I bought a violin!

[LanghamP]

On 9/10/2019 at 2:31 PM, WilliG said:

Congrats! I started learning tp play the guitar recently, it is so exciting!

I bought this guitar about six months ago, but have played it very little, because learning the guitar frets is different from the violin positions.

However, the guitar is truly the modern stringed instrument, and the electrical guitar can sustain better than any violin while having a range no violin can match.

 

Edited September 13, 2019 by LanghamP

[mrelwood]

On 11/29/2018 at 9:47 PM, LanghamP said:

It makes me wonder, if we built a violin to the precision of a microchip, everything lasered, would it be the best violin? Methinks it would be.

I don’t think it would. All instrument designs are imperfect in their own way, and the small imperfections are usually what we have accustomed to hearing, and what professionals have learned to use to their advantage. All instrument designs have been formed for specific materials. For making a perfect violin from carbon fiber I’d think the shape and form should be redesigned as well. CF doesn’t vibrate like wood does, which is the #1 aspect of pretty much all stringed instruments. Identical clone guitar from badly resonating woods is just a crappy guitar, while the original can be worth thousands of dollars. Only because of the woods used.

Same with vocals. Auto-tuning has been available for every hobbyist record engineer for free for years. Why aren’t all vocals auto-tuned then? Because it doesn’t sound natural, and it trumps one aspect of phrasing/expression.

On 11/30/2018 at 4:21 PM, LanghamP said:

It's the friction pegs; they vibrate out and are very hard to adjust.

Oh, fine tuners for the violin’s bridge are indeed a must! Shouldn’t cost but a few $ each.

On 9/8/2019 at 4:18 AM, Old Glider said:

electric s don’t really need cf but then again it would maybe be good for the neck?

Some manufacturers use carbon fiber support rods for the neck, especially at the root of electric bass guitar necks, since the neck is so long. There were a few full CF necks and even full instruments, but the genre pretty much died as just an experiment in the 90’s - 00’s. A resonating wood is a tough one to beat.

A Finnish electric guitar manufacturer ”Flaxwood Guitars” makes a full line of electric guitars out of some kind of unique fibre composition. But it hasn’t been catching on that much either.

[Planemo]

2 hours ago, mrelwood said:

 There were a few full CF necks and even full instruments, but the genre pretty much died as just an experiment in the 90’s - 00’s. A resonating wood is a tough one to beat.

Mark King still uses Status Graphite basses which are full carbon, as do many others. The only reason most don't is because of the price. I have to make do with my £400 Steinberger Spirit bass which was soon £600 after the addition of a full neck dress (which made it 1000x nicer to play and gave it an action lower than most electric guitars :)

As has been said, online tutorials have made it sooo much easier. For a sub of £150 a year I get access to a huuuuge, scheduled library of lessons from one of the best bass players in the UK.

Still need to put the time and effort in though...

[Blueblade]

I felt like I wanted to learn violin after watching this

 

[mrelwood]

22 hours ago, Planemo said:

Mark King still uses Status Graphite basses which are full carbon, as do many others. The only reason most don't is because of the price.

I wouldn’t be so sure. I feel that there are more expensive small shop boutique basses (made of wood) being seen used than ever. Especially in metal music.

I was once brought a very expensive graphite Modulus for a check-up. It would’ve desperately required tightening of the truss rod, but since a graphite neck is supposed to stay solid as a rock forever, there wasn’t one. The several $k bass remained very hard to play.

When I was (even) more into fusion, I was about to buy a graphite (neck only?) Status bass myself. But I just didn’t feel quite enough at home with it. The lack of a dead spot at the 5–7th fret on the g-string is a lovely feature, but for me it wasn’t enough to justify the tone and lack of response. A much cheaper 5-string JB styled KSD is still the one that I’m much more satisfied with, for every single genre. It delivers the familiar tones that are expected in many situations from a genre-agnostic working musician.

[LanghamP]

On 9/13/2019 at 12:36 PM, mrelwood said:

There were a few full CF necks and even full instruments, but the genre pretty much died as just an experiment in the 90’s - 00’s. A resonating wood is a tough one to beat.

Hmm, I just saw this CF guitar. $800 seems pricey, but then again it's some weird electronic and CF hybrid. This is one of many rave reviews of it.

 

[.....]

I ALMOST bought a violin. I picked up a guitar and a badass valve amp recently. I am NOT a guitar player, but my fav 80's rock bands were full of NOT guitar players anyhow. WIth enough gain, and low enough expectations, its really nice. I decided against a violin when I came to realize that it isnt fretted the same as a guitar. At my current rate, i'll be 300 yrs old before I learn a dozen chords. I do know that theres a HUGE difference between cheap and good instruments. Cheap ones suffer from poor playability and ergonomics. You CAN make em sound good and play the hell out of them, but its not near as easy or satisfying as having something of pro quality. My ex played violin and she kept going on and on about how great it was to play top tier. Good news is, you get good on a piece of shit violin, and youll advance by miles when you get a good one.  Personally, i think that 90% of the 'advancements' in instrument design, if total BS marketing. Acoustic instruments were pretty much figured out, many decades ago. Better manufacturing techniques typically reduce costs but dont increase the soul of an instrument. Music is one of those things that relies less on efficiency and more on end result. Top level studios still spend fortunes on mics and instruments that are VERY old. Nothing will replace the time and sweat you put into it to learn, and nothing will replace some of the time intensive build styles of past centuries. So glad that people still play the violin. I keep wondering how long it is, until all music ability is replaced by software, and all instruments with their own soul is replaced by mass manufacturing.

On 9/13/2019 at 1:36 PM, mrelwood said:

I don’t think it would. All instrument designs are imperfect in their own way, and the small imperfections are usually what we have accustomed to hearing, and what professionals have learned to use to their advantage. All instrument designs have been formed for specific materials. For making a perfect violin from carbon fiber I’d think the shape and form should be redesigned as well. CF doesn’t vibrate like wood does, which is the #1 aspect of pretty much all stringed instruments. Identical clone guitar from badly resonating woods is just a crappy guitar, while the original can be worth thousands of dollars. Only because of the woods used.

Same with vocals. Auto-tuning has been available for every hobbyist record engineer for free for years. Why aren’t all vocals auto-tuned then? Because it doesn’t sound natural, and it trumps one aspect of phrasing/expression.

Oh, fine tuners for the violin’s bridge are indeed a must! Shouldn’t cost but a few $ each.

Some manufacturers use carbon fiber support rods for the neck, especially at the root of electric bass guitar necks, since the neck is so long. There were a few full CF necks and even full instruments, but the genre pretty much died as just an experiment in the 90’s - 00’s. A resonating wood is a tough one to beat.

A Finnish electric guitar manufacturer ”Flaxwood Guitars” makes a full line of electric guitars out of some kind of unique fibre composition. But it hasn’t been catching on that much either.

And there it is... sums it up nicely.

 

Edited February 19, 2020 by ShanesPlanet

[LanghamP]

On 2/19/2020 at 2:13 AM, ShanesPlanet said:

ALMOST bought a violin. I picked up a guitar and a badass valve amp recently. I am NOT a guitar player, but my fav 80's rock bands were full of NOT guitar players anyhow. WIth enough gain, and low enough expectations, its really nice. I decided against a violin when I came to realize that it isnt fretted the same as a guitar. At my current rate, i'll be 300 yrs old before I learn a dozen chords

Do you have a piano or a keyboard? I ask because I was having trouble remembering the chords and tabs on my guitar and mandolin, and bought a piano for the music theory.

And note stickers. Very important.

Then learning the chords on a keyboard is pretty easy, trivial because the pattern is in front of you. That's not the case with a guitar or mandolin.

Then you just convert the chord from the piano (which is a very regular pattern) to the stringed instrument, it's not fast to do but it's doable.

And playing in any key is so easy on a piano because you have the black keys staring up at you. Guitar and mandolin...yeah, I know three major keys and one minor.

If you have some piano experience then you can play ALL instruments, but the opposite isn't true.

[.....]

Too many keyboards here to even learn everything they do. I also dabble in piano, but got tired of tuning ours. I have adamantly avoided learning music in a structured format. I tend to focus too hard on things and lose the enjoyment of it before long. Luckily I have remained a music retard for over 3 decades now and will probably die talentless but still full of passion for it.

[LanghamP]

On 3/2/2020 at 11:23 PM, ShanesPlanet said:

Too many keyboards here to even learn everything they do. I also dabble in piano, but got tired of tuning ours. I have adamantly avoided learning music in a structured format. I tend to focus too hard on things and lose the enjoyment of it before long. Luckily I have remained a music retard for over 3 decades now and will probably die talentless but still full of passion for it.

I sorta gave up on the guitar too, but I did buy a Hola concert ukulele for about $65 3 weeks ago.

Gotta admit, it's a dorky instrument, but both chords and single note picking is easy. It goes from C4 to maybe C5, so you're very very limited to what you can play, but also very limited to what you need to learn.

It's a lot of fun! I'm enjoying freaking people out by playing the Imperial March/Darth Vader lietmotif on it.

[Mortal Coil]

There's a beautiful mystery to a well played violin which is compelling and hard to ignore. If anyone hasn't seen "The Red Violin" I can recommend it.

This movie reignited my appreciation for an instrument which I had thought killed though having to endure listening to my brother attempt (and fail) to learn as a child...

[LanghamP]

5 hours ago, Mortal Coil said:

There's a beautiful mystery to a well played violin which is compelling and hard to ignore. If anyone hasn't seen "The Red Violin" I can recommend it.

This movie reignited my appreciation for an instrument which I had thought killed though having to endure listening to my brother attempt (and fail) to learn as a child...

YouTube, digital tuners (the extremely fast ones you get for your cell phone not the stand alone ones), and relatively cheap violins have democratized violin playing.