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What’s my favorite tech accessory? Oh, there are so many favorites! I have so much fun exploring new sounds and new gear. But for the sake of brevity, I’ll narrow it down to three. First, it would be rude not to mention my electric violin. This is my signature model from Volta. The “Violinatron” hybrid instrument has a built-in speaker so you can play it as a regular electric violin or completely unplugged. I worked with Marat, the company’s owner and head luthier, to design the built-in delay effect and chose a custom sparkle blue finish, so the “Flaxotron” (bitly.ws/3id4k) looks and sounds amazing.
Delay is a game-changing effect for me. Combining the legendary MN3005 bucket bridge chip (aionfx.com) with a resonant low pass filter creates the most magical sounding repeats. It has a built-in pitch shift sequencer and is also an instrument in itself. The double stops result in arpeggios that are lower than a violin can play on their own. You can also save presets, so another sound I use all the time is the “eerie, shimmering chorus” which adds dimension and mystery to more static sounds. It elicits a visceral, emotional response every time I use it.
A recent essential piece of “gear” for violin is, surprisingly, a bass amp. Last November, I fell in love with the new BG-120 Bass Cub Pro from Phil Jones Bass (philjonesbass.net). PJB is well known in the bass world for their amps and cabinets with small but very powerful speakers, and in my experience, these small speakers are great for amplifying the violin sound. Combined with PJB’s C2 extension cabinet, the BG120 is louder than any amp I’ve used on stage with a rock band. As a standalone combo, it’s the perfect volume and lightweight package for acoustic gigs where sound reinforcement is needed. The 5-band EQ is for the bass. There are “bass” and “treble” knobs, both of which are turned down quite a bit. But the frequencies selected and the speaker and cabinet all combine to make a very usable amp that always sounds good.
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