In this article I am going to discuss, contrast and compare the
relative merits of two "silent" violins. What is a silent violin? Well,
these are electric violins that come with headphones and enable you to
be able to practice without disturbing neighbours and family. Even if
you can play an acoustic violin very well, if you are practicing a piece
of music and going over it again and again, it can really annoy people
in close proximity. Let's face it, the finished product may sound great,
but the effort to get there may at times mean your playing is not at
its best. My long-suffering family are now very used to me wandering
around the house practicing my violin but even they draw a line at me
sitting with them watching television whilst learning a violin tune.
So how silent are silent violins? If you put a bridge mute on an acoustic, it doesn't really make it silent but just mutes some of the vibration, thus making it a bit less noisy. An electric violin is basically a piece of wood that gets it sound from a "pick-up" which is then channelled into some form of amplification. If this amplification is a pair of headphones, then all people in the vicinity will hear is the rather squeaky sound of the bow drawing over the strings. To put it another way; it is still annoying to people in the same room, but go into a room on your own, close the door and put on your headphones and you will not disturb anyone. Here are my two choices for silent violins; one cheap and the other more expensive.
The Harley Benton silent violin comes in at about £130.00 and comes complete with case, bow, rosin and headphones. The headphones plug into a separate socket in the violin and because the pick-up is active, you need to insert a battery to play. The violin itself is not too bad but the headphones were cheap and totally useless. I used an expensive pair of my own, and this really improved the sound, though it was still a bit "dead" I eventually fed the violin through some effect pedals and a mixer desk and listened with my headphones plugged into the mixer desk, which gave me a very acceptable sound. The point here is, that I could have done this with any electric violin so I really didn't need one with a specific headphone socket.
The Yamaha SV 130 costs about £500.00, and is a professional instrument, and as always with Yamaha products, has quality stamped right through it. This particular model when using headphones is very quiet and you are able to play at high volume in your headphones whilst people in your house or neighbours will be oblivious to the sound. Because the violin has a built-in reverberation unit the headphone sound is fantastic, so you don't need other effects pedals or mixer desk. The beauty of this violin is that you can take it to a hotel and play at high volume in your bedroom without disturbing anybody.
So should you buy cheap or expensive? In my opinion, if you have the money, always go expensive, because in the end it is better value.
So how silent are silent violins? If you put a bridge mute on an acoustic, it doesn't really make it silent but just mutes some of the vibration, thus making it a bit less noisy. An electric violin is basically a piece of wood that gets it sound from a "pick-up" which is then channelled into some form of amplification. If this amplification is a pair of headphones, then all people in the vicinity will hear is the rather squeaky sound of the bow drawing over the strings. To put it another way; it is still annoying to people in the same room, but go into a room on your own, close the door and put on your headphones and you will not disturb anyone. Here are my two choices for silent violins; one cheap and the other more expensive.
The Harley Benton silent violin comes in at about £130.00 and comes complete with case, bow, rosin and headphones. The headphones plug into a separate socket in the violin and because the pick-up is active, you need to insert a battery to play. The violin itself is not too bad but the headphones were cheap and totally useless. I used an expensive pair of my own, and this really improved the sound, though it was still a bit "dead" I eventually fed the violin through some effect pedals and a mixer desk and listened with my headphones plugged into the mixer desk, which gave me a very acceptable sound. The point here is, that I could have done this with any electric violin so I really didn't need one with a specific headphone socket.
The Yamaha SV 130 costs about £500.00, and is a professional instrument, and as always with Yamaha products, has quality stamped right through it. This particular model when using headphones is very quiet and you are able to play at high volume in your headphones whilst people in your house or neighbours will be oblivious to the sound. Because the violin has a built-in reverberation unit the headphone sound is fantastic, so you don't need other effects pedals or mixer desk. The beauty of this violin is that you can take it to a hotel and play at high volume in your bedroom without disturbing anybody.
So should you buy cheap or expensive? In my opinion, if you have the money, always go expensive, because in the end it is better value.
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