Dwarf Minke Violin

Simone Bennett asked me to built a violin for the soundtrack for her next short film ‘Motor’.

Basically the Dwarf Minke Violin is a Twister Guitar (my favorite instrument so far) reshaped to a violin size.

The strings are grouped in 4 sets of three strings, tuned as any other violin GDAE. Each set represents one tone, but tuned in one low note and two strings tuned unisono in one octave higher.

The instrument has 2 outputs, one for the pickups in the main field (the copper spot pickups) and one output for the tail pickup. It can’t be switched mono too, in case there is only one amp available, but this is not recommendated by me. I prefer the splitted channels, because if gives you better controll of all odd sounds.

Perhaps difficult to follow:

The tail string parts hum along with the strings in the main playing field, depending on which position you play it. Mainly it resonates along in its own fundamental freq, which is 1 octave higher than the open string. Sometimes overtones of this octave appear, depending on where you play a note on the neck. On a perfect fifth (2/3 or 1/3) a high overtone appears for instance and on a minor third (5/6) also one appears. At the octave a huge hum appears, because this position parallels the opposed string part.

It’s fun to play both sides, as I did in the YouTube video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Jfg2JL78jk

Copies of the Dwarf Minke are for sale in 4, 8 or 12 strings versions.

Check the pricelist and info about my instruments for sale.

I’m looking forward to built a Cello version of this one.

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