal more commercial success for manufacturers of electric violins since the 1990s for both well known, established companies and new independent 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, 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.
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.
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