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(More customer reviews)Both of these Electric Violins retail at closer to five hundred dollars than a thousand, which make them both great bargains compared to anything but the really cheap curlicue plastic things one sees for sale online which I've heard aren't really worth the decent strings and bow it would take to really play them. I was shopping for an Electric Violin and liked the glossy photo images of the Fender FV3 but was almost worried about its so low price point when compared to the other Brands out there, notably NS Design Electric Violins which apparently thought that it would take closer to 3 thousand dollars to build an acceptable Electric Violin. But then there came the advent of the NS Design WAV4, also manufactured in China along with the Fender FV3, and priced to take on the Fender FV3 in an even up war where perceived quality would decide the outcome of the sales battle.
Of course, NS Design is a very reputable firm, relatively ancient in the somewhat new field of Electric Violins. Fender, on the other hand, perhaps the most glorious of the electric guitar makers, has had very little presence in the Electric Violin Market, accept for its kind of ugly FV1 which didn't exactly take the Violin World by storm. So I decided to start out by ordering the NS Design WAV4. My first impressions of the NS Design WAV4 have been covered in previous Reviews. But the highlights of those reviews are... what!? No bow! Granted, a new bow, without a good week of being rosined up... seasoned... will simply make it seem that a new violin that comes with it sounds horrible, and so NS Design decided to dodge that bullet simply by not offering a bow. Oh, and the Shoulder Rest - I broke it by trying to make it comfortable... the flexible "Custom" Shoulder Rest I had read about needs to be special ordered, while the stiff hard as a rock shoulder rest is what you get standard with your order. The WAV4 is heavier than a regular violin, which makes it harder to keep in place and to control, and so I fashioned a `Dog Collar' (patent pending) for it, to retain it close to one's neck and throat. That was a great idea... I have subsequently made Dog Collars for even my real violins... one no longer even needs to use the chin rests... the violins stay right where they need to be to be played perfectly well. The Electric Sound of the NS Design WAV4 took a bit of dialing in. Really, Electric Violins can sound absolutely hideous if you just plug them into something and begin to play. What I found that works best, with the equipment I had on hand, was an Alesis Nanoverb Digital Effects Processor which I set on its Non-Linear Chorus setting, cranked up to where it only just begins to get thick and full of echo and then back it off a notch (I think that what the Non Linear Chorus does in effect is take the annoying High Frequency components on the low strings and blends them out while mixing in non-harmonic components from the primary fundamental note so that the final sound is fuller and smoother, while still being a recognizable single note. Using the regular chorus settings brings out what hints at distinct harmonically related notes and chord sounds which could actually conflict with the music one is playing). From Effects Processor I go into a Peavey 6 Mixer - one of the channels with pre-amp, and I dial up the Low and Medium equalizers to 75% of their gain while leaving the High Freq dial to zero. It's doesn't make for a Pure Acoustic Sound, but it is a very progressive sound that is attractive and not annoying. The important thing is that a violin not be annoying.
My Review of the NS Design WAV4 made me sort of famous, on a small scale. It was even picked up and posted on some Blog somewhere. So people started asking me how the NS Design compared to the Fender FV3.
Now, the FV3 has some splendid reviews online, albeit there are a few loud dissenters out there. Anyway, though a bit nervous about it, I ordered a Fender FV3.
Yes, the photos show it to be a lovely violin... perhaps the prettiest of all the electric violins on the market today. But those are just pictures. What I was afraid of was that in reality the actual look would be cheap, artificial and plastic. So I was quite relieved when the package came and I found that it was so very beautiful. The wood work looked like one of their premium signature guitars and it was bordered by this exquisite mother-of-pearl inlay. I had to catch my breath!
It transported me back in time to when I was a child... my mother inherited this antique coffee table. She summoned all the children together to lay down the new rules, which when taken altogether in sum meant that the beautiful coffee table was far more important than the transient goings on of mere children. After all, children would eventually grow up and leave home. But the beautiful coffee table was meant to stay... and to stay in its pristine condition of absolute perfection. In her ordinary life with so many ordinary things, the beautiful coffee table would be a central and special work of beauty... a piece of Heaven in the home place. And now, when I looked at my new FV3 Violin I saw something surely the equal of my mother's precious coffee table. It was one of those eternal moments where the generations could come together, even beyond the grave, and find understanding. But, yes, the FV3 does look a bit like a coffee table... but a very beautiful coffee table.
Oh, and the Fender FV3 case was a hard case, of top quality, with even one of those humidity meter devices built into it... whatever they're good for. And there was a bow. Not the best bow in the World. A few cranks on the bob to tighten it up a bit showed that it was going to curve a little to the right. But, who can't use a spare bow from time to time... even one that wants to point east. But it's much better than no bow at all, which is what NS Design offered for roughly the same price. Oh, and the NS Design case was little more than a cloth bag, with no place to put that Shoulder Rest contraption, unless you wanted to take the whole thing entirely apart... which, really, you don't want to do. Practicing Violin should not be as difficult as assembling a hang glider. So I was putting the NS Design WAV4 in my sock drawer, shoulder rest still attached, and tossed the useless case up into the closet.
Oh, what was I to do with two electric violins? Well, first, I was going to have something of a `First Chair Shoot Out'... a competition. The Winner was to be my Violin, and the loser was to become an Electric Viola... throwing out the little E String and moving the G D and A strings down, with a new C string taking the low string position, that is, tuned to CGDA instead of GDAE.
Before I could start the competition, I made a new `Dog Collar' for the FV3. Remember, one of the biggest complaints about the FV3 online was that it was heavy and would slip out of control. People needed to quit playing so they could put the violin back in position. The Dog Collar held the slightly lighter NS Design WAV4 in place and so it would also hold the Fender FV3 in place.
Then I started tuning up. I was startled to find that the G String was not even a real G String... I think it was another D String. It was simply too flabby at G. Anyway, the first rule for any `affordable' violin that is not specifically set up by the Store's Shop with specified quality strings, is to re-string it. Don't keep a string unless you know what it is. I had re-strung the NS Design, though it was not nearly so bad. For the NS Design I had used Thomastik Superflexibles - steel braid in chrome-steel wrapping (reported to be the mellowest and least shrill of all the steel strings... and I am simply too rough on aluminum synthetic core strings to ever use them... so the best steel strings will have to be good enough for me). And the Superflexibles are great strings, though I found that it might take a day for the G string to mellow out to the same tone as the rest. For the FV3, The American Music Store gave me a set of Rotosound RS6000, steel core chrome-wounds, and I promised to try them out. They took about hour before they stabilized into tune... kind of longish for a steel string, but they ended up sounding perfectly lovely.
But here the Fender FV3 again surprised me. It was not staying in tune. One could see the pegs unwinding themselves like some ghost from the great beyong. The pegs were slipping. Well, it is a good thing I have something of a workshop. I removed the pegs and spun them in some medium grade sandpaper, about 220 grain. After that the pegs held solid... almost too solid. That reminds me to get some of that `peg stuff' for sticky pegs. Anyway, with the pretty gold fine tuners mounted on the regular violin tailpiece of the FV3, the pegs only needed to get within a few notes of tune, and then the fine tuners could handle the rest.
Oh, and the finger board was a bit rough. I like my violin finger boards to be smooth as silk, and so I took some fine grade sandpaper and smoothed it down a bit. I had had to do the same for the NS Design. Also, I've found that most student violins can use a bit of sanding. You see, I use a bit of olive oil on my fingertips to help with my string slide action and have noticed that a lot of new violins will turn my fingers black. So, I guess that much of the perceived roughness on these new violin fingers boards may just be from the black stain finish they use. You see, liquid stain raises the grain of the wood. After any moist staining, every fine wood surface needs a final very fine grade sanding to re-smooth everything down. But one can't expect such attention from these budget factory shops in China (although it only takes a minute) and so one has to do...Read more›
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