Project: Silk Purse Redux

So it's been a couple years. What have we learned about cheap-ish electric violins from eBay/China?

[Edit 2021]: checked and updated to make sure the links in this post are still valid. It's interesting that the terminology used in the original post, "Silk Purse," as in you can't make one from a Sow's Ear is still in use across a number of fiddling related forums fifteen years later and it is oddly satisfying to have authored a meme.

First is that many of the things from the two original posts 
Project-silk-purse-page-1.html  and
Project-silk-purse-page-2.html
are still valid and anything we've learned since is what this post is about.
Read through those first if you're new at this.

Fiddle Forum.com discussions on this topic are still ongoing and worthwhile. It may take awhile to wade through all of it, but there's lots to learn. Other sections of the forum go into bridge shaping (I don't do it very well ;-) and peg fitting, which are major issues for anyone setting up a cheap fiddle/violin, not just these. On the general topics applicable to all fiddles Youtube works really well.

The original eBay seller (Planet Violins) appears to be out of business, but there's still a thriving community of oddball electric violins on eBay. The 'S' shaped glittery plastic ones are not worth the trouble IMHO. Every one I've seen sounded bad. Some of the Yamaha SV-1xx copies haven't been awful.

Many of what show up there (eBay) are basically cheap acoustic violins with a pickup added. With proper setup these can work well if you want acoustic sound, but they never seem to sound really good (and what did you expect for under $100) and they're still quite loud as a practice instrument. Since one of the goals of this whole thing was a practice instrument that won't bother people in the next room with "Screechy awful violin noises" having more 'acoustic sound' is not a benefit, at least here.
Note that even with the Silk Purse style of instrument you're probably going to need a bridge mute for really quiet practice. I use a fairly large rubber one. Even the near-solid body violins make -some- noise. You still get a good impression of what's going on (or what you're doing wrong ;-) via the headphone jack.

If you want a really good electric violin, get a N.S. Designs (Ned Steinberger) WAV4 or WAV5 or maybe one of the better Yamahas, all of which are available under $1000. If you have more money burning a hole in your pocket the N.S. 'CR' series, Bridge Violins and Zeta are all pretty nice products. Granted this is all 10x or more above the Silk Purse budget.

OK so here's a couple Do's and Don'ts we've picked up over the last couple years:

Here are a couple bad ideas and one good one in a single photo. The Good Idea is the business card with the nice 90.deg angle on it cut down and notched so you can determine if the bridge is actually straight up. With this kind of 'under the foot' sensor/pickup you'll find sound quality degrades if the bridge isn't straight up from the body and therefore the pickup. Some adjustment required. To make this work most of the 'thinning' of the bridge needs be done on the other side. You can still get close enough if the bridge was tapered symmetrically.
     The first error here is the distance from the string-ends to the bridge. You can see that the string-windings/'silk' go right up to the bridge. This does NOT improve tone*. They should be back 1-2cm from the bridge.
This is partially due to the extra length of the tailpiece due to the fine tuners and partially because the idiot doing setup didn't shorten the tail-gut (the adjustable loop on the chin end of the tailpiece) by enough.

Built-in-Fine-Tuner tailpiece

The second error is using all those metal fine-tuners. They add a LOT of weight to the instrument and it's also in a really bad place in terms of tone. Don't do this! ...although it was expedient at the time. Spend the money and get a lightweight fine-tuner tailpiece. We use Wittner tailpieces almost exclusively. You can get them on Amazon for around $20. Well worth it.
Especially since this also helps fix the 'length' issue above. 5 string versions also available for slightly more $$..

If you've been paying attention to the photos you'll have noticed that the strings in these examples are somewhat odd, and are not all from the same vendor based on the color of the wrappings. 
Since amplified instruments are not dependent on the acoustic body resonance you can put a wider range of tunings and string weights/diameters on what would be, from a 'playable string length' perspective, a violin body.  Particularly in a 4-string example, you can of course use a standard 4 string violin or 'short' viola string set. However, this does give you great latitude for creativity and experimentation. Some of which actually works!!
The top photo is from a 5 string octave 'chin cello' tuned C through E, where that massive bottom string is an octave down from the 'C' string on a Viola, so exactly the same frequency as a cello. This is why the 'tone*' comment above doesn't really apply to this instrument. The heavy long tailpiece actually seems to help, though it does add a couple odd resonances.
The second photo is from an octave violin. The bottom four strings are exactly an octave down from a 'normal' violin and the top string is tuned up to 'B'. This allows you to easily 'double' the regular violin part an octave down. Since both of these instruments have the same vibrating string length, 13"/330mm,  you can switch back and forth without having to re-learn fingering distances. The differing string thicknesses (and 5 strings!) do take a little practice...

On this one we started with a standard 'medium' 'short 14" Viola Helicore' string set in the top four slots and then tuned all of them up a whole step: from C-G-D-A to D-A-E-B. The bottom string came from a 5 string viola set that originally had a low 'F' string, tuned up a step here to octave 'G'. You may notice we ended up using the next string from that set as well. It sounded better and was also wound with Tungsten instead of Aluminum so it lasts way longer.  We also swapped the top (now 'B') string and after trying several, ended up with this Steel core Nickel wound Medium tension Supersensitive Red Label 'A' string which happens to work well here tuned up to 'B.'

The point of this whole part is that some experimentation may be required, and particularly in extreme cases can cost a bit. One example above involved three sets of strings and well over $100. The 'chin cello' set listed over $100 to begin with.

[Edit 2022:] The Chin Cello string set isn't available any more since SuperSensitive was bought out by D'Addario and their Florida manufacturing shop shut down (or so I've heard). There has been some experimentation in using 3/4 size cello strings to replace the lowest string of the set(s). This appears to work, partially because we think that's what they were doing to begin with. The real trick to this is, after cutting the string to the correct length (including peg wrap length), you unwind the outer winding down far enough so the 'core' of the string is what wraps around the peg, but the original outer winding is still in place as the string goes over the nut. When you cut back the outer winding you will have to seal the end on to prevent it unraveling with some superglue and/or by re-wrapping the 'silk' removed from the string part you cut off. Note that this has worked better for steel core (Supersensitive Red Label or D'Addarion Prelude) or stranded steel core (Helicore or Spirocore) strings than nylon/perlon core strings, mainly due to breakage problems. This may be somewhat ameliorated by chamfering the hole in the peg so the core isn't bent so sharply. [end Edit]

Velcro footies!

Another point of friction tends to be shoulder rests that don't work very well. The 'bout' in the area of the body where the shoulder rest would normally attach is a bit narrower than a standard 4/4 fiddle. It also lacks the ridge that would normally stick out. 
Some people have had luck with sticky-er rubber feet on regular shoulder rests. This can work OK until the stickyness wears off and failing shoulder rest syndrome disturbs every performance.

We finally gave up on that, bought the cheapest 'Resonans' $10 shoulder rest, it was probably the 3/4 size and they come in different heights. Then we cut and applied the 'loop' part of 3M industrial grade velcro to the fiddle where the foot-area would be and wrapped up the sides a bit to prevent it from pulling loose, and then applied the 'hook' side to the shoulder rest foot area. We had to clean and sand the metal foot before the adhesive on the back of the velcro would stay attached. People tend to dislike this particular 'rest because it tends to come apart or wear out fast. However, if you're not using the rubber feet, like in this case, and you peel back the sticker on the bottom of the shoulder pad, glue the velour fabric down properly with contact (rubber) cement and then glue down the sticker properly, it should shoulder the burden for a long time.

"What? stick industrial velcro on my precious fiddle?"
First, a cheezy $100 fiddle is not precious, and if you have a better (under $20) solution that actually works in upright fast moving performance situations, do let us know. Just guessing here, but these are probably not going to get used much in polite sedate orchestra situations. Unrelated note: At least three of these (two 4 strings and one 5 string) are getting used regularly in loud performing bands in the state.

One other less common (assuming you've read the post linked above about the pickup orientation) issue with these instruments is people trying other chin rests. The body wood here is not really high quality and if you clamp on a chin rest that does not clamp evenly and centered on the end pin (there's a support block there) it can break the side wall of the fiddle. 

Most of the remainder is standard violin setup issues. The pegs, and peg-box are not high quality on a cheap fiddle. That includes these things for sure. Running the pegs through a peg scraper to 'true up' and make sure they're round and then running a peg reamer in to do the same for the holes, can be hugely beneficial. You may have to re-blacken the pegs after this. We found standard permanent black felt tip markers work well. Sharpies however leave an odd color and didn't work as well.
If you have unusually good luck and a good fine-tuner tailpiece you might not need the pegs much and can get away with a bit of sandpaper and some peg-dope. Understandable since a good peg-scraper/reamer set will cost way more than your instrument.  It's usually best to find a luthier that has the proper tools for this part IMHO.

The nut on these things is almost always terrible. String slots may not be in the right place. Depth is almost always wrong. We learned to recut these with a small triangular file. You can do it but the 'error' side of 'trial and error' can be brutal. A proper set of nut files can be really useful, although once again more expensive than the instrument. As with all of this, Youtube is your friend.

Likewise with bridge fitting. If you're starting with a bridge blank that has curved feet, sand it mostly flat -before- sighting along the fingerboard to mark a pencil line showing 'zero' string height. Note that big floppy strings like the 'octave C' shown above require more offset above the fingerboard at the bridge end than for a 'normal' string, like 8-9mm or so in this case to keep it from buzzing against the fingerboard, compared with 4-5mm for a 'normal' G string.

Questions that come up repeatedly: 

"Where do I get a good-ish 5 string electric like these?"
Few people think 'outside the box' enough to want an electric fiddle.

Few people think 'outside the box' enough to want a five string fiddle.

The few people who are left do not comprise a large enough market to make it worth a lot of effort. Which is a shame because doing a wider range instrument on an acoustic body is quite difficult. It has been done but it's not easy to get good tone across the whole range. Electrics have less issue with that, especially on the lowest and highest notes. The best relatively inexpensive 5 string electric we've tried is the N.S. Designs WAV5 which are $700-900 new and can sometimes be found used for $600 or so.

"Where do I get a good amplifier for an electric fiddle?"

Regular Electric Guitar "Guitar Amp's" tend to have a midrange-focused output, with rather less and uneven low and high frequency output. As a result of using one or more relatively large drivers that also tend to 'beam' the high frequency output directly out from the cabinet. Keyboard amps, some Acoustic Guitar amps and most Powered PA speakers are designed for much broader and more even frequency response over a wider angle. You'll want to check specs and reviews, but you're probably best off with one of those three.
If you find one that claims it has a 'full range' single large speaker, this is probably not the product for you. There are some exceptions (arrays of small full range drivers like the Bose L1) but anything without a tweeter is highly suspect. 

Our favorite here is a 10" powered PA speaker with horn tweeter. Relatively lightweight too.

Someone out there had modified the 'silk purse' electronics so they could use the headphone jack AND the to-amplifier output at the same. They became self-monitoring!

If you want fancy effects like the Electric Guitar amps have, just get a stomp box with whatever effect you're interested in, or a multi-effects box.

"What's all this about Impedance?"

If you have something like the Silk Purse that has a built in Pre-Amp, then you basically don't worry about impedance. The preamp does that impedance matching for you.

If you have a very high impedance (peizo) pickup and no preamp, you don't want to plug that directly into a normal amp (some acoustic guitar amps have high impedance 'HiZ' inputs, look at the specs) because, while you'll probably get some sound out, it probably won't be very musical. High impedance input stomp boxes can work too, although some have 'true bypass' where the HiZ effect goes away.