Who knows about electric Cello?

[James 'LA' Lugo]

My buddy is touring as an electric cellist in a band. He plugs it into a solid state Roland piano amp. He says it sounds a little cold and doesn't jell with the band all the time. I told him it may not hurt to get some tubes in the chain.

Does anyone have any experience with gettng a warmer fuller sound with an electric cello? What gear? What kind of setup he needs for the touring/studio? Thanks

J

[Ethan Winer]

Originally Posted by James 'LA' Lugo

Does anyone have any experience with gettng a warmer fuller sound with an electric cello? What gear? What kind of setup he needs for the touring/studio?

A lot of electric cellos are thin and nasal sounding. I've heard and played a lot of electric cellos, and the only one I've heard that sounds like a cello is the Yamaha Silent Cello. Unfortunately, it's expensive for what it is and its built-in preamps are hissy. Not that this probably helps your friend.

The solution is EQ rather than tubes or different preamp etc. To get a warm full sound from a typical electric cello with a piezo pickup is possible but it requires extreme EQ. No way around that. Have him sweep a multi-band parametric EQ boost, one band at a time, to identify the most obnoxious midrange peaks. As he finds each, he'll then cut those frequencies. I'm thinking 500 Hz, 800 Hz, 2 KHz - stuff like that where it sounds boxy, harsh, and strident.

If you or he want to hear what an electric cello can sound like when EQ'd properly, check out Jeffrey MacFarland-Johnson MP3s here:

The Perfect ABC Songbook-pre-school curriculum,ABC's,kid stuff,ESL

--Ethan

[Cellotron]

I've toured with the Yamaha Silent Cello - and it sounded "acceptable', it's just the feel of the instrument is really more like a student model.

A huge help is having a good pre-amp - the LR Baggs Para-Acoustic DI is the best of the ones I've tried - www.lrbaggs.com - highly recommended.

For a decent arco sound using an electric having some reverb on stage is a must so that the notes don't just sound dead and uninspiring. Any decent digital reverb will work fine - I have the Boss RV-5 for it's portability and ability to be clicked on/off (dry pizz sometimes works out better).

I have a custom built 5-string acoustic/electric that uses the Barbera Transducer piezo pickups built directly into the bridge - which sounds definitely better to my ear than the Yamaha - Cello Pickups, Cello Transducers and Electric Cello Pickups by Barbera Transducer Systems



Other pickup option that sounds very good is the David Gage Realist - David Gage String Instruments Shop

As far as amps - SWR California or Strawberry Blonde, any of the Acoustic Image amps - Acoustic Image Home - Walter Woods (if you can find one), Fender Acoustasonic, Schertler Unico or David - Schertler USA - high fidelity acoustic transducers, speakers, mixers & velvet strings - all can give good cello sounds.

Hope that helps.

Best regards,
Steve Berson

[kyle barton]

a marshall 800 might warm it up

[dan p]

What about a Clevenger electric Cello.I heard Ivan Linz guitar player use one.It sounded incredible.Might be better to tour with than one rigged with a pickup.

[Cellotron]

Originally Posted by kyle barton

a marshall 800 might warm it up

Actually ime it doesn't - but smaller tube amps - especially Fender black face plate models can sound awesome.

Best regards,
Steve Berson

[octatonic]

Originally Posted by James 'LA' Lugo

My buddy is touring as an electric cellist in a band. He plugs it into a solid state Roland piano amp. He says it sounds a little cold and doesn't jell with the band all the time. I told him it may not hurt to get some tubes in the chain.

Does anyone have any experience with gettng a warmer fuller sound with an electric cello? What gear? What kind of setup he needs for the touring/studio? Thanks

J

I know Martin McCarrick (from Therapy?) who played electric cello for years with a bunch of people (Sousxie, Kristen Hirsh, Marc Almond, Brian Ferry, 3 colours red).
I can ask him next time I speak to him but I believe he went into a Marshall stack, with a DI to the house PA.

They were playing big rock venues- I saw them do it in London and his tone was off the chain. Just amazing.
Have a listen to his latest project (with wife, Kimberley), that I did some preproduction for, here:

MySpace.com - The McCarricks - - Ambient / Classical / Electronica - www.myspace.com/themccarricksmusic

There was a lot of eqing done, if I remember correctly- but that was more to mitigate the room limitations than anything else.

[tritone]

I've enjoyed the live sound of this touring electric cellist - Jami Sieber.

She has a website at jamisieber.com. A quick look just now didn't show me gear info right away, but she might provide it, or it might be somewhere on her site I didn't check.

I saw her touring w/ Ferron (singer-songwriter, just the two of them) - and noted that her 5-string electric cello sounded very good, and that the instrument offered a lot of versatility - bass lines, solos, and accompaniment.

Rob C

[Cellotron]

Originally Posted by dan p

What about a Clevenger electric Cello.I heard Ivan Linz guitar player use one.It sounded incredible.Might be better to tour with than one rigged with a pickup.

It's important to realize that electric cello's are simply necks, tuners and bridges with a pickup stuck on them - including the Clevinger - who I believe make their own piezo pickups. Magnetic pickups simply don't work unless you use specialized strings and generally doesn't work out that great even when accomodated for - so piezo pickups tend to be the default. A lot of electric cello models such as Vectors use the Barbera Transducer in fact.

Best regards,
Steve Berson

[seaneldon]

When asking about an electric Cello, a dude named "Cellotron" is probably the only dude you should listen to.

[Cellotron]

Originally Posted by seaneldon

When asking about an electric Cello, a dude named "Cellotron" is probably the only dude you should listen to.

Hee hee, well - Ethan is a very accomplished cellist himself - so I think his advice is good also!

Best regards,
Steve Berson

[travisbrown]

On the low end, I'd try running it through a SansAmp ParaDI. RBI might be cool too. If you can find a Presonus AcoustiQ around, try it.

More money? Run it through an eq and then Avalon or Millenia DI.

I've been happy with running most acoustic instruments through an SWR California Blonde or Strawberry Blonde for live.

[Chris Nighman]

I was thinking the same thing as Sean!

[Berolzheimer]

I would think that the biggest problem is the lack of body resonance, so maybe something with cabinet modelling would help. Sansamp bass Di, for instance, or one of the acousic guitar modelling bboxes or amps.

[Daniel Antix]

Originally Posted by kyle barton

a marshall 800 might warm it up

yeah i usedto know some one who had an electric violin and they ran it through a marshall stack. i thought it sounded great but i was 14 at the time...

[jhg]

As far as amps go: love the little GK MB150S. Used it with different beast mind you: piezo pickuped(does that make any sense) upright bass; but that thing is super versatile, good, albeit simple, eq., the DI isn't so bad sounding either, the little guy packs a punch.

Regards,

jhg

[klaukholm]

I had a similar problem trying to get a good sound with arco and a pickup.
The solution was a trace elliot bass combo with 2x12'.
It colored the sound so much that the end product sounded more or less like the real thing again.

[octatonic]

Originally Posted by Daniel Antix

yeah i usedto know some one who had an electric violin and they ran it through a marshall stack. i thought it sounded great but i was 14 at the time...

Not Susie Beauchamp from 'Box The Jesuit' and 'Pleasure Ground'?

[David Rick]

Back when I was playing cello in a celtic band, the only decent electric cello sound I ever got was from a travel cello made by Ernest Nussbaum (photo here). Since it used a standard stick-on-the-bridge piezo pickup, the real secret seemed to be in the amplifier and cabinet. Plugging it into a "foreign" DI made a lot of the magic disappear. But the instrument itself wasn't to standard measure, nor was it particularly well made. More suitable for taking on a camping trip than anything else.

With my regular instrument, I used a standard Fishman pickup that wedged into the bridge. I used a direct box of my own design with a very high-Z JFET input. Anything less than 1 Megohm is too low; I think mine was 10 Megohm. After that, the signal chain included a parametric EQ and a Lexicon LXP-1 reverb. But any time I could get away with it, I'd ditch the pickup for a Beyer M160 ribbon mic in front of the bridge. Night and day, really.

David L. Rick
Seventh String Recording

[Jim vanBergen]

I mixed one last night that was horribly cold and while it did not have enough low end body to replicate a regular cello, it had no string attack to speak of. I was horrified...the cellist said. "This is my tone."

If I deal with him again, I'll insist on a Demeter, Valvotronics, or similar tube stage, maybe with a FATSO in line. I did not find out who made this cello, but I was not impressed. O course, I've dealt with a lot of really good instruments in the hands of phenomenal players, so I'm mildly biased... but they were playing a totally different kind of music.

[matyas]

I worked with a very good electric cellist a few years ago who's toured with some pretty big-name acts. He used a normal orchestral (acoustic) cello, with a pickup (Fishman, I think) into a Fender Twin amp. We mic'd the cabinet with an SM57. (He obviously wasn't going for anything resembling a naturalistic classical tone.) He used an array of guitar pedals and played both arco and pizz, frequently strumming chords as well. Despite his eshewing of a classical timbral aesthetic, I think the use of an acoustic instrument really helped to warm up the tone in a way that an "electric" cello would not. It was also a pretty cheap instrument - he prefers to save his better istruments for traditional chamber music work.

[Graham Tobias]

I've been told this is THE pre to get for electric string instruments.

http://www.raven-labs.com/mainframe.html



I haven't used it, but it seems like it has a decent eq.

This is the collest electric cello in my opinion:



http://www.woodviolins.com/html/CobraCello.html

if you've never seen the mark wood violin's before.... check it out. They make crazy things like 7 string fretted flying V violins.