NS Design WAV 4 Violin Black Review

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(More customer reviews)Overall this is going to be a favorable Review; however, I certainly have a few reservations and then some positive advice.
Firstly, if you are in love with the sound of an acoustic violin... even a cheap basic student violin with steel strings... then the WAV 4, straight out of the box will terrify you with its heavy coarse raw electrical sound. But since the WAV 4 is `passive', that is, it doesn't have a built-in preamplifier and some elaborate onboard set of equalizers and effects switches and knobs, then you will almost certainly have to get or already have some kind of an pre-amp and amplification system. Depending on the controls on your amplifier/preamplifier, you might be able to minimize a great deal of that buzzy electronic sound character of the WAV 4.
My own setup may be unnecessarily complicated. You see, I use the same Input Cord for everything I play - a couple of electric guitars, an electric bass, and now the electric Violin. Changing instruments just takes resetting a few dials. I use a Bass Amplifier as my Preamp Stage, bringing the signal out from the Headphone Jack. Then it goes into a Alesis Nanoverb 16 Bit Digital Effects Unit, and then goes through a Peavey PV6 Mixer with LO Med and Hi adjusts on the channel. The Final Stage is runs to my headphones. I could probably pull the Bass Amp out of the setup and let the Alesis Digital Effects Processor handle the job of being a preamp, but sometimes it is good to leave well enough alone.
It turns out that the WAV 4 Violin likes about the same settings as my Bass Guitar, and for about the same reason. The worse Electronic Sound comes from high frequency components riding on the sound from the lowest strings. Turning the Treble of the WAV 4 all the way down brings out a fairly natural sound on the A and E Strings (the two highest strings on a violin), but so much high frequency stuff still rides on the G and D strings that one hardly suspects that these are supposed to be low notes. So on my first stage of amplification going through the bass amplifier, I turn down the Medium and the High filters and set up the Low knob to pass more Low than anything else, and I do the same with the Mixer Controls. Yes, it does knock some of the final volume off of the high strings, but plenty of that A and E high pitch gets through, so it is not really a problem. Besides, just a touch of Treble on the WAV 4 brings back plenty of A and E String volume.
It turns out that the rather affordable Alesis Nanoverb Effects Processor (I think I got it for a bit more than a hundred dollars) is just the right thing to have if you actually LIKE electric violin sound. I was able to adjust it for some really nice professional sounding effects - chorus with echo and all of that. But one can dial down these effects so they are barely noticeable while still being a bit helpful. For instance, a slight bit of `chorus', whether linear or non-linear, helps to fill in the Low Strings, giving some of the roundness back to the sound that is robbed by the electronics
I was not able to totally drive out the electronic sound and arrive at a perfect acoustic sound, but I got satisfied enough so that I did not have to throw the whole heap into the trash can. One will never be invited to play with a chamber orchestra or with an unplugged folk music recital, so keep your real violin if you still want all of that. However, when playing with an Electric Band, one can get close enough to the acoustic sound to satisfy for violin parts in songs that are supposed to have that natural sound. It might not be a perfect fit but remember its only rock and roll.
This sound stage setup work took about 5 hours. Then I had to get used to actually playing the WAV 4 Violin. It doesn't play like your standard violin. The Chin Rest is different, and there is that god-awful Shoulder Rest contraption, which turned out to be actually quite a diamond in the rough after I learned to deal with it (more on this below). Anyway, you can't just stick the WAV 4 under your chin and go like its your old fiddle.
The WAV 4 is heavy. It's a block of wood, hallowed out only as much as necessary to put in the Bridge Mounts, the String Things, and the Pickup Jack. Then the metal brackets for the Chin Rest and the Shoulder Rest are heavy enough to mount a sixteen inch cannon onto a battle ship. Given all this weight, the Shoulder Rest would need to be perfect so that one would be able to play without constantly needing to use the left hand for manually holding up and repositioning the violin, when, really, the job of the left hand should be exclusively taken up with dancing fingers upon the strings. But there was just no getting the Should Rest right... for the first several hours...
But I kept at it. The Cushion Part of the Shoulder rest is rubber foam glued on this thick curved metal blade, curved nicely on one side, but apparently shaped to go over the shoulder on the shoulder-most side, and so it guts inward. This is great if you play the violin absolutely sideways, with the violin positioned exactly over the shoulder, forcing your head around to create a permanent crick in the neck. Yeah, yeah... that is how one is supposed to play. All the Best Schools constantly reiterate that the Best Way must necessarily always be the most uncomfortable way. If what they instruct isn't hated and resented, then it can't possible be technically `correct'. However, in the Real World, a great many violin players fall away from such standards of school house perfection, and we play with the violin set more forward. Some people play the violin right under the chin, head and eyes forward. Well, for those Non-Conformists the Shoulder Rest jutting blade stabs them in the chest - giving them the punishment they so rightfully deserve! But really, that's not what they spent their money for, is it?
I was reading on the Ned Steinberger Site (NS Design apparently stands for Ned Steinberger Design) and I saw promotions for their Custom Shoulder Rest, which is flexible. Apparently they had received hundreds of thousands of complaints regarding their standard Shoulder Rests and so they redesigned the Shoulder Rest, but they are still selling Violins with the Old `Stabber/Punishment' Shoulder Rests. Anyway, I thought that my Shoulder Rest was one of the new Flexible ones (I should learn to read websites more carefully), but when I tried to bend it with my fingers, there was no give at all. So I tried to tweak it a little with a BFH (Very Big Hammer) and it snapped. Really, it was not malleable in the least. You would think it would bend a little before breaking, but, no. after five or six very sound blows - Snap! But the good news is that it is no longer stabbing me. The rubber pad glued to the bottom of the thing holds the pieces together. Anyway, I have emails out to Ned Steinberger and Johnson Strings asking about what I have to do to get one of the new Custom Shoulder Rests.
Well, even after breaking the Shoulder Rest which represented some progress in fixing the inherently flawed design, I still could not dial it in to the point where I could play the violin for longer than 20 seconds without having to stop to reposition the thing. The weight of the thing was making it inexorably slide down the chest. And constantly supporting the weight of this Battleship Violin... well, it was giving me a upper back ache and muscle fatigue in my left arm. I have to admit that I was getting a bit discouraged, but then I had this wonderful inspiration!
The Bar and Tee arrangement of the Shoulder Rest provided an excellent hook up spot for a simple strap that one could wear around one's neck. What I did was I tied off my Scapular Cord (A Scapular is a Catholic Religious thing that just happened to hang from a thick cord I had woven from 9 strands of wool yarn - a rather nice piece of rope, really) to a length that would just barely fit over my head and I passed it through the Chin Side of the Shoulder Rest Blade and over the Fastening Knob, and now all the weight of the violin hangs from my neck on that neck strap. It worked wonderfully well! I was finally able to get in a good practice, with the violin staying put long enough to warm up on the fingering and decide that, yes, indeed, it was an actual violin I was playing. And, with the Shoulder Rest looped through the Neck Cord, one does not need to put the WAV 4 Violin down... between songs, or rosining the bow, or whatever. One simply lets go and the smallish violin simply hangs down on one's chest, like a big jewelry pendant. If you wish to make your own neck strap, then any heavy cord or strap looped to be about 23 inches in diameter, just fitting over your head, would be suitable.
Oh, the WAV 4 Violin comes with the Bridge adjusted very low. I used those screwdriver adjusts to bring up the Bridge a bit to help with the kind of string modulation you do by wiggling your fingers on the string... if the bridge is too low, you lose a lot of that effect.
So, in summation, the WAV 4 probably sounds no more "electronic" than any of the other Electric Violins out there, and once you learn to strap the Shoulder Rest around your neck, then that horrible monstrosity of a Shoulder Rest actually becomes a positive attribute for selecting WAV 4 from amongst all of its competition. It makes me think of objections I have heard regarding Fender's FV-3 Electric Violin - that it was overly heavy and constantly needed to be repositioned. Well, with its standard acoustic style Shoulder Rest, there's not much that one can do about the weight - there is nothing that I can see to tie onto or hook up to in order to provide the Neck Strap relief available so easily on the WAV 4 Violin. Such is...Read more›

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