I had gotten the Blacktop Telecaster because the humbucker pickups, particularly the neck pickup, gave it a good clean round ‘O’ sound, much like the thin single pole pickups in the Jazzmaster. Well, I already have a Jazzmaster, but the problem with the Jazzmaster is that, with a shade too much enthusiasm, you can whip the strings off the tailed bridge (the trade off for the inconvenience of a trailed bridge, is that at certain intervals the strings have a nice swelling flare, although steals a bit from sustain).
Anyway, the Humbucker Telecaster seems like a kind of best of both worlds kind of instrument – nice clean round sound from the pickups and strings that you can get rough with without scaring them off the bridge.
Anyway, I bought it and as I was leaving the Shop, the owner of the place asked me if I thought of ‘baritoning’ it. You see, he was familiar with me going from Violin to Viola (a viola is a violin that goes lower than a normal violin by one string interval), and tuning up a step on my Fender Jazz Bass, to keep the D’addario Light Flats tight (The D’addario strings were designed for 36” Scale but the Fender Bass is a tad shorter and so taking the strings up a notch would simply keep all things more or less even). Oh, and with guitar he knew I was going from the traditional E, A, D, G, B, E tuning to E, A, D, G, C, F, that is, to keep the strings at Perfect Fourth (5 step) intervals (they only tune up the B and E strings to make chording easier for short fingers… no other reason). Anyway, the shop owner had every reason to suspect that I might try some tuning change with this new telecaster, and was simply curious about it. Well, actually, I hadn’t thought ahead that far, but it gave me the idea.
Yes, they do have ‘Real’ baritone guitars – acoustics that are built on a longer scale, because, well, with acoustic guitars it is the actual physical dimensions that resonate with and support the sound of the strings. But with electric guitars and their pickups, physical dimensions are no longer so essential.
But converting the Telecaster to Baritone would require an extra big fat string that I could tune down to B. I looked around and found that D’addario makes a set of strings for 7 String guitars – “Jazz Light/ 7-String”, ECG24-7. They were all a bit fatter than what I am used to (D’addario super light Flats), but, checking with D’addario’s String Tension Chart, they would be usable, even with me tuning up the last two skinny strings, to preserve the perfect fourth (five step) intervals. So I ordered some strings. I actually ordered two sets, from different suppliers, Wiener Music, through Amazon, and Just Strings, hoping that one would come before the other. Wiener Music won. I’m still waiting for the Just Strings set to come through, but they did email me with an apology, as there had been some kind of delay.
Oh, with using a much fatter string in the old Fat E position, and using larger strings in every position, really, I would need to enlarge the groves in the Nut up at the top of the neck. So I bought one of those Nail Files with crushed industrial diamonds… which look a lot like sand.
Meanwhile, I played the ordinary tuning, for me (E A D G C F) for a week. I even had an All Nighter Practice to get acquainted with the new instrument and its new sound.
When the strings came in, I got out my Jewelers Loupe and worked the Nut with the fingernail file until the notch sizes seemed suitable for the new fits. The new strings went on without event. The strings were a bit stretchy and required a lot of retuning between songs, but only for the first evening. They settled in after a day.
Oh, the intonation was effected. But Intonation adjusts on this Telecaster are easy – just detune the strings until you can push back the bridge block with your finger, and then just take up the slack by tightening up the screw that goes through the spring. It took a lot of adjustment… more than a quarter of an inch… the Fat B String going back almost to the ‘wall’, but alls well that ends well. I suppose the intonation adjustment was necessary because I went to higher tension strings, and not so much because they were simply fatter strings.
The ‘Bulldog’ Telecaster sounds great. Sacrificing the high E string for the low B seems like a wonderful trade-off. Just like going from violin to viola, or from a 4 String Bass to a 5 String. One loves going lower but, in the case of the Viola and Bulldog Baritone Guitar, doesn’t miss the shorted higher reach at all… to go high you can just work down the neck a bit further than usual.
Its funny, the strange phenomena whereby one gets used to an instrument’s range. When I was still playing an old 4 String Precision Bass, I wondered why anybody would ever need a 5 String, as it seemed every song could be done without going up past the nut of the 4 String’s E String. I thought the same about my violin’s G string. I play by ear, and so apparently the first thing my brain does is organize riffs and arrangements according to available range. But after five minutes with the new Range, one wonders what one ever used to do without it.
When I first got my 5 String Jazz Bass, I read on line some guy that was saying that the “common mistake” new 5 String owners make is that they play their new Fat String too much. Well, that’s not really a mistake, is it? For instance, if you have an old dog who has been kept in the back yard its whole life, and then you decide to add the side yard to his enclosure, well, where do you suppose the dog will go at its first opportunity? Of course it will sniff out its new territory. So spending a lot of time, at first, in one’s new Range is not such an odd thing for an old musical dog.
Friday, December 31, 2010
Sunday, December 26, 2010
Music Practice, a Poem
At first you are thinking about the Instrument, and you are listening closely, but after about 20 minutes or so you are warmed up, and you trust your playing, and instead of standing over your playing like a slave-master, you let go and just listen to what the Angels of your Higher Mind and Right Hand and Left Hand are playing for you.
The competent playing is reassuring. And so you let yourself think, you let yourself go. Your Mind drifts. You think about memories. You might even come back a little bit to think about left hand and right hand stuff, and your hands seem to take the suggestions…and then your mind wanders again. A wandering mind is like a dream.
Or it’s like being High. When you are High you think the thoughts you think are the most important thoughts that have ever been ‘thunk’, but a moment later you forget what you had been thinking about – you only remember that you had seen the Face of God, but forget what He looked like.
Music Practice is much the same. Hands flying free playing the songs of Angels, one thinks the highest possible thoughts, and you even think that you will remember to call friends, write to friends, and share these Divine Revelations that you had received during Music Practice…
But Music Practice ends. You have to cook dinner, or whatever, and all you remember was, well, it was one heck of a great music practice… it is like you know you had one heck of a wonderful dream, but just don’t remember the details. You know you had seen the Face of God, but just forget what He looks like.
The competent playing is reassuring. And so you let yourself think, you let yourself go. Your Mind drifts. You think about memories. You might even come back a little bit to think about left hand and right hand stuff, and your hands seem to take the suggestions…and then your mind wanders again. A wandering mind is like a dream.
Or it’s like being High. When you are High you think the thoughts you think are the most important thoughts that have ever been ‘thunk’, but a moment later you forget what you had been thinking about – you only remember that you had seen the Face of God, but forget what He looked like.
Music Practice is much the same. Hands flying free playing the songs of Angels, one thinks the highest possible thoughts, and you even think that you will remember to call friends, write to friends, and share these Divine Revelations that you had received during Music Practice…
But Music Practice ends. You have to cook dinner, or whatever, and all you remember was, well, it was one heck of a great music practice… it is like you know you had one heck of a wonderful dream, but just don’t remember the details. You know you had seen the Face of God, but just forget what He looks like.
Friday, December 24, 2010
Fender Needs a Premium Electric Violin
The FV1, an old thing which they still sell I believe, looks terrible. The FV3 is a gorgeous Violin, apparently made in a Chinese Furniture Factory which accounts for why it looks so much like a lacquer coffee table, but apparently the design calls for the bridge crushing down on top of the piezoelectric-pickup that lays under it in the bridge well. My FV3 had to go in for repair after less than a month. And the wood of the head and the pegs are incompatible – the hard wood of the head squeezes down and polishes the pegs smooth so that they begin to slip. Every few weeks one has to unstring the violin and sand paper the pegs so that they will grip again. I suppose one would have to experiment with light glues or bee honey, or whatever would keep the peg tuners from slipping.
And the tone of the FV3, while superior to most entry level electric violins, doesn’t come close to the pretty sound that such violins as the NS Design CR4 can make. Oh, don’t confuse the CR4 premium series with the NS Design WAV Series, which don’t sound any better themselves than the FV3, but at least they stay in tune and their pickups don’t drop dead or die out.
Anyway, the FV3 has now been around for years. I suppose it once made sense for Fender to test the Electric Violin Market, but what sense does it make to test that Market with a noticeably inferior product? … Well, inferior when compared to the Quality and Value end of the market, when price point goes much above the ‘entry level’ level.
And we are talking about Fender!? Why is Fender, of all companies, splashing around at the shallow end of the Pool, so to speak?
Fender, while not being the priciest vendor in the Guitar Market, they have always been known for a certain basic quality… and the FV3, if it wasn’t before, in a less developed Market, it is now not up to those same quality standards that we would expect of them. Such a product line, left unimproved, could only hurt them.
And who is their competition? NS Design is selling their CR4 and CR5 Series Violins and Violas at $2000+. Well, Fender is able to put out almost their finest quality guitars and basses for that price… signature editions going for only a little a bit more. We’re talking about extremely high quality product! So certainly, violins and violas are well within their engineering parameters for producing a BETTER violin than NS Design, and which they could sell for $1800, cutting the market out from under NS Design (or forcing NS Design to a more realistic price points for their relatively simple ‘blocks of wood’).
What would a New Fender Electric Violin look like? Well, it would look like a Fender. Forget the traditional Violin Head with its slipping Pegs. Use a Fender Style Head, with all the geared metal guitar style tuners on the same side and with that distinctive tilt. They could use the tuners from any Telecaster Guitar… I measured… they would work just fine. It is difficult to beat the NS Design string setup and tuners… strings on an NS Design can be whipped in and out in mere seconds, and tuning stays rock solid for just about forever… as long as one is using stable steel and chrome steel strings. But tuning holes and guitar style tuners are easy enough to deal with, and everybody is already used to them. The NS Design string setup might be inherently better, but not $500 better. And the guitar style tuners have a ‘look’… a penache… where the NS Design strings system, is, well, invisible.
Now, violin shape. Remember that traditional violins have a particular shape in order to develop a pleasing audible tone. But whatever the shape of the violin, in whatever ways it sticks out on the sides, it gets in the way of the bow… that is why they dig those indents into the sides of the traditional violins, so that the bow can come down to the sides unobstructed. But the traditional violin only offered a few inches of freedom, when really, in a perfectly free Electronic World, the violin should remain narrow all the way up its neck, so that the bow can be used, well, anywhere up and down the neck. But that would basically be a head with tuners on a neck that would go down to the bridge… basically a stick with strings. It would be fairly ugly, just as many of the better electric violins today are monstrously ugly. Again the NS Design has hit a fairly good compromise between bow friendly narrowness of body and aesthetic good looks… using some old European lute shape to give the violin some hint of character and a moderately pleasing line. Fender could try the about same thing, fleshing out a narrow body, but with a more contemporary line, using round and rolling lines where NS Design used primarily straight lines and flat edges.
Next we get to the Chin Rest and Shoulder Rest problems, and this is where Tradition haunts us with so much that is simply inconvenient nowadays. Traditionally one held a violin steady by clamping it down with ones chin against one’s shoulder. Chin rests were invented to conform comfortably to the chin, and shoulder rests were invented to conform comfortably to the shoulder. And it all works well with feather-light traditional acoustical violins… they don’t weigh anything and they are therefore easy to support in this bazaar but traditional manner. But Electric Violins are heavier, which makes the old chin and shoulder rest solutions problematic but which suggest newer and better means of stabilizing the violin for playing. Why not just collar the violin closely around the neck and play it a bit more in front instead of exactly over the shoulder, which I always felt to be uncomfortable anyway.
I played the FV3 without its stupid shoulder rest (designed to fall off anytime it was not planted firmly on a shoulder) using a choker collar tied to the tailpiece strap to keep it close to my throat and never needed to bring my chin down on the chin rest.
The NS Design has its Shoulder Rest, with its awkward bend made to go over the shoulder, but if one swings it down to be used to support the violin on one’s chest, then the shoulder curve has a bit of an unpleasant stab behind it. But as a general principle, a violin supported by a neck choker would benefit by some under-support on the chest to keep it at a flat angle or at whatever a player’s preferred angle happens to be. The FV3 was broad enough in its base so that it held itself flat almost automatically and so no under-support was really needed. So maybe if the violin is designed to have something of a broad base, no under-support is necessary at all. Also, a broad base would add to stability weight, but since the center of gravity is so close to the point of support on the choke collar around the neck, any extra weight would not be noticed by the left hand which could remain busy with the business of playing the strings and not having to hold the violin in proper position.
I’d like to be able to simply do away with Chin Rests. While the Shoulder Rest of the NS Designs can be useful, the Chin Rest simply gets in the way and starts stabbing me in the neck and throat. I had to use the Chin Rest just to keep it in one safe place where it wasn’t always trying to kill me. I finally ended up wrapping it in some ugly foam padding so I could go back to ignoring it altogether.
I thought of the Violin Choke Collar and therefore I have it patent pending, but I am so found of Fender Company, having a few of their guitar and bass models, that I would sell them license rights to the Violin Choker for a virtual song. Oh, another advantage of the Violin Choker, is that when the violin is not being played, one can simply let it drop down on one’s chest. Violins and even Violas are relatively small, and one can go about one’s business with hands free. The NS Design is a but more cumbersome, with its large shoulder rest contraption, but even all of that is not much when it is lying flat on one’s chest. I do sound studio work, and even go to the kitchen to make a sandwich, all with a violin hanging around my neck. While performing, one can break off from playing and sing a verse or two into a microphone, hands free (well, except for the bow), but immediately begin playing violin again, because one never really put the violin down.
Oh, and there is a more basic thing about Electric Violins. Everybody is using Piezoelectric Pickups or little microphones as the heart and soul of the Electric Violin electronics. Ostensively they don’t use the same kind of coil pickups that electric guitars use because some violinists still want to use ancient style cat gut or the more modern synthetic strings wrapped in aluminum, neither of which have enough feral magnetic content that they would be ‘picked up’ by a coil pickup. But nowadays most Electric Violin Players use steel strings, because of their superior tune stability and durability. And durability is no small thing. The Aluminum Windings on synthetic core strings is delicate, brittle… I heard it compared to butterfly wings in regards to its fragility. I’ve had sets of strings that did not last a week of even mellow Rock and Roll practice. Barry Manilow is too rough for an aluminum wrapped core string! Also, aluminum, even with flat windings, is NOT smooth… the molecular structure of aluminum is coarse and grabby and prevents a good finger slide, even when oiled! Whereas steel strings and chrome steel wound strings are slippery smooth and durable.
So, if steel strings are so good for electric violins, why aren’t we using coil pickups for violin. Remember, with a narrow body design, the bowing can be accomplished either over the pickups after the fingerboard runs out, or the bowing can be done over the fingerboard itself. There can be two sets of pickups… just like on the guitars – a neck pickup and a bridge pickup.
Oh, and sooner or later somebody has to figure out how to make an affordable laser pickup for strings. If they can shine a laser on a window pane of glass and use it as a spy microphone, then certainly laser reflections off a string a fraction of an inch away can be detected for audio tones. But electronic coils might be the least expensive way to go for still some time, although with technology getting cheaper and cheaper, soon it might be less expensive to produce a cheap little LED laser pickup and it logic chip than to wind an expensive magnet with expensive copper wires.
Anyway, I suppose we are all looking forward to seeing a good Fender Electric Violin in the foreseeable future… even fans of the NS Design Violins and the other brands out there who have their price point up above $2000.
And the tone of the FV3, while superior to most entry level electric violins, doesn’t come close to the pretty sound that such violins as the NS Design CR4 can make. Oh, don’t confuse the CR4 premium series with the NS Design WAV Series, which don’t sound any better themselves than the FV3, but at least they stay in tune and their pickups don’t drop dead or die out.
Anyway, the FV3 has now been around for years. I suppose it once made sense for Fender to test the Electric Violin Market, but what sense does it make to test that Market with a noticeably inferior product? … Well, inferior when compared to the Quality and Value end of the market, when price point goes much above the ‘entry level’ level.
And we are talking about Fender!? Why is Fender, of all companies, splashing around at the shallow end of the Pool, so to speak?
Fender, while not being the priciest vendor in the Guitar Market, they have always been known for a certain basic quality… and the FV3, if it wasn’t before, in a less developed Market, it is now not up to those same quality standards that we would expect of them. Such a product line, left unimproved, could only hurt them.
And who is their competition? NS Design is selling their CR4 and CR5 Series Violins and Violas at $2000+. Well, Fender is able to put out almost their finest quality guitars and basses for that price… signature editions going for only a little a bit more. We’re talking about extremely high quality product! So certainly, violins and violas are well within their engineering parameters for producing a BETTER violin than NS Design, and which they could sell for $1800, cutting the market out from under NS Design (or forcing NS Design to a more realistic price points for their relatively simple ‘blocks of wood’).
What would a New Fender Electric Violin look like? Well, it would look like a Fender. Forget the traditional Violin Head with its slipping Pegs. Use a Fender Style Head, with all the geared metal guitar style tuners on the same side and with that distinctive tilt. They could use the tuners from any Telecaster Guitar… I measured… they would work just fine. It is difficult to beat the NS Design string setup and tuners… strings on an NS Design can be whipped in and out in mere seconds, and tuning stays rock solid for just about forever… as long as one is using stable steel and chrome steel strings. But tuning holes and guitar style tuners are easy enough to deal with, and everybody is already used to them. The NS Design string setup might be inherently better, but not $500 better. And the guitar style tuners have a ‘look’… a penache… where the NS Design strings system, is, well, invisible.
Now, violin shape. Remember that traditional violins have a particular shape in order to develop a pleasing audible tone. But whatever the shape of the violin, in whatever ways it sticks out on the sides, it gets in the way of the bow… that is why they dig those indents into the sides of the traditional violins, so that the bow can come down to the sides unobstructed. But the traditional violin only offered a few inches of freedom, when really, in a perfectly free Electronic World, the violin should remain narrow all the way up its neck, so that the bow can be used, well, anywhere up and down the neck. But that would basically be a head with tuners on a neck that would go down to the bridge… basically a stick with strings. It would be fairly ugly, just as many of the better electric violins today are monstrously ugly. Again the NS Design has hit a fairly good compromise between bow friendly narrowness of body and aesthetic good looks… using some old European lute shape to give the violin some hint of character and a moderately pleasing line. Fender could try the about same thing, fleshing out a narrow body, but with a more contemporary line, using round and rolling lines where NS Design used primarily straight lines and flat edges.
Next we get to the Chin Rest and Shoulder Rest problems, and this is where Tradition haunts us with so much that is simply inconvenient nowadays. Traditionally one held a violin steady by clamping it down with ones chin against one’s shoulder. Chin rests were invented to conform comfortably to the chin, and shoulder rests were invented to conform comfortably to the shoulder. And it all works well with feather-light traditional acoustical violins… they don’t weigh anything and they are therefore easy to support in this bazaar but traditional manner. But Electric Violins are heavier, which makes the old chin and shoulder rest solutions problematic but which suggest newer and better means of stabilizing the violin for playing. Why not just collar the violin closely around the neck and play it a bit more in front instead of exactly over the shoulder, which I always felt to be uncomfortable anyway.
I played the FV3 without its stupid shoulder rest (designed to fall off anytime it was not planted firmly on a shoulder) using a choker collar tied to the tailpiece strap to keep it close to my throat and never needed to bring my chin down on the chin rest.
The NS Design has its Shoulder Rest, with its awkward bend made to go over the shoulder, but if one swings it down to be used to support the violin on one’s chest, then the shoulder curve has a bit of an unpleasant stab behind it. But as a general principle, a violin supported by a neck choker would benefit by some under-support on the chest to keep it at a flat angle or at whatever a player’s preferred angle happens to be. The FV3 was broad enough in its base so that it held itself flat almost automatically and so no under-support was really needed. So maybe if the violin is designed to have something of a broad base, no under-support is necessary at all. Also, a broad base would add to stability weight, but since the center of gravity is so close to the point of support on the choke collar around the neck, any extra weight would not be noticed by the left hand which could remain busy with the business of playing the strings and not having to hold the violin in proper position.
I’d like to be able to simply do away with Chin Rests. While the Shoulder Rest of the NS Designs can be useful, the Chin Rest simply gets in the way and starts stabbing me in the neck and throat. I had to use the Chin Rest just to keep it in one safe place where it wasn’t always trying to kill me. I finally ended up wrapping it in some ugly foam padding so I could go back to ignoring it altogether.
I thought of the Violin Choke Collar and therefore I have it patent pending, but I am so found of Fender Company, having a few of their guitar and bass models, that I would sell them license rights to the Violin Choker for a virtual song. Oh, another advantage of the Violin Choker, is that when the violin is not being played, one can simply let it drop down on one’s chest. Violins and even Violas are relatively small, and one can go about one’s business with hands free. The NS Design is a but more cumbersome, with its large shoulder rest contraption, but even all of that is not much when it is lying flat on one’s chest. I do sound studio work, and even go to the kitchen to make a sandwich, all with a violin hanging around my neck. While performing, one can break off from playing and sing a verse or two into a microphone, hands free (well, except for the bow), but immediately begin playing violin again, because one never really put the violin down.
Oh, and there is a more basic thing about Electric Violins. Everybody is using Piezoelectric Pickups or little microphones as the heart and soul of the Electric Violin electronics. Ostensively they don’t use the same kind of coil pickups that electric guitars use because some violinists still want to use ancient style cat gut or the more modern synthetic strings wrapped in aluminum, neither of which have enough feral magnetic content that they would be ‘picked up’ by a coil pickup. But nowadays most Electric Violin Players use steel strings, because of their superior tune stability and durability. And durability is no small thing. The Aluminum Windings on synthetic core strings is delicate, brittle… I heard it compared to butterfly wings in regards to its fragility. I’ve had sets of strings that did not last a week of even mellow Rock and Roll practice. Barry Manilow is too rough for an aluminum wrapped core string! Also, aluminum, even with flat windings, is NOT smooth… the molecular structure of aluminum is coarse and grabby and prevents a good finger slide, even when oiled! Whereas steel strings and chrome steel wound strings are slippery smooth and durable.
So, if steel strings are so good for electric violins, why aren’t we using coil pickups for violin. Remember, with a narrow body design, the bowing can be accomplished either over the pickups after the fingerboard runs out, or the bowing can be done over the fingerboard itself. There can be two sets of pickups… just like on the guitars – a neck pickup and a bridge pickup.
Oh, and sooner or later somebody has to figure out how to make an affordable laser pickup for strings. If they can shine a laser on a window pane of glass and use it as a spy microphone, then certainly laser reflections off a string a fraction of an inch away can be detected for audio tones. But electronic coils might be the least expensive way to go for still some time, although with technology getting cheaper and cheaper, soon it might be less expensive to produce a cheap little LED laser pickup and it logic chip than to wind an expensive magnet with expensive copper wires.
Anyway, I suppose we are all looking forward to seeing a good Fender Electric Violin in the foreseeable future… even fans of the NS Design Violins and the other brands out there who have their price point up above $2000.
Sunday, December 12, 2010
Wood Brand Viper Electric Violins
Firstly, since these strange things use guitar tuning, 5 steps between strings instead of the violin families traditional 7 steps between strings, are they really to be considered as being in the violin family at all or are they simply exotic guitars, meant to be bowed instead of picked it?
And these Vipers have frets. With violins, which are fretless of course, the violin player warms up for a few minutes and then knows where all the strings are and can land his notes with absolute precision. Besides, the strings don’t change from day to day, and the Notes are always in the same place as they were before. There should be no trouble finding them again after one has done just a little bit of violin practice. So why would anybody need frets? Well, frets are for guitar players who have never learned to listen to what they are doing. They play the chords that they have learned – chords they find in books, or chords their friends teach them. So without frets – designated places to preposition their fingers – well, they’re completely lost on the violin.
So the Vipers are NOT violins at all – they are guitars sold with bows instead of picks. The Guitar Players who buy them can hope to simply do their usual chording and try to get away with it, along with co-opting the credit for having learned to play the violin, which they haven’t done at all… they’re still just memorizing chords and applying the same old fingering charts. These transplanted Guitar Players don’t deserve to use a Bow. A bow is for Violin Players… that is, musicians who hear what they play and can play what they hear… without having to consult some chart or other.
Oh, and the practical problem arises of what the heck do you do when you break a string on one of these Vipers. These Exotic ‘Violins’ have no support and infrastructure behind them. Even on the Websites that sell these monstrosities, there is no a mention at all of Strings – brand names, types, costs, venders… nothing. I guess if you ever break a sting you need to buy a whole new Viper.
Oh, and there is the Number of Strings thing. You know, more strings is not necessarily better. On the traditional violins, violas, cellos, etc. with their four strings, there is plenty of arc on the bridge between strings, meaning that with just a bit of bow control, the violinist, can easily play on just a single string at a time… to feel out a new song and work out a melody. But if you add strings to the limited curve of the bridge, then the degree of arc between the strings is greatly reduced – flattened – meaning that it is extremely difficult for the bow not to scrub more than one string at a time. In real world playing sometimes single notes need to be struck and held, or used in melodic transitions and riffs. But with the overcrowded bridge of the Viper, with six and seven strings, instead of the optimum four, well, with any pressure on the bow, no single string between any two others can be rung without accidentally buzzing the one or the other on either side. These Vipers must sound sloppy as hell, when they are played like real violins.
And these Vipers have frets. With violins, which are fretless of course, the violin player warms up for a few minutes and then knows where all the strings are and can land his notes with absolute precision. Besides, the strings don’t change from day to day, and the Notes are always in the same place as they were before. There should be no trouble finding them again after one has done just a little bit of violin practice. So why would anybody need frets? Well, frets are for guitar players who have never learned to listen to what they are doing. They play the chords that they have learned – chords they find in books, or chords their friends teach them. So without frets – designated places to preposition their fingers – well, they’re completely lost on the violin.
So the Vipers are NOT violins at all – they are guitars sold with bows instead of picks. The Guitar Players who buy them can hope to simply do their usual chording and try to get away with it, along with co-opting the credit for having learned to play the violin, which they haven’t done at all… they’re still just memorizing chords and applying the same old fingering charts. These transplanted Guitar Players don’t deserve to use a Bow. A bow is for Violin Players… that is, musicians who hear what they play and can play what they hear… without having to consult some chart or other.
Oh, and the practical problem arises of what the heck do you do when you break a string on one of these Vipers. These Exotic ‘Violins’ have no support and infrastructure behind them. Even on the Websites that sell these monstrosities, there is no a mention at all of Strings – brand names, types, costs, venders… nothing. I guess if you ever break a sting you need to buy a whole new Viper.
Oh, and there is the Number of Strings thing. You know, more strings is not necessarily better. On the traditional violins, violas, cellos, etc. with their four strings, there is plenty of arc on the bridge between strings, meaning that with just a bit of bow control, the violinist, can easily play on just a single string at a time… to feel out a new song and work out a melody. But if you add strings to the limited curve of the bridge, then the degree of arc between the strings is greatly reduced – flattened – meaning that it is extremely difficult for the bow not to scrub more than one string at a time. In real world playing sometimes single notes need to be struck and held, or used in melodic transitions and riffs. But with the overcrowded bridge of the Viper, with six and seven strings, instead of the optimum four, well, with any pressure on the bow, no single string between any two others can be rung without accidentally buzzing the one or the other on either side. These Vipers must sound sloppy as hell, when they are played like real violins.
Saturday, December 11, 2010
Three Changes for Civilization
(forgive me until I have time to edit this raw essay)
Actually the Modern World, that is, the World we know today, is not Civilized. Yes, there are laws and armies, jails and schools, roads and utilities; but the truth of the matter is that the Barbarians who run everything have just implemented enough quasi-civilized institutions and policies to suit their own needs, but that nothing about it is planned or sustainable when the entire World is taken into account. And if a Civilization is not sustainable, well, then its not really a Civilization, is it?
Our biggest clue is the barbaric economic policies. Globalization is mostly about competition between Growth Based Business Plans, on all of the continental, national and corporate scales. As I have pointed out in previous essays, the Capitalists, according to their most core principals, do not pay out to their workers nearly enough Money to buy what they produce, so every Capitalist Economy is necessarily Export Driven -- if you do not pay your own people enough to buy your Product, then you need to raid other Economies for its Customers and Consumers. Now, consider, if the World becomes One Global Economy, then there is nowhere left to export… unless one discovers Consumers on Mars or on the Moon. Therefore the least competitive economies are going to wither and die, one by one. This would serve them right, but I doubt that the weakest economies, also being the Strongest in regards to Military Power and Nuclear Armament, will go off and die quietly and peacefully.
Another problem with Growth Based Capitalism is that growth, in any venue, will eventually hit a saturation point. We live on a finite planet with finite resources. We can grow until we hit the Ceiling, but then what?
Look at the most resent Recession that still grips the World. The Propagandists all claim that it began with the Real Estate Mortgage Crisis in America, and this line of argument insulates from criticism the basic cause which was Growth Based Economics. You see, the first Cause of the mortgage crisis was that people could not pay their mortgages, and they could not pay their mortgages because Food and Fuel prices had skyrocketed – it was a Commodities Shortage Crisis! How soon everyone forgets, but remember the news stories about grain prices doubling and tripling because Grain Alcohol, which they called ‘Bio-Fuel’, was the New Oil and therefore locked in Price to the rising price of Petroleum.
The high price of premium Real Estate, that is, properties conveniently located where people actually work, forced most people to buy homes at great distances from where they worked, and shopped. And still these homes out in the middle of nowhere were still just barely affordable for Working Class People. So when the price of Gas and Food went up, people had to chose between driving to work, eating food, or paying their mortgages. A Crisis was inevitable.
Nowadays, we hear even President Obama talking of “Growing our Economy out of the Recession”. Really!? But if we were to recover from the Recession, well, wouldn’t we be exactly were we were before? We would fall immediately back into the Commodities Crisis – a severe Inflation which would pinch the Working Class back into either not paying for their homes, or buying Consumer Goods.
In short, the only thing keeping us out of Recession is the Recession we are already in.
And the Commodities Shortage Crisis will only get worse. India and China with their huge populations, dwarfing the American and European demographic numbers, are growing at a rate of almost 10% a year. Workers in India and China who were riding a bicycle 20 years ago, who rode a scooter 10 years ago, are now driving cars. They eat meat. They are beginning to buy consumer goods.
America’s answer is to have these Growing Economies appreciate their currencies, so that their money will be worth more. Duh!? If their money is worth more, they will be able to buy more of the stuff that is available on the Global Markets, and the Declining Economies will have to go through severe inflations in order to try to keep up. In plain terms this means that if the Chinese and Indian Currencies double in value, Gas in America will go up to $20 a gallon, Bread will be $20 a loaf, and the Economy will collapse and Law and Order will be a nostalgic memory from the past.
The Argument for devalued currency, which America wants for itself, is that if the American Worker could be paid Less Value for his productivity, then there would be more Export Customers. It’s a fine theory, but everybody forgets that America had effectively De-Industrialized. The Engineers and Skilled Workers of the Great Post-War Era are all in retirement. And the Universities aren’t turning out new Engineers. Everybody had gone into Business and Finance… the easy money where one didn’t actually have to learn anything or really study very hard. The Roads and Rails have fallen apart. America needs to face the fact that it is no longer an Industrial Nation, or even capable of being one any longer.
The problem of Skilled Labor is indeed a real problem, and one that can not be fixed by any Modern Democracy. You see, something of a Privately Confidential Report was issued by one of the Right Wing Think Tanks, and it correlated Low Education with Right Wing Voting Patterns, and likewise correlated Moderate and Liberal Voting Patterns with Higher Education. Therefore, one can immediately discern that in all of the World’s Democratic Nation, Every Right Wing Politician will be busy sabotaging Education. It is obvious in America. And without an Educated Workforce, their can be no serious Industrialization, or indeed anything of an intelligent and productive Economy.
So America’s devaluing their Currency will only give the Chinese more for what they produce without really furnishing any means for the Americans to jump in and fill in the capacity gap created by higher Chinese prices.
Maybe the American Working Class needs to promise the Right Wing that in exchange for adequate Educational Resources, that they will vote like absolute Fascists and Nazis. Sarah Palin will beam with delight. But as long as College Educated and Skilled Labor vote Democratic, Education will be under a blight in America. If you are smart enough to vote Right Wing, which is pretty basically stupid, then that’s as smart as you need to be… according to our present set of Policy Makers.
Another thing we need to consider is Global Warming. The Wild Cancer of Growth Capitalism has created this situation where the Planet is now obviously burning out and going into a phase of instability. More Growth is clearly not the answer.
What needs to happen is that we slow down Growth and concentrate only on the Essentials. So much could be saved. Capitalist Competition duplicates almost every effort a hundred times. We do not need the duplication of hundreds of Corporate Staffs, hundreds of Factories working at a fraction of their capacity. Concentrate Production.
What about all the Workers who will be fired. Well, simply give them Free Money for Obeying the Walls and keeping up with their Education so that they will be useful when and if they are called back to Employment.
Really, if Modern Technology and Automation does not NEED everybody to work, then why is everybody still expected to scratch and claw out a Job?
And we have to consider that the most costly and wasteful aspect of this Growth Capitalist Model for Social Economy is that forcing Everybody to get jobs also forced Everybody to drive back and forth to work, everyday.
Look at what saved us from the last Commodities Crisis. Just 10% Unemployment, that is with just 10% of the people staying home from Work, relaxed the extreme demand on Gas Prices (and Bio-Fuel prices that linked directly to Food Prices).
So the answer is not More Work, but Less Work… but to still provide a rewarding income for those who obey the rules and do what they had been taught to do.
Another aspect in this category of Unnecessary Work is the Criminal Justice System. The Lawyers and Judges have learned to treat Repeat Offenders like Return Customers. The Lawyers and the Judges cannot remain in charge of their own Funding… they demand more each year and give back less and less for it. We can reduce much of the expense in the Criminal Justice System simply by executing criminals proven to have set up a career in Crime. And no costly appeals. Proof is proof. Hang them the next morning the way it used to be done.
Of course, in years to come, when Civilization again hits a comfortable patch of Stability, then one can look into Rehabilitation Programs for Professional Criminals. I would expect Good Peer Group Immersion Therapy to work the best. You see, ordinary stupid people are influenced more by their Group than by any other factor. Put these Followers in with good people and they will become Good People themselves. One only has to look at the Mix and Proportion. The Good People of the Group must be by far the greatest influence. Too many Bad People in the mix and one will only have Sub-Groups developing. Anyway, let the Psychologists work out the fine details. But in any case, while our Society is heavily burdened by Crime, it probably makes as much sense to summarily execute Criminals as it is to summarily execute the people we label as ‘Terrorists’… and perhaps even more, as when was the last time we had a car stolen, our house burgled, or were mugged by a ‘terrorist’?
Without Repeat Crime, and certainly less living Criminals, the requirements for so many Prisons and Jails will decline. You know, now, in America there are more Prison Guards than School Teachers, and because they have a more effective Union, they even make more money. A ‘Dumb Screw’ makes as much as a High School Science Teacher. These Guards are the first we would want to be put on Simple Pay. The Job of Guard is more than any other De-humanizing. Nice People do not stay Nice People and continue working as Prison Guards. The Mean Streak comes out more and more.
There is another Change that should be made, and this is perhaps the most profound. Organizing Society around the Nuclear Family – Mom and Dad and the Children – in isolation; well, its been a disaster. You know, it has never always been like that. What is more typical is the Extended Family, where Grandfather and Grandmother could oversee the less experienced parents, and show a more benevolent kind of Love, and where Aunts and Uncles could show a broader view of the World’s Opportunities than just Mom and Dad. And perhaps even better than the Extended Family is the Clan or even a Tribe-like Organization.
I’ve read that the optimum number in a close Social Organization of from about 100 to 150 people… after that you start seeing the Group break down into competing Sub-Groups. This would largely eliminate the occurrence of so many dysfunctional families. Yes, there could be dysfunctional Groups, but with careful administrative oversight, transfers in and out could keep a good enough balance of good people in every group.
Of course, no change is possible while we still live under the tyranny of Democracy, where Special Interest nominate nearly every candidate and sponsor their campaigns. Just because we get to Vote on the small offerings given us by the Israel, Gun and Banking Lobbies doesn’t mean that we have True Representative Government. And even with the Voting, in most modern Elections close to 49% of the Voters actually LOSE, that is, they are completely disenfranchised and the New Rulers become their sworn enemies. Democracy can be vicious.
It would be so much better if we threw over Democracy and adopted some form of Professional Government Bureaucratic Meritocracy. Kids go to school and if they want to serve in Government, they take the Test, which decides the Upper Limits of their Service Capacity. No Special Interest Influence at all. Indeed, one of the requirements for Government Service would have to be complete transparency of their finances and property.
Government would be helpful and honest because there would be no interest in being otherwise.
Actually the Modern World, that is, the World we know today, is not Civilized. Yes, there are laws and armies, jails and schools, roads and utilities; but the truth of the matter is that the Barbarians who run everything have just implemented enough quasi-civilized institutions and policies to suit their own needs, but that nothing about it is planned or sustainable when the entire World is taken into account. And if a Civilization is not sustainable, well, then its not really a Civilization, is it?
Our biggest clue is the barbaric economic policies. Globalization is mostly about competition between Growth Based Business Plans, on all of the continental, national and corporate scales. As I have pointed out in previous essays, the Capitalists, according to their most core principals, do not pay out to their workers nearly enough Money to buy what they produce, so every Capitalist Economy is necessarily Export Driven -- if you do not pay your own people enough to buy your Product, then you need to raid other Economies for its Customers and Consumers. Now, consider, if the World becomes One Global Economy, then there is nowhere left to export… unless one discovers Consumers on Mars or on the Moon. Therefore the least competitive economies are going to wither and die, one by one. This would serve them right, but I doubt that the weakest economies, also being the Strongest in regards to Military Power and Nuclear Armament, will go off and die quietly and peacefully.
Another problem with Growth Based Capitalism is that growth, in any venue, will eventually hit a saturation point. We live on a finite planet with finite resources. We can grow until we hit the Ceiling, but then what?
Look at the most resent Recession that still grips the World. The Propagandists all claim that it began with the Real Estate Mortgage Crisis in America, and this line of argument insulates from criticism the basic cause which was Growth Based Economics. You see, the first Cause of the mortgage crisis was that people could not pay their mortgages, and they could not pay their mortgages because Food and Fuel prices had skyrocketed – it was a Commodities Shortage Crisis! How soon everyone forgets, but remember the news stories about grain prices doubling and tripling because Grain Alcohol, which they called ‘Bio-Fuel’, was the New Oil and therefore locked in Price to the rising price of Petroleum.
The high price of premium Real Estate, that is, properties conveniently located where people actually work, forced most people to buy homes at great distances from where they worked, and shopped. And still these homes out in the middle of nowhere were still just barely affordable for Working Class People. So when the price of Gas and Food went up, people had to chose between driving to work, eating food, or paying their mortgages. A Crisis was inevitable.
Nowadays, we hear even President Obama talking of “Growing our Economy out of the Recession”. Really!? But if we were to recover from the Recession, well, wouldn’t we be exactly were we were before? We would fall immediately back into the Commodities Crisis – a severe Inflation which would pinch the Working Class back into either not paying for their homes, or buying Consumer Goods.
In short, the only thing keeping us out of Recession is the Recession we are already in.
And the Commodities Shortage Crisis will only get worse. India and China with their huge populations, dwarfing the American and European demographic numbers, are growing at a rate of almost 10% a year. Workers in India and China who were riding a bicycle 20 years ago, who rode a scooter 10 years ago, are now driving cars. They eat meat. They are beginning to buy consumer goods.
America’s answer is to have these Growing Economies appreciate their currencies, so that their money will be worth more. Duh!? If their money is worth more, they will be able to buy more of the stuff that is available on the Global Markets, and the Declining Economies will have to go through severe inflations in order to try to keep up. In plain terms this means that if the Chinese and Indian Currencies double in value, Gas in America will go up to $20 a gallon, Bread will be $20 a loaf, and the Economy will collapse and Law and Order will be a nostalgic memory from the past.
The Argument for devalued currency, which America wants for itself, is that if the American Worker could be paid Less Value for his productivity, then there would be more Export Customers. It’s a fine theory, but everybody forgets that America had effectively De-Industrialized. The Engineers and Skilled Workers of the Great Post-War Era are all in retirement. And the Universities aren’t turning out new Engineers. Everybody had gone into Business and Finance… the easy money where one didn’t actually have to learn anything or really study very hard. The Roads and Rails have fallen apart. America needs to face the fact that it is no longer an Industrial Nation, or even capable of being one any longer.
The problem of Skilled Labor is indeed a real problem, and one that can not be fixed by any Modern Democracy. You see, something of a Privately Confidential Report was issued by one of the Right Wing Think Tanks, and it correlated Low Education with Right Wing Voting Patterns, and likewise correlated Moderate and Liberal Voting Patterns with Higher Education. Therefore, one can immediately discern that in all of the World’s Democratic Nation, Every Right Wing Politician will be busy sabotaging Education. It is obvious in America. And without an Educated Workforce, their can be no serious Industrialization, or indeed anything of an intelligent and productive Economy.
So America’s devaluing their Currency will only give the Chinese more for what they produce without really furnishing any means for the Americans to jump in and fill in the capacity gap created by higher Chinese prices.
Maybe the American Working Class needs to promise the Right Wing that in exchange for adequate Educational Resources, that they will vote like absolute Fascists and Nazis. Sarah Palin will beam with delight. But as long as College Educated and Skilled Labor vote Democratic, Education will be under a blight in America. If you are smart enough to vote Right Wing, which is pretty basically stupid, then that’s as smart as you need to be… according to our present set of Policy Makers.
Another thing we need to consider is Global Warming. The Wild Cancer of Growth Capitalism has created this situation where the Planet is now obviously burning out and going into a phase of instability. More Growth is clearly not the answer.
What needs to happen is that we slow down Growth and concentrate only on the Essentials. So much could be saved. Capitalist Competition duplicates almost every effort a hundred times. We do not need the duplication of hundreds of Corporate Staffs, hundreds of Factories working at a fraction of their capacity. Concentrate Production.
What about all the Workers who will be fired. Well, simply give them Free Money for Obeying the Walls and keeping up with their Education so that they will be useful when and if they are called back to Employment.
Really, if Modern Technology and Automation does not NEED everybody to work, then why is everybody still expected to scratch and claw out a Job?
And we have to consider that the most costly and wasteful aspect of this Growth Capitalist Model for Social Economy is that forcing Everybody to get jobs also forced Everybody to drive back and forth to work, everyday.
Look at what saved us from the last Commodities Crisis. Just 10% Unemployment, that is with just 10% of the people staying home from Work, relaxed the extreme demand on Gas Prices (and Bio-Fuel prices that linked directly to Food Prices).
So the answer is not More Work, but Less Work… but to still provide a rewarding income for those who obey the rules and do what they had been taught to do.
Another aspect in this category of Unnecessary Work is the Criminal Justice System. The Lawyers and Judges have learned to treat Repeat Offenders like Return Customers. The Lawyers and the Judges cannot remain in charge of their own Funding… they demand more each year and give back less and less for it. We can reduce much of the expense in the Criminal Justice System simply by executing criminals proven to have set up a career in Crime. And no costly appeals. Proof is proof. Hang them the next morning the way it used to be done.
Of course, in years to come, when Civilization again hits a comfortable patch of Stability, then one can look into Rehabilitation Programs for Professional Criminals. I would expect Good Peer Group Immersion Therapy to work the best. You see, ordinary stupid people are influenced more by their Group than by any other factor. Put these Followers in with good people and they will become Good People themselves. One only has to look at the Mix and Proportion. The Good People of the Group must be by far the greatest influence. Too many Bad People in the mix and one will only have Sub-Groups developing. Anyway, let the Psychologists work out the fine details. But in any case, while our Society is heavily burdened by Crime, it probably makes as much sense to summarily execute Criminals as it is to summarily execute the people we label as ‘Terrorists’… and perhaps even more, as when was the last time we had a car stolen, our house burgled, or were mugged by a ‘terrorist’?
Without Repeat Crime, and certainly less living Criminals, the requirements for so many Prisons and Jails will decline. You know, now, in America there are more Prison Guards than School Teachers, and because they have a more effective Union, they even make more money. A ‘Dumb Screw’ makes as much as a High School Science Teacher. These Guards are the first we would want to be put on Simple Pay. The Job of Guard is more than any other De-humanizing. Nice People do not stay Nice People and continue working as Prison Guards. The Mean Streak comes out more and more.
There is another Change that should be made, and this is perhaps the most profound. Organizing Society around the Nuclear Family – Mom and Dad and the Children – in isolation; well, its been a disaster. You know, it has never always been like that. What is more typical is the Extended Family, where Grandfather and Grandmother could oversee the less experienced parents, and show a more benevolent kind of Love, and where Aunts and Uncles could show a broader view of the World’s Opportunities than just Mom and Dad. And perhaps even better than the Extended Family is the Clan or even a Tribe-like Organization.
I’ve read that the optimum number in a close Social Organization of from about 100 to 150 people… after that you start seeing the Group break down into competing Sub-Groups. This would largely eliminate the occurrence of so many dysfunctional families. Yes, there could be dysfunctional Groups, but with careful administrative oversight, transfers in and out could keep a good enough balance of good people in every group.
Of course, no change is possible while we still live under the tyranny of Democracy, where Special Interest nominate nearly every candidate and sponsor their campaigns. Just because we get to Vote on the small offerings given us by the Israel, Gun and Banking Lobbies doesn’t mean that we have True Representative Government. And even with the Voting, in most modern Elections close to 49% of the Voters actually LOSE, that is, they are completely disenfranchised and the New Rulers become their sworn enemies. Democracy can be vicious.
It would be so much better if we threw over Democracy and adopted some form of Professional Government Bureaucratic Meritocracy. Kids go to school and if they want to serve in Government, they take the Test, which decides the Upper Limits of their Service Capacity. No Special Interest Influence at all. Indeed, one of the requirements for Government Service would have to be complete transparency of their finances and property.
Government would be helpful and honest because there would be no interest in being otherwise.
Saturday, December 4, 2010
NS Design CR4 Violin and CR4 Viola
NS Design CR4 Violin and CR4 Viola
I had been reluctant to buy such an expensive electric violin… in a world where for the same money one could get a stellar first rate premium signature edition electric guitar. Yes, the Electric Violin market is a smaller market, but still the hesitation over price seemed entirely reasonable. When the WAV 4 Chinese NS Design models came out at bargain prices, I jumped and bought one and was largely happy with it (see my Amazon Reviews of the WAV 4 and the Fender FV3 vs the NS Design WAV4).
I heard of people stringing violins for viola tuning (CGDA instead of GDAE) and was fascinated with the idea. I ordered a C string and strung it on the end of my FV3 and ran the other strings over a slot, leaving the E string off when I got to the end. I loved the viola tuning, but couldn’t find a C string that sounded quite right with the other strings. Then it occurred to me that perhaps the best way to achieve viola tuning is with a real viola.
Now, if one thought that the market for Electric Violins was small, well, the market for Violas is even more constricted. I kept returning to the NS Design, and because the CR Series describes so well in their own promotional literature, and because the On Line Reviews were so favorable, I decided to order an NS Design CR4… after a few drinks, of course.
Amazon often resorts to The Electric Violin Shop for some of these items, and so I went directly to their site. I remembered that months ago I had inquired about ordering a Bridge Electric Violin from their store and was annoyed that my particular island out on the High Seas was not included on their address drop down list… making the order impossible to conduct as per usual. I complained in their Contact Us Box and then quickly forgot about getting the Bridge Violin anyway… the pretty colored ones were all sold out, leaving only the ugly colors available, and not at reduced pricing either… full price for the ugliest things you would ever not hope to see. Anyway, you wouldn’t believe what happened! These wonderful people took my harsh suggestions to heart and fixed the addressing problem. When I went to order the NS Design CR4 Viola, there it was, my Island was on the drop down list… which was when I remembered how hard I had been on them (remember I had had a few drinks). Of course, with my order, I included a heart felt apology as well as expressions of my deepest gratitude for appreciating my business and preparing for it.
With orders of that price, the ordinary mails of the United States can not be trusted… it seems that the Ordinary Mail Service can hire thieves to work at much lower rates than honest men and women, and at the end of the day the Ordinary Postal Service doesn’t need to worry about delivering quite so much as they would if their low wage employees didn’t pick through it all at first. So The Electric Violin Shop uses premium shippers, adding almost $200 to the Order, but my CR4 arrived almost the same day, except that Thanksgiving Day intervened. The Sales Lady had included a nice little hand written note thanking me for my business and wishing me luck. I think I will be a return customer to that particular Electric Violin Shop.
I had read a CR4 Review before which spoke of an NS Design Violin arriving in tune. Well, so did mine. Plugged into my existing Electric Violin settings and sound systems, I was playing in a manner of minutes.
Oh, if you read my older Reviews, you will find that I have had problems supporting the heavier electric violins, that is, just holding them up in a position to play, and they tend to slip slide around a lot. Its all rather distracting and takes a great deal away from the Music. So I did take about 20 minutes to fashion a Violin Choker, patent pending (see my other reviews on the WAV and the Fender FV3), out of a key ring, and key ring clip, and some cotton cloths line rope and cotton string. I clip it through the NS Design Shoulder Rest bracket and it holds the Viola very closely under my chin. The Viola remains so steady, I don’t even need to use the chin rest.
The volume knob on the CR4 works well… on some instruments the resistance of the volume potentiometer seems ill selected, as not much actual volume range is covered using the instruments volume knob, and one has to make all of the big volume changes at the amplifier and processor stages.
There are two tuner controls. The first should be labeled “BETTER” and the second one labeled “WORSE”… the first does away with that harsh electric sound, and the second one heaps more of it on. Anyway, the CR4 can probably be dialed in pretty close to whatever it is you are looking for, even before outputting to whatever processors and effects units are awaiting down-line.
Fit and finish is really superb. I knew that the NS Design CR4 had active electronics and so must have had a battery, but did not immediately see where the battery access panel was, or even how to get into the string bay, as I had done with the WAV 4. But eventually the little retainer bracket moveable tab attracted my attention, and when I moved the tab off to the side, the battery and string bay cover fell right off. You know, the entire back panel and battery string cover had fit so well together, I had thought it had been one entire piece. I had actually been set to take a screwdriver to the whole thing.
The wood, body and finger board are excellent and attractive. You know, I confess to using olive oil on my fingers to speed up my fingering and make modulating the strings easier, and this is the first time ever that a new violin has not turned my finger inky black. That means that after their last staining of the fingerboard they had actually taken the time to do a fine sandpapering of the fingerboard… it was so nice and smooth. Usually I have to do that kind of fine detailing myself, but they had done it for me. Thank God, for a change.
Oh, and the strings seem fine. Usually one has to toss that the strings that come with these things, But NS Design used what sound like premium steel chrome wound strings.
I had complained of the WAV4 being stiff and inflexible… not giving much of a sense for player ‘feel’, but the CR4, at least the Viola (I haven’t played the CR4 Violin but imagine it is quite similar in all regards), seemed to have flexibility… that when using some strength and force in modulating the strings, the violin actually bends in a bit… a great perception of playability and control… a rewarding ‘feel’ to the instrument. One has to wonder how they did it… apparently the CR4’s are not the same thick blocks of wood that the WAV models are.
Now a word on Violas in general. I had heard it said that Violas, being larger, are therefore slower. Well, my Fender FV3 Violin measures from the nut to the bridge for a string length of 12 7/8 inches, while my Viola measures 14 1/4. That is not much of a difference… just ten percent. But it does seem to give me more Tonal Resolution, that is, it’s easier to land on exactly the right note sweet spots, so to speak, even if one has to move a bit further to reach them. And when one rolls one’s fingers to modulate notes, one can get in a much more vigorous wiggle without worrying so much about over-modulating. Anyway, after having played both Viola and Violin, and not to sound condescending, but the Viola seems more fit for men, while the violin seems better suited for the smaller hands of boys and girls.
Oh, and as far as trading the Violin’s high E String for the Viola’s low C String ( violins are tuned to GDAE while violas are tuned down to CGDA ), while occasionally the lilting and ethereal E string has its valued uses, particularly when clustered together with other violins in concert, still in most cases that really piercing high string is used only because it is there, and the results are shrill and often clash with the other instrumentation. Bands are often afraid of including an Electric Violin, and only because they fear those wildly high E Strings stabbing into their brains by way of the ears. The Viola, however, with that C String on the low end, can reach some real bassy lows, and one can still finger far enough down on the high end A string to suggest the musical mood and intensity of Going High without actually going so high as to be positively annoying. My feeling is that if Violas became better known, they would certainly become more popular, and would largely replace the violin everywhere but in concert venue.
I had been reluctant to buy such an expensive electric violin… in a world where for the same money one could get a stellar first rate premium signature edition electric guitar. Yes, the Electric Violin market is a smaller market, but still the hesitation over price seemed entirely reasonable. When the WAV 4 Chinese NS Design models came out at bargain prices, I jumped and bought one and was largely happy with it (see my Amazon Reviews of the WAV 4 and the Fender FV3 vs the NS Design WAV4).
I heard of people stringing violins for viola tuning (CGDA instead of GDAE) and was fascinated with the idea. I ordered a C string and strung it on the end of my FV3 and ran the other strings over a slot, leaving the E string off when I got to the end. I loved the viola tuning, but couldn’t find a C string that sounded quite right with the other strings. Then it occurred to me that perhaps the best way to achieve viola tuning is with a real viola.
Now, if one thought that the market for Electric Violins was small, well, the market for Violas is even more constricted. I kept returning to the NS Design, and because the CR Series describes so well in their own promotional literature, and because the On Line Reviews were so favorable, I decided to order an NS Design CR4… after a few drinks, of course.
Amazon often resorts to The Electric Violin Shop for some of these items, and so I went directly to their site. I remembered that months ago I had inquired about ordering a Bridge Electric Violin from their store and was annoyed that my particular island out on the High Seas was not included on their address drop down list… making the order impossible to conduct as per usual. I complained in their Contact Us Box and then quickly forgot about getting the Bridge Violin anyway… the pretty colored ones were all sold out, leaving only the ugly colors available, and not at reduced pricing either… full price for the ugliest things you would ever not hope to see. Anyway, you wouldn’t believe what happened! These wonderful people took my harsh suggestions to heart and fixed the addressing problem. When I went to order the NS Design CR4 Viola, there it was, my Island was on the drop down list… which was when I remembered how hard I had been on them (remember I had had a few drinks). Of course, with my order, I included a heart felt apology as well as expressions of my deepest gratitude for appreciating my business and preparing for it.
With orders of that price, the ordinary mails of the United States can not be trusted… it seems that the Ordinary Mail Service can hire thieves to work at much lower rates than honest men and women, and at the end of the day the Ordinary Postal Service doesn’t need to worry about delivering quite so much as they would if their low wage employees didn’t pick through it all at first. So The Electric Violin Shop uses premium shippers, adding almost $200 to the Order, but my CR4 arrived almost the same day, except that Thanksgiving Day intervened. The Sales Lady had included a nice little hand written note thanking me for my business and wishing me luck. I think I will be a return customer to that particular Electric Violin Shop.
I had read a CR4 Review before which spoke of an NS Design Violin arriving in tune. Well, so did mine. Plugged into my existing Electric Violin settings and sound systems, I was playing in a manner of minutes.
Oh, if you read my older Reviews, you will find that I have had problems supporting the heavier electric violins, that is, just holding them up in a position to play, and they tend to slip slide around a lot. Its all rather distracting and takes a great deal away from the Music. So I did take about 20 minutes to fashion a Violin Choker, patent pending (see my other reviews on the WAV and the Fender FV3), out of a key ring, and key ring clip, and some cotton cloths line rope and cotton string. I clip it through the NS Design Shoulder Rest bracket and it holds the Viola very closely under my chin. The Viola remains so steady, I don’t even need to use the chin rest.
The volume knob on the CR4 works well… on some instruments the resistance of the volume potentiometer seems ill selected, as not much actual volume range is covered using the instruments volume knob, and one has to make all of the big volume changes at the amplifier and processor stages.
There are two tuner controls. The first should be labeled “BETTER” and the second one labeled “WORSE”… the first does away with that harsh electric sound, and the second one heaps more of it on. Anyway, the CR4 can probably be dialed in pretty close to whatever it is you are looking for, even before outputting to whatever processors and effects units are awaiting down-line.
Fit and finish is really superb. I knew that the NS Design CR4 had active electronics and so must have had a battery, but did not immediately see where the battery access panel was, or even how to get into the string bay, as I had done with the WAV 4. But eventually the little retainer bracket moveable tab attracted my attention, and when I moved the tab off to the side, the battery and string bay cover fell right off. You know, the entire back panel and battery string cover had fit so well together, I had thought it had been one entire piece. I had actually been set to take a screwdriver to the whole thing.
The wood, body and finger board are excellent and attractive. You know, I confess to using olive oil on my fingers to speed up my fingering and make modulating the strings easier, and this is the first time ever that a new violin has not turned my finger inky black. That means that after their last staining of the fingerboard they had actually taken the time to do a fine sandpapering of the fingerboard… it was so nice and smooth. Usually I have to do that kind of fine detailing myself, but they had done it for me. Thank God, for a change.
Oh, and the strings seem fine. Usually one has to toss that the strings that come with these things, But NS Design used what sound like premium steel chrome wound strings.
I had complained of the WAV4 being stiff and inflexible… not giving much of a sense for player ‘feel’, but the CR4, at least the Viola (I haven’t played the CR4 Violin but imagine it is quite similar in all regards), seemed to have flexibility… that when using some strength and force in modulating the strings, the violin actually bends in a bit… a great perception of playability and control… a rewarding ‘feel’ to the instrument. One has to wonder how they did it… apparently the CR4’s are not the same thick blocks of wood that the WAV models are.
Now a word on Violas in general. I had heard it said that Violas, being larger, are therefore slower. Well, my Fender FV3 Violin measures from the nut to the bridge for a string length of 12 7/8 inches, while my Viola measures 14 1/4. That is not much of a difference… just ten percent. But it does seem to give me more Tonal Resolution, that is, it’s easier to land on exactly the right note sweet spots, so to speak, even if one has to move a bit further to reach them. And when one rolls one’s fingers to modulate notes, one can get in a much more vigorous wiggle without worrying so much about over-modulating. Anyway, after having played both Viola and Violin, and not to sound condescending, but the Viola seems more fit for men, while the violin seems better suited for the smaller hands of boys and girls.
Oh, and as far as trading the Violin’s high E String for the Viola’s low C String ( violins are tuned to GDAE while violas are tuned down to CGDA ), while occasionally the lilting and ethereal E string has its valued uses, particularly when clustered together with other violins in concert, still in most cases that really piercing high string is used only because it is there, and the results are shrill and often clash with the other instrumentation. Bands are often afraid of including an Electric Violin, and only because they fear those wildly high E Strings stabbing into their brains by way of the ears. The Viola, however, with that C String on the low end, can reach some real bassy lows, and one can still finger far enough down on the high end A string to suggest the musical mood and intensity of Going High without actually going so high as to be positively annoying. My feeling is that if Violas became better known, they would certainly become more popular, and would largely replace the violin everywhere but in concert venue.
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