Is electric violin tone only created by electronic equipment?

Question

Many electric violin players focus more on their equipment than their techniques of tone production, not realizing how much of the tone comes from the bowing and the intonation.

Answer 1

Certainly the quality of a violin and bow matter to some degree, whether acoustic or electric. In the case of electric violin (EV), there are some pretty bad instruments with poor pickup systems, and therefore these (very inexpensive) EV’s have limitations. However, most EV’s can produce beautiful tones appropriate to many styles of music, when approached with artistic bowing and focused intonation.

What I find is more important than expensive equipment is finding the right combinations of equipment, that work with the styles I’m playing and the way I play. For example, if I’m playing “in the string” a lot, I find that a notch filter or a high pass filter or a para-acoustic DI can obliterate the bow “thumping” noises during bow changes of direction, while keeping a beautiful tone. Which box I use depends on if I’m playing a solid body electric or an electro-acoustic violin, which amp I’m using, or if I’m playing at a venue with their own sound system. In any case these boxes tend to cost $100 or so, not a big expense to solve an electronic sound issue.

However, most “issues” are solved by playing better. Pressing too much with the left hand affects the tone negatively. Bowing without an awareness of weight, speed, and point of contact can produce unwanted high frequencies that don’t sound good amplified. The bowing for EV is a little different than on acoustic because the way acoustic sound projects requires a wider spectrum of overtones, many of which just don’t sound great when amplified (or when mic’d too closely).