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Effects

From mild to wild, nearly any sound you can imagine, you can get from your electric violin, electric viola, electric cello, or electric upright bass. Whether you just want to warm up your tone a bit, or sound more like a rock guitar player, there's a stomp box or effects processor to give you the sound you're looking for. Many effects work well with acoustic instruments equipped with a pickup, too!

The electronic effects that sound most natural with bowed strings tend to be those that play with time, like reverb and delay. Distortion takes you into outrageous sounds quickly (desirable if you want the Heavy Metal or Hendrix violin FX).

For the most bang for your buck (especially if you're just getting started with effects) try a multi-effects processor. Most of them will give you between fifty and a hundred different settings, from mild reverbs and delays to the heaviest of hardcore distortion and overdrives tones. As you play with them, you will discover your favorites, and start getting a feel for which effects work best with your style of playing.

Multi-effects processors

If you want the best violin tone, get one with 24 bit digital technology like the Zoom multi-FX pedals. If menu-based controls are not your speed, the Boss ME-70 has clear, easy-to-use analog controls, with the overdrive/distortion, frequency modulation, and delay effects logically divided into three discreet control sections. Now includes a short phrase sampling (looping) function, too! Sounds great with violin, viola, cello.

If your experimentation narrows things down to just one or two effects, look for a dedicated pedal that gives you just the sound you want, and does it better. Any pedal designed to do nothing but reverb is going to give you a better reverb (and more control over the

What is MIDI?

MIDI is a digital language (or code) that allows a computer to store almost all of the elements of what you play. Parameters like pitch, loudness and duration are digitized, and can be manipulated later to sound like another instrument entirely. Of all instruments, the violin family is the most difficult to digitize accurately. Unlike the fret of a guitar or the key of a piano, we have an infinite range of pitches that we can play expressively. Add to that all the subtle inflections made with the bow, and you can understand how difficult the conversion to MIDI can be. Zeta is the only company with a usable MIDI device for bowed strings - the Zeta Synthony. Unfortunately it is not currently in production. Because of the great expense and difficulty, consider going MIDI only if you want to sound like another instrument, like a flute or harpsichord! If you want to play with wild sounds, you will probably be satisfied with the much cheaper effects processors.