Posted: Mar 11, 2016 3:37 pm
Animavore wrote:It's more of a clean violin played as part of a metal ensemble, which plenty of metal songs use. I was thinking more of a violin/cello with distorion, wah, and other pedals. Apocalytica still come closest to what's in my head.
The reason for this is that it probably sounds crap. Certain acts (the two guys with the cellos that cover metal stuff, I can't remember their name) do use liberal amounts of distortion. It sounds great in isolation, but in a band context I'm not sure the frequencies would sit nice with a whole ensemble. There is a lot of fizz, handling noise, and the distorted harmonics from the soundbox of the instrument. Hence the reason that electric guitars are solid bodied. Bodyless electric violins exist, but tend to be amplified clean rather than outright distorted. Mixing a band is usually a compromise, scooping out frequencies from each instrument to give space for the rest. A distorted cello or violin will be kicking out a very wide range and getting it to complement the other instruments would be a challenge. I'm not saying it's impossible, but there are probably reasons why it hasn't been done.