Harley Benton HBV 990BEM 4/4 Electric Violin

De viool is erg mooi afgewerkt. Hij is heel erg licht en men hoort bijna geen geluid als je erbij staat. Dus alleen diegene die de viool bespeeld die hoort het geluid door de koptelefoon. Dat was ook de bedoeling (je kunt dan oefenen zonder dat iemand er last van heeft op een studentenkamer). De koptelefoon die erbij geleverd wordt is heel erg simpel. De schoudersteun kreeg ik niet erop. Want die kan je wel met schroeven erop zetten maar ik durf dat niet doen omdat je dan iets los moest draaien, dat is dan jammer. Dus ik gebruik de steun van mijn andere viool. Maar de viool is zeker erg goed voor deze prijs. De snaren zijn ook goed maar dit is dan wel mijn eerste elektrische viool en moet nog ervaring opdoen.

This violin is great to practice without disturbing others. It looks great (just like the picture), plays good and most important; sounds great.

This review is relative, when I say the violin sounds great. I compared it to violins of a similar price range.

The setup is pretty good. The strings are medium action and could be setup to go a little lower if desired.
The included strings are fine for a beginner but for experienced players, I wouldn't hesitate to put a set of your favorite strings on their.

You can see the finish is a decal, not the real deal but it is still pretty none the less.

The piezo pickup does a fine job "electrifying" the violin. It sounds like a violin but a little 'EQ' will be required. Luckily there's one build in and that makes finetuning the sound an ease.

The volume acoustically is satisfying quiet. A normal conversation is usually quite a bit louder. So that's an extra point for this product.

To conclude this review, here's a quick summary.
The violin is quite, plays a lot like an acoustic one, sounds great and plays like a charm. If your looking for a budget violin, I highly recommend this violin!

Plastic ziet er niet echt stevig uit. Kin-stuk zit voor mij totaal verkeerd en is niet verstelbaar. Doet zelfs zeer. Er staat nergens hoe je de schoudersteun moet bevestigen. Ik denk de rubbers om de boutjes in 2 van de 3 gaten duwen onder het batterij vak. Is ver van comfortabel en eigenlijk nutteloos. Drukt pijnlijk op de rand van mijn sleutelbeen.

De denkbeeldige fretten liggen niet haaks. Om een zuivere noot te krijgen moet ik op de E verder naar richting kam dan op de G snaar. Dit is bij de 4e positie al een halve cm verschil.

De stemsleutels zijn niet echt bruikbaar, de fijn-stemmers werken prima.

Het ding is niet echt resonant, plukken lukt in de eerste 3 posities, hogere tonen hoor je nauwelijks en een tuner pikt ze niet eens meer op. Vergeleken met een elektrische gitaar klinkt dit alsof er 100 jaar oude snaren opzitten. Misschien normaal voor violen ?

De opbergtas is best mooi en goed.

De strijkstok is krom,

Ik ben te veel beginner om hem verder te beoordelen qua geluid of spelen (Speel zo'n 40 jaar elektrische en akoestische gitaar)

De afwerking van de viool is best netjes. De electronica werkt goed. Eest maar beter leren spelen voor ik een betere elektrische viool koop.

Violin review

I am a music student and I bought this product for two main reasons: practicing at home without disturbing other people and having the possibility of connecting it to effects. I've been using it now for several months and I'm happy all right with it.
I know the list of "Cons" seems to be a bit long, but the overall experience is good and I don't regret my decision. Value/quality ratio is good, probably you wouldn't find anything as nice as this one for that money.

Pros:
Natural sound is low enough to allow you to practice at night without disturbing anyone on the house.
Lightweight for an electric violin, I've tried other EVs and they tend to be very heavy.
Line out 1/4" Jack connection, some of them have an small jack and they tend to fail very quickly.
Position of the tone controls and volume knob is out of the way, helping to avoid any undesired change on settings.
Sound is OK.
Case is OK.
Nice light bow.
Battery seems to last for a good while.
The tuning pegs took a while to settle, however once they did they work very well.
The micro tuner works fine although I find the ??? a bit small and not that nice to handle, they do what they are meant to do anyway.

Cons:
Headphones out is very noisy, Hiss is the word. I only use the line out into my FX unit "BOSS ME-50"
Tone controls are not very good, can't expect much anyway for that price, I use them flat. Better to use whatever you have in your mixer/DAW.
Faders and volume control got noisy quickly enough, even when I don't use the tone controls and only use the volume as an "On/Off", fully closed/fully opened.
Body, the outer plastic frame which also contains the electronics, seems to be very fragile and because of its shape wider at the rear and thiner near the centre of the instrument is very awkward to fit a conventional shoulder rest and that brings me to something that is completely unacceptable...
WORST SHOULDER REST EVER!!! Whoever designed that "useless thing" did not think at all: it falls out of the instrument, is too small and unusable. Since I bought it I tried it a couple of times and down to the box of useless stuff it went. WORST feature of the instrument by far, so do not hesitate to buy one along with the EV, also avoid this kind of SR <a class="article link" href="https://www.thomann.de/nl/everest_shoulder_rest_44_violin.htm">Everest Easy Shoulder Rest Violin 4/4</a>
The grip is not good at all and they also come out of the instrument, this one is the one I have and I don't like it at all; go for the traditional ones, the piece that holds them to the instrument has longer arms and grips better. Honestly I think they should apologise to those who bought this violin for it and give them nice shoulder rests instead.

PIECE OF ADVISE: Get a cable with an "L"shaped jack so it fits properly in the line out without disturbing. Also use some velcro to hold the cable to the instrument so that way you will reduce any stress of the cable hanging from the line out and prolong its life.

Hope this help you decide.
Enjoy

Paulo