The surgiment of the electric violin, as well as the acoustic violin, is not well defined. Around the 19th century, with the radiodifusion and the recordings, the technical needs of the music increased. And along with it, increased the necessity for the amplification of the violin sound for a better captation. The most significant inventor on this area was the austriac John Mathias Augustus Stroh (1828-1914) because, not being a violin player, he was able to put aside the traditional barriers and focus on the development of instruments that could be heard. In 1899 he patented a violin caracterized for a bell like a trumpet. The moviment of the violin bridge criated by the strings vibration makes an aluminium disc vibrate, amplifying the sound. On 30s many electric violins models were patented. Those that were more significant were the “Violectric”, that mantains the features of the traditional violin but it has a pickup inside or under the bridge, and the “Electro”.
|  Stroh’s Violn. Source: http://www.digitalviolin.com  Violectric’s violin. Source: http://www.lightbubble.com |
