Bridge Tasman 5-String Electro-Acoustic Violin

Description

The five-string Tasman electro-acoustic violin by Bridge Violins is an excellent alternative for players looking for top shelf tone at a more affordable price. Unplugged, the Tasman’s acoustic sound is excellent, with plenty of color and warmth, a clear, pure high end, and decent projection. The Tasman’s amplified tone is where this instrument really shines — warm than the Golden Tasman, with less brilliance on the high end, with a rich and powerful output signal.

If you’ve been looking for exceptional tone in a five-string acoustic-electric violin, but the Bridge Golden Tasman 5 is outside of your budget, their Tasman 5-string electro-acoustic offers similar performance at a more affordable price. Its amplified tone has a nice warmth and darkness, with a powerful output and good resistance to feedback, it. Under the ear, the Tasman 5’s sound is rich and warm, and with good projection for an acoustic-electric.

Construction of the Tasman is (for the most part) quite traditional. A top of tightly grained spruce and a highly figured maple back and side are finished in a golden oil varnish. That finish is artistically antiqued. There are two main departures from the look of a classical violin. The first will be familiar to anyone who’s seen a Bridge violin. The shield (inspired by the 1710 Stradivari Viola da Gamba) that has become one of the company’s trademark details sits atop the peg box, instead of a traditional scroll. To mark the electro-acoustic’s dual nature, a lightning bolt inlay on the shield goes in place of the stylized lowercase “b” that marks their line of purely electric instruments.

A bigger departure, and one that’s conceptually brilliant, is the placement of the Tasman’s output jack. Recessed into the arch of the violin’s back the inset output jack is a stroke of design genius. It allows any player, even traditional classical players who don’t use a shoulder rest, to play the violin comfortably, as long as they use a cable with a straight (rather than right-angle) jack, solving a problem that players who don’t use a shoulder rest quickly discover when they attempt to play certain acoustic-electric violins.

Features
High quality spruce front and flamed maple back, with single black purfling and a lightly antiqued rich Venetian-style spirit varnish
Ebony fingerboard, nut, pegs, and endpin
Thomastik Dominant strings (or equivalent) for the G D A and E strings with a D’Addario Helicore C string
Lightweight alloy tailpiece, with integrated fine tuners
Ebony Guarneri style chinrest
3V coin cell battery provides approximately 500 hours of playing time — drains only while the jack is connected
Custom hardshell case is included
Specs

Construction

Body Length 356mm
Neck Stop 130mm
Body Stop 195mm

Set Up

Nut width 27mm
String spacing at nut 20mm
String spacing at bridge 39mm
Weight 550g approx

Electronics

BRIDGE pickup Piezo Configuration
Active surface mount preamp
Instrument Output 200mV nominal
Load Resistance 10K Ohms minimum
Battery 1 x Lithium 3V CR2032
Battery Life approx. 500 playing hours