Electric Violin

We are two students, Isabel Herrera and Carmen Soto, and this our project for the subject of Acústica Musical, that we are attending in the University of Málaga.

In this instructable we tried to explain in the best way possible, how we did an electric violin, where most of its pieces were printed in 3D. The electronic parts it needed, and some others, that were too complicated to print, were bougth.

The electric parts we will need, are mentioned below, but as a brief explanation, the bridge used, has sensors, to detect the vibrations of the strings, and send that information to the board, from there, you can connect to either your computer or a speaker.

• 3D printer
• 4 violin string
• 4 electric guitar pegs
• Bridge with piezoelectric sensors
• Pre-amplifier transductor board

We didn´t create the models ourselves, we used this website. The different parts of the violin that we printed were the neck, a handle, the chin rest, and the shoulder rest. The neck was separated in 3 different parts, since is the biggest piece.

On the website you can find the necessary files to print the parts for yourself.

When we have everything is the time to put it together.

First, we are going to connect the neck, two of those pieces are attached by a metal bar, as shown in the pictures. The strings are screwed in the head of the neck. The last part of the neck, where we will be putting the pegs and pre-amplifier, is connected with the middle part with some bigger screws.

We already have the main structural part of the violin done. We put the pegs in their place and the next step is to connect the bridge to the pre-amplifier. The wire of the bridge is welded to the board of the pre-amplifier. You can change some parameters, like the volume or tone, and you take the signal out to your computer, so you can record it, with a cable, or you can even connect it to a speaker.

The electronic and most sensitive part is done, now the only left to do is screw the other parts we printed, like the handle, the chin rest, or the shoulder rest.

The last part is to install the string on the violin, with this, the violin will be ready.

To try it out, we connected it to a computer, with Audacity, we recorded a sample. As mentioned before if you connect it directly to a speaker, it works the same way as an electric guitar, that we all know.

ADVICE

There are obviously many things that can be improved, and we realized it once it was done, so it was already too late.

Firstly, the bridge could have used some filing, so the strings are more separated. We noticed that they were too close, and it was difficult to sound only one string individually.

Secondly, the shoulder rest was not very comfortable, because it wasn´t adjusted. If you want to try and recreate this violin, you should take measures and adapt a little bit better this rests.