Trips

We had two week long trips this year. The first was to New York in September to visit my brother. He had a second child this summer and I wanted to meet him.

We did a lot less touring than we did on our first trip. But we did go to see Roosevelt Island where we did some geocaching, and we had a great dinner at Aquavit.

We also went to San Carlos with our friend Doug in October. We have taken both of our parents, but this was the first time a friend came along. We flew into Phoenix and rented a car. It was a fun trip. We did most of the geocaches in town, took a hike in Nacapule canyon, and spent a lot of time on the beach.

We also went to Cheyenne Mountain Zoo in Colorado Springs with friends for an after hours tour. And I went to Grand Junctions for my cousin Brenda’s wedding.

Violin

I’m still not taking violin lessons, but I am still practicing violin. After stopping lessons, I’ve been going back through the Suzuki material, trying to play the pieces with more accuracy and at the correct speed. The first few books went quick, but books 4 and 5 took longer and at the beginning of 2016 I was in the middle of book 5.

I got 354 hours of practice in 2017, so I am falling a bit behind my goal of an hour per day. I’m currently in the middle of book 7. The next song that I will work on is the song that I played for my first violin recital in 2012. That was the first time that I made a recording of myself playing, so I’m looking forward to comparing with my past self. That first recital happened after playing for three years.

In June I bought the Yamaha YEV-105; a five string electric violin. I’m using that as my main practice violin and have been teaching myself viola. That has gone a little better than I expected. I started with the book “From Violin to Viola” and then Suzuki viola book 4. Learning the alto clef wasn’t too bad, and getting used to an extra string (above when playing viola music, and below when playing violin) didn’t take too long either. I’m still not as comfortable in the alto clef as I am in the treble clef.

When I read about learning viola after violin, several people said that the easiest way to play was to pretend that the music is in the treble clef and that you are playing violin in third position. That sounded crazy, but is actually very natural. Unfortunately, you don’t have to learn the alto clef to play like that, and once the viola music has higher positions and/or lots of accidentals, it’s better to know what the notes are.

Touch Games

This was a very productive year for Dark Infinity. We made 13 new games, including 7 board game conversion. We didn’t do any conventions with Mesa Mundi this year, but we did take the table to the Conclave of Gamers here in Denver where we were interviewed by Distract-O-Vision. They made a nice video of us and our table.

In roughly chronological order, we wrote: Terra Mystica, Starship Factory, Card Games(Linko, Karma, Turn the Tide, Oh Hell, Sequence), Concordia, Tzolkin, Castles of Burgundy, Can’t Stop, Qwixx, Spin Mummy, Gem Thieves, Medici, and Age of Discovery.

Other

We continued our tradition of hosting a bi-weekly game night and also enjoyed quite a few off-week game nights hosted by our friends.

My brother’s family came to Colorado for Christmas this year and it was fun to see them and to have our whole family together in Loveland.

Plans

We don’t have any big plans for 2017. Mostly more of the same – making touch table games, violin, etc. We will go to San Carlos again for a longer visit this spring, but we don’t have any other trips planned.

Disclaimers: I’m an adult beginner and amateur player. I’ve owned four violins: two acoustic and two electric. I’m not being paid for this review and haven’t been asked to write it.

Note: I wasn’t able to find an online manual while shopping for this violin, so I’ve scanned it in: Manual

Violin

I chose this violin because of its looks, my desire to have a quieter practice instrument and because the fifth string will let me learn and play viola music.

Getting used to a five string

I’ve been practicing on a muted four string acoustic for seven years. Transitioning from the four string to the five string took several days and I still occasionally have issues when playing on the G string. The spacing between the strings is very similar to a four string and so the neck is wider. The amount of bow travel needed to change strings is a little bit less than the four string and that caused most of my early difficulties. It is also a bit confusing when playing on the D string if I look down at my fingers expecting them to be on the second string.

Size

The instrument size is extremely close to my acoustic. I have two standard shoulder rests and they both fit the Yamaha. The bit of wood that simulates the part of the upper body is placed just right and feels just like an acoustic when shifting into third and higher positions. The Yamaha weighs a bit more than my acoustic: 580 g vs 500 g. (the four string YEV-104 weighs 550 g)

Setup

The Yamaha comes with D’Addario Zyex strings and they are just a bit tighter than the Dominants on my acoustic. But they are very comfortable compared to the steel strings on my other electric. The chin rest is standard and comfortable. The pegs turn and stick as they should and there are fine tuners on all the strings. The violin feels solid except for the thin darker wood that makes up the body shape. That wood feels fragile but holds up fine.

Sound Production

The Yamaha YEV is easy to play. There are no weird resonances or wolf tones, and playing in high positions still gives a full sound. The strings have a similar tone and volume to each other. Of course the E string is noticeably brighter than the A string, but that is expected. I’d also say that the A string is slightly quieter than the D string, but it is a small difference. It is easier to produce a quiet tone on the Yamaha so it has a bigger dynamic range than my acoustic. The Yamaha is responsive and doesn’t have any trouble with tremolo or spiccato. My acoustic is a bit better at producing an accent where the bow hair grips the string before starting the note, but that may be due to the strings.

Electronics

The Yamaha doesn’t have a built in pre-amp. It does have a volume control that you can activate by pushing a button on the back and then twisting a dial. I never use this control.

The output is a standard 1/4″ unbalanced headphone jack. I haven’t been able to find the output impedance, but the manual recommends plugging it into an input with at least a 1 M Ω input impedance.

The pickup is pizo-electric and built into the bridge.

Effects processor

I don’t own a pre-amp or guitar amp, but I do have a receiver and home stereo, so I bought a DigiTech RP360 pre-amp and effects processor to connect the violin to my stereo. The RP360 has a 1 M Ω instrument input and a 500 Ω unbalanced output. It can be used as a pure pre-amp, but it can also apply reverb, modulation, and equalizer effects. I also has a 40 second loop, a USB output for recording on a computer, a metronome and tuner.

Connections

The violin is plugged into the input jack on the left and the power cable is on the right. The RP360 provides two analog outputs labeled “left” and “right” I have those plugged into my stereo with a 1/4″ to RCA cable. The other connections on the box are to plug in auxiliary input (for playing along with a accompaniment track), headphone output and USB digital output. The “Control In” is for a pedal.

Effects settings

The RP360 comes with 100 effects settings presets. Most of these are for electric guitars and I didn’t find any of them to be to useful for making the Yamaha sound like an acoustic violin. They are fun to play with though, and you can create lots of interesting sounds.

The settings that I ended up with are:
Equalizer: Low -12db, 70 Hz, Narrow, Mid 0db, High 0db.
Modulation: Pearl chorus level=50 speed=20 depth=50 wave=sin
Reverb: Vintage plate level=30 pre-delay=0 decay=40 liveliness=50

These settings sound good on my home stereo, but when I connect to my computer, it sounds a bit over-processed. So for recording, I use these settings:
Equalizer: Low -12db, 70 Hz, Narrow, Mid 0db, High 0db.
Modulation: Pearl chorus level=40 speed=20 depth=50 wave=sin
Reverb: Lexicon studio level=25, pre-delay=0, decay=60 lieveliness=75

USB

When I connected the RP360 to my computer running Windows 10, I had some issues getting the sound to work. When the device connects, Windows 10 recognizes it and there is no need for a driver. It shows up as both an audio input and output device. It comes with software called “Nexus” for managing your effects settings and installing firmware patches.

To get it to record I had to set it as both the default input and output device. Since it is the default output, if you want to play accompaniment, you need to hook up speakers or headphones to the RP360. Similarly, if you want to hear what you are playing it is best to plug in headphones or your stereo on the RP360 itself. I found that sending the output of the RP360 to my computer sound card had too much delay.

Summary and Review

Overall I am very happy with the violin and the RP360. It is nice to be able to practice without using a mute and the sound quality is good. I’m also excited to learn how to play viola music and take advantage of the fifth string. Having the fifth string hasn’t been too hard to get used to and I can now go back and forth between my acoustic four string and electric five string without much difficulty.

I also really like being able to record the violin directly to my comptuer. I’ve been using my camera to record myself, but the sound quality isn’t great and I can’t have a metronome or accompaniment playing.

I’ve also enjoyed the loop recording capability of the RP360. I’ve been using it to record one violin part and then practice the second part and the 40 second buffer is too short.

The sound quality is not quite as good as my acoustic violin. The acoustic is a fuller and more powerful sound and I’d chose it if I were playing for people. The acoustic was $1800.

I also have a Cecilio electric violin ($120) and the Yamaha is much easier to play and has dramatically better sound.

I’ll probably never play in a band, but the Yamaha would be perfect for playing with other amplified instruments.

Here is a video that I made so that you can hear the differences yourself:

Update

It is coming up on a year with my YEV-105 and I am still happy with it and using it as my primary practice violin. I haven’t had any problems with the violin. The pegs are still good and I haven’t even broken a string.

I’ve taken a trip to Mexico with it and am fairly happy with it as a travel violin. There is a little more equipment to bring along than for an acoustic violin.

If you are looking at buying this violin just for practicing, you could consider using something like the iRig instead of the RP360. It is really just a small amp that converts the output from the violin into input for headphones or computer/phone. This doesn’t provide a good way to play for an audience, but it is smaller and cheaper than the RP360. ($40 at Amazon)

Here is a recording of me practicing for the recital. I have another week to practice, but I’ve already been working on this movement for five weeks, so this is about as good as it is going to get. I am playing at 92 beats per minute while professionals would play at 120 beats per minute. Some parts of this piece sound significantly better at full speed, and while I can play at nearly full speed, I make more mistakes. At the recital, there will be piano accompaniment which should help.

Edit (post recital): The recital went fairly well. We didn’t do a warm-up period; so the recital was shorter, but it was a bit harder to play without the warm-up session. I was a bit less nervous than at the prior recitals and played a bit better. This was the first year where I made it through the piece without having to stop to recover from a mistake.
I brought my camera along and got some video of some of the students to provide a feeling for what the experience is like. The final performance is by the teacher.

Edit 2: I was wrong about not improving much more in the final week. With another week (probably 15 hours) of practice I did get a bit faster and more consistent. I think that some of the tricky parts are a bit cleaner too. I’ve replaced the original practice video with on that I recorded the day after the recital. Sorry about the bad focus on the new video.

It was also fun to see all the students again and to see their progress since the last recital.

The recital was fairly informal and the teacher played along with the less experienced students. There were eight students performing; three were adults, four had been playing for less than a year. Between the performers and their families, there were 33 people in attendance. There wasn’t quite enough room for everyone in the living room and the kids were getting a bit squirmy after nearly two hours of recital, but the atmosphere was very supportive and friendly.

I’d spent approximately 12 weeks and 140 hours practicing this particular piece. The last two weeks didn’t improve the sound much, but did improve the coordination between the piano and violin and made it easier to recover from mistakes. 

I started taking lessons in September of 2009 and have been playing for four and a half years. The rate that I am improving has slowed down a lot. I can see the improvement between my first, second and third recitals, but it isn’t nearly as noticeable as the improvement was at the beginning.

We took several videos of our practice sessions so that we could listen to ourselves play and get the volume of the piano right. Here is our last session before the recital:

If my website is too slow to stream this video, you can listen to just the sound:

This recital was much like the first. It was informal and everyone played together to warm up and then each person played one piece. This time, the teacher played with most of the students.

I was less nervous than I was at the first recital, but I still had a harder time playing accurately than I do in practice. Being nervous doesn’t help, and I am not used to playing with accompaniment.

I had planned to play a short piece, but the teacher wanted to also do a long duet. I had learned the duet a couple of months ago, but it still took a week and a half of practice to get ready for the recital.

The duet was the third movement of the Bach double. The first movement for the second violin is at the end of Suzuki book four and is considered one of the milestones of learning violin. It is the first time you play a “real” piece where the two violins together create the melody instead of having a melody and accompaniment. The first violin part of the first movement is at the end of book 5 and so the first movement is often played at recitals by two students. The third movement isn’t in the Suzuki books and is a bit harder than the first movement.

I made a video of myself practicing the piece. I am wearing headphones to listen to a recording of the second violin and piano accompaniment. Unfortunately, I had to slow the original recording down from 90 bpm to 60 bpm which makes the recording sound weird.

https://chadweisshaar.com/pictures/2013/Recital-2a.wmv

The piece that I had originally planned to play is called Tambourin by A.E. Gretry. It is in Suzuki book 8 and was the piece I was learning when the recital was first planned.

https://chadweisshaar.com/pictures/2013/Recital-2b.wmv

The recital was pretty informal. Half of the students were beginners and four of the six were adults. We started by playing music from Suzuki book 1 as a group. Then each student played one piece. Most of the students acted like they played worse than they expected, or at least worse than they do normally. I felt the same way; I was nervous and made more mistakes than usual. I had a particularly hard time with the timing. It could have gone much worse though. The accompanist was extremely good and I never had to stop and re-start.

Overall it was a positive experience. It forced me to put a lot of time into a single piece. I wasn’t patient enough to do that without the pressure of a performance. And it was fun to meet the other students.

The piece that I played was the third movement of Bach’s violin concerto #1 in A minor. This piece is in Suzuki book 7 and was the piece that I was learning when the recital was planned. I have been working on the whole concerto since March and I have spent the last month just working on the third movement. The piece is supposed to be played almost twice as fast as I played it for the recital and it would take me months to get it up to that speed.

I made a video of myself practicing the piece. I am wearing headphones to listen to a pre-recorded piano accompaniment that I tried to add to the video. It doesn’t line up perfectly, but it is close.

https://chadweisshaar.com/pictures/2012/Recital.wmv

I will keep the paper log format and have a way to add a note and a list of pieces practiced to each day.

I am going to develop this in C# using their DataGridView and a SQLite back end database.