Power Up! How to Find Your Ideal Electric Violin Without Getting Zapped

By Patrick Sullivan | From the July-August 2024 issue of Strings Magazine

Asha Mevlana first plugged in some two decades ago. A classically trained violinist and violist, Mevlana went looking for an electric instrument after joining a rock band in New York City. Her bandmates’ instruments were overwhelmingly loud. And they were playing bars and clubs like CBGB that were full of people smoking and drinking—raucous environments that made Mevlana fear for her expensive viola. 

“I thought, ‘Oh my god, I don’t want to ruin my nice instrument, and I really want to be heard,’” Mevlana recalls with a laugh. So she bought virtually the first electric instrument she saw. Adjusting to the electric sound was tough, she says. 

But these days, Mevlana is happily playing electric with the Trans-Siberian Orchestra, having performed with the likes of Alanis Morissette and Gnarls Barkley and made high-profile appearances at the Grammy Awards. 

Electric violins have also come a long way, says Mevlana, who now owns six. “There are so many choices today,” she says. “And they all feel very, very different.”

Around 30 companies or individuals are now seriously manufacturing electric violins, says Chris Guin of the Electric Violin Shop, which sells instruments online and at a storefront in Durham, North Carolina. Demand is high. Between 2009 and 2019, the electric-violin market grew 30 percent, according to Ken Dattmore, Yamaha’s former strings marketing manager.

A big share of that market is commanded by five larger companies: Yamaha, NS Design, Wood Violins, Bridge Violins, and Zeta. Cantini and Aurora are notable up-and-coming brands, Guin says. And individual makers, like John Jordan of Jordan Violins, custom-craft instruments for musicians willing to pay more and wait longer for delivery.

But with so many choices, how does an aspiring electric violinist find his or her ideal instrument?

The first step: Consider how and where you want to use it. Do you want to play with a praise-and-worship band in church? Or are you aiming to start a rock band with your friends? Will you stick with a four-string? Or do you want a five-string, which lets you play viola and even cello parts, or even a seven-string that turns you into an entire string section?

“If you want to sound like a violin most of the time because you want to play bluegrass or country or Celtic, that’s one set of instruments,” Guin says. “If you want to play metal, that’s a different set.”

Next, try a lot of violins before you buy, advises Mevlana. “It’s so personal, just like with acoustic instruments,” she says. “Something that another person might not like, for you it’s perfect.” She says that there’s not as much of a range within a brand. “But between brands, they’re very different in terms of both sound and weight,” Mevlana says. 

Avoid junk—and be aware that the price structure for electric violins is quite different from acoustic instruments. You can find a decent acoustic violin for a few hundred dollars. But any electric under $500 was likely made in an overseas factory that uses cheap pickups and preamps, Guin says. “We usually get a bunch of those brought in here after Christmas by people hoping we can make them playable.” That shop work typically costs as much as the original instrument.

But go up to $600 or so, and suddenly you’ve got a good-quality instrument, Guin says.

If you must start cheaply, violinist Chuck Bontrager, who plays rock as well as classical, recommends that you stick with your acoustic and get a wraparound pickup like The Band, which sells for a couple hundred bucks. “And then maybe get a practice amp with some basic effects,” he says. 

The good news: The high end of the electric market commands far lower prices than the acoustic world. At the Electric Violin Shop, the most expensive violin is a handmade seven-string electric selling for around $5,000. “Even a handmade guitar would be four or five times that,” Guin notes.

Bontrager, who paid about $4,700 for his seven-string Viper from Wood Violins, says rock bandmates are astonished by what they see as the instrument’s high price tag compared to an electric guitar. “They ask me, ‘Does it also clean your house for you?’” he says with a laugh. “But if I’m talking to folks at the Chicago Symphony, they’re pretty much saying, ‘I think I have that much money in my couch cushions.’”

Bontrager calculates that you can get a world-class electric rig—including a top-notch instrument and carbon-fiber bow, plus a top-of-the-line processor and speaker cabinet and other equipment—for under $15,000. “That wouldn’t even get you out of the advanced student range in a classical instrument,” he notes.

Whatever their budget, violinists confront another choice: Whether to get a solid-body or an acoustic-electric. Solid bodies command the market, but Yamaha, Wood, and other companies make instruments with hollow chambers aimed at achieving a more acoustic sound, and one of the Electric Violin Shop’s top suppliers—David Gage/The Realist—offers no solid-body instruments.

Feedback problems were traditionally the big drawback of amplifying hollow-bodied violins. But that’s relatively rare with good modern instruments. Mevlana, for example, says feedback just hasn’t been a problem for her.

Still, even the best electric isn’t going to sound like your fine acoustic. “You have to look at it as a completely different instrument,” Mevlana advises. “It’s going to take some getting used to.”

But Mark Wood, founder of Wood Violins, who has played electric for three decades, says it’s also important to keep your standards high. “Musicians look for tone with an acoustic instrument, but with an electric instrument, they tend to not be as sensitive to it as they should be,” he says. 

Tinny-sounding instruments stem from the use of electronics better suited to amplifying a guitar. “They’re very high treble and overly bright,” Wood says. “When you draw horse hair across a string, it behaves differently than when you strum it with a pick. With an electric bowed string, we need to pursue a full-bodied, high-fidelity low-end-to-high-end sound experience.”

Weight is also a key consideration for electrics, which used to be stuffed with heavy electronics before makers began finding ways to lighten them. “Nobody wants to play a heavy instrument under the chin,” Wood says. Mevlana, for example, says buying a low-weight Viper helped her overcome back pain she attributes to using a heavier electric instrument.

Lindsey Stirling famously plays Yamaha’s SV-250, a lightweight, wireless instrument. “If she had to stay in the same ten-foot area, tethered to an amp, it’s hard to even imagine her act,” Dattmore observes.

Electrics also present another new aesthetic frontier for players accustomed to acoustic violins that are roughly all the same color and shape. Do you want an instrument that looks and feels as much like an acoustic instrument as possible? Or do you want something very different?

Aesthetics of the instrument are important, Wood says, pointing to the striking electric guitars used by Jimmy Page and Eddie Van Halen. “Their instruments are as interesting and as beautiful as their playing,” he says. “If it looks beautiful, that has tremendous impact on a performance.”