How Not to Amplify a Violin
By: Nico DeLong
SEPTEMBER 29th, 2017
AUDIO HOW-TOS
This is how you end up with violins that sound like synths set to “violin.”
On Sunday September 24, I was fortunate enough to be at Massey Hall, Toronto, to hear an act that has been on my must-see list for years: Feist. For anyone unfamiliar with her music, Feist is Leslie Feist (vocals and guitar) and the changing cast of musicians who back her on stage and in studio. Her first album, Monarch (Lay Your Jeweled Head Down), was released in 1999, and her most recent, Pleasure, dropped in April of this year.
Pleasure (Interscope, 2017) album art
Image from Feiststore.com
“Like the great rock and roll guitarists, Leslie Feist digs into the chords, the riffs, and the solos, cranks the volume, and rocks the fuck out.”
What a casual listener might not realize from her earlier releases—but what Pleasure and 2011’s Metals have made increasingly evident—is that when Feist plays live, she ROCKS. I don’t just mean that she’s good (she is). I mean that, like the great rock and roll guitarists, Leslie Feist digs into the chords, the riffs, and the solos, cranks the volume, and rocks the fuck out.
“Until I looked at him, I didn’t even know he was playing an acoustic instrument, because it sounded just like a synthesizer on a “strings” preset.”
The show was everything I could have hoped for and more, but this is not a review. It’s also not a complaint but rather a simple observation.
For some songs, the keyboard player switched to violin. The thing is, until I looked at him, I didn’t even know he was playing an acoustic instrument, because it sounded just like a synthesizer on a “strings” preset.
Feist at Massey Hall, Toronto, 9/24/17
Photo by Brendan Albert, Aesthetic Magazine
That’s not entirely surprising. It is difficult to amplify or record natural acoustic sound without losing some of its original tone quality. An acoustic mic usually gets the best sound, but the louder you amplify, the more prone the acoustic mic is to feedback. And Feist live is not quiet. She and her three-piece band easily filled the nearly 3,000-person hall: drums, bass, and keyboards, with Feist’s guitar and vocals front and center. To get the violin over the top of the mix, the sound engineer would have needed to amplify it a lot. For this reason (and judging by the cable connecting directly to the violin), I suspect they were using a violin pickup. While great at getting a clear sound without much feedback, even at very high levels of amplification, acoustic pickups do not capture an instrument’s true tone. This is how you end up with violins that sound like synths set to “violin.”
The full band on stage at Massey Hall Toronto 9/24/17
Photo by Brendan Albert, Aesthetic Magazine
Of course, the tonal quality of the violin did not ruin the concert for me—far from it. But it did make me wonder what the songs featuring violin would have sounded like in a smaller hall with a high-end acoustic mic, or right there in Massey with the violinist using an acoustic mic system free of feedback and capable of amplifying as much as necessary.
Violin with CloseUp® Mic tucked into the f hole
Photo by Your Heaven Audio
What depth and resonance might it have added? I guess I’ll never know.