Electric Violins

Just built a simple FET Preamp to the violin – really makes a difference, evens out the output volumes. Pretty happy with it so far.

http://skudmunky.com/gallery3/index.php/DIY-Violin/Fet-Preamp

I finished it. Kinda. Woodwork is all done, need to make a new bridge, and of course the pickups aren’t perfect. Need to laser cut some covers and plates for the electronics as well…

I’m going to get someone to take good looking pictures sometime soon. Time to order a bridge and work on electronics!

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Just click on this to see!

Anyways the new violin is coming along great – the new neodymium magnets on the pickups get the output nice and strong, the circuitry is working nicely (gotta fix a buzz on the tone control) and everything fits together and plays well! All the blue tape on the violin is temporary – I still havent attached the fingerboard yet, and im trying to keep the paint around the jack from getting to scratched up right now.

Just have to finish shaping the fingerboard and fit the bridge now, so close to completion!

http://skudmunky.com/gallery/main.php?g2_itemId=569

Here is the very first sound clip of my hand wound electromagnetic pickups – http://www.skudmunky.com/handwoundviolinpickups.mp3
be gentle!
The pickups are pretty microphonic (hand wound, unpotted), and the strings arent perfectly balanced volume wise yet, since the distances from the strings to the blade arent all correct, but for my first try I think it’s not bad at all. Sounds like a violin at least!

So I probably should have posted it a month ago when it was actually happening, but whatever. I got onto the Make Magazine website! Way cool. To bad the video sounds like crap – terrible temporary pickup, lots of background noise, and the crappy camera mic really destroy the violin’s tone.

Anyways, the violin has not progressed much. I’m back at school now, and getting off campus to buy some gloves and masks so I can paint the violin is proving tough. On the plus side, the only thing standing between me and the finished violin is painting it, so I’m close!

My electromagnetic pickups are being problematic. Basically, I need some stronger magnets to make them work efficiently, since they don’t output a strong enough signal currently. Right now I have alnico 5 bar magnets, and those arent strong enough. Need to find some superstrong neodymium bar magnets.

Also, I’m currently working on migrating to a new photo gallery: New, easier to browse photo gallery located here! http://skudmunky.com/gallery/main.php maybe I’ll figure out how to integrate it into wordpress some day.

Picture! and another picture!

I’ve been building my own electric violin for the last few weeks. I designed the entire thing myself, used the CNC router at work to cut out the main body pieces, and just recently I was able to string it up for a test play. Go check out the Images page for more pictures.

Spec wise it is a 15″ long body, so technically a viola. I designed it for 5 strings, C G D A E. All the strings are steel cored strings, for use with my electro-magnetic pickups. I’ve been wanting a 5 string violin for a long time, and building my own is significantly cheaper than buying one.

In addition to building my own custom body, I’m working on winding my own electro-magnetic pickups for the violin. This is fairly tricky, because I have to shape the magnetic piece in the center to match the different heights of the string along the bridge, so that each string outputs the correct volume. Once I get some pickups wound, I’ll post a whole new batch of pictures and some videos demoing the sound.

I also still need to paint the violin. I’m going to order some transparent red stain and aerosol lacquers soon.