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String gauges for bowed instruments

Many fiddlers talk much about strings. There are bunches of threads on different forums and a lot of questions about which strings sound and feel the best overall.

I have done a lot of experimentation with strings playing both the violin, viola and occasionally the cello and double bass.

One thing, which is often overlooked when talking about strings are gauges.

Tav TB-38 pickup

The Tav TB-38 pickup is a Spanish designed pickup system for violin and viola.
They have pickups for every kind of acoustic instruments.

The tested TB-38 pickup is mounted and held in place by pressure under the low-side foot (g/c) of the bridge and there is a short wire terminated in a standard female RCA connector.

See more at the Tav website:

http://www.tav.net

Violin & viola EQ and frequencies part ll

This is my second part on how to use EQ with your bowed instrument.

This time I am going to give a some "hands on" practical use when playing with a piezo pickup.  You will be able hear the difference for yourself in my sound clips and hopefully be on your way to better sounding gig and recordings.

Elkit - Murholt pickup

This is an integrated violin and pickup system.
It was built by the Danish luthier Richard Murholt in 1988.

Murholt has built instruments for some of the most famous Danish jazz fiddlers.

The pickup system was based on a design called Elkit which Murholt crafted into the instruments he built.

Elkit is a electrodynamic pickup and works much like a ribbon microphone, with the strings being the ribbon.

Murholt refined the Ekilt system and added a possibility of balancing the strings with 4 small potentiometers and he added a new transformer to the preamp.

Violin & viola EQ and frequencies part l

When playing in an amplified setting it is good to know some of the key frequencies in the tonal spectrum of the violin.

This will make it a lot easier to target the right frequencies when eq'ing and to communicate with the sound engineer in a language he understands.

Knowing the frequency for each string is only a small part of understanding what is going on.
The harmonics of each note are a big part of the perceived tone and timbre of a bowed instrument.

Carbon Copy analog delay

A delay is a versatile effect for the fiddle and can color the tone in a broad range of genres - from folk over blues, jazz and rock.

The MXR Carbon Copy is a simple analog delay. It has 3 control knobs and a push-button for activating the modulation option.