Fretted electric violin.

[thehenderson]

Have you played a violin much?

It would be incredibly hard to play a fretted violin, because the frets would end up insanely close together. It would make it really hard to play, I'm sure.


Perhaps this isn't right, but I dunno.


Also, I've heard people talk about lining the frets on a violin. Aparently because of the tineyness of the scale, the fretmarkers could never be anywhere near accurate enough, and that while playing the violin you wouldn't be able to see them anyway because of the angle, and the closeness


How anoyone modded violins like this before?

[Sicklehut]

The fretting spaces I suspect would not be too different to that of a mandolin neck.

As for the sustain - that would depend pretty much on the actual bowing of the string - unless you are referring to the pizzicato notes

Didn't a chap call Michael Wood or something similar did some recording with an electric violin with Shrapnel/Varney back in the 90's ?

[1964]

http://www.woodviolins.com/video/WVpromo1.mov

[ash]

Electric violins are nothing new, and fretted viloins have been done before. (Edit: the fretted electric violins by Wood for example, thanks). Many of the Ashton violins that come back on warranty has stickers on the fingerboard in fret equivalent positions for learners.

The closeness of the frets would be an issue, as it is with mandolins, but they work alright fretless, so they would still be playable with close frets. Infact, it could just be fretted half way and the fretless again for the upper registers. Actually I think it would have to be like that to avoid being a pain in the butt to do...

The sustain thing is obviously relevant for pizzicato. On an acoustic violin the sound dies off straight away. But also with bowed notes, the string could continue to vibrate after the bow is lifted off the string. If you just stop the bow still on the strings it would stop dead all the same.