mf | core Viola 16.5 inch Hybrid

Four bars decide it. With or without a cable.

The mf | core Viola 16.5 inch Hybrid is the same instrument as our purely acoustic viola in 16.5 inch, with a pickup that belongs to it from the start. In your hands it feels familiar: the same measurements, the same string length, the same posture. What is new is the surface under your fingers, and what happens once the bow is on the string.

What happens in those four bars

The response comes without resistance. You start the note and it is there, in pianissimo, on the C string, on a cold morning. Doing and feeling sit closer together than you are used to, and that is the point where any hesitation goes.

The C string carries with a depth that forms the foundation of viola sound. Higher up the tone stays open and colourful, and the instrument does not saturate when you really give it everything.

The viola problem

The viola is the only string instrument built too small for its own tuning. Following violin proportions it would have to measure around 53 centimetres to serve its C string acoustically. Nobody could play that.

So it is built smaller, and what is lost is accepted. Every violist knows the consequence: you work for volume that a violin gives you for nothing.

Carbon fiber shifts that compromise. A top that is stiffer at the same weight moves more air than its size suggests. That does not repeal physics, but it changes where the compromise sits.

Why 16.5 inch

The classical viola format, for anyone who wants the maximum in volume and depth. The larger body unfolds the full resonance of the C and G strings and delivers the projection that counts in large halls and in the orchestra.

And because the instrument is lighter than its size suggests, this format costs you less effort than you are used to.

The pickup

The Cordasonus pickup is built in. No retrofitting, no glue, no box on the body. A proprietary treated crystal from a German ceramics technology company sits in the bridge and registers pressure changes there and nothing else.

Acoustically this changes nothing. Unplugged, the instrument sounds exactly like one without a pickup.

Amplified you get a natural tone without the hardness of conventional piezo systems, a frequency response from 10 Hz to 80 kHz and low feedback sensitivity. Connects through a 6.3 mm jack, no battery.

And one particular feature: the pickup rotates in the bridge. In 45 degree steps you change the tonal character, mid-performance, with no tools and no equalizer.

What it is made of

Carbon fiber is pure carbon, drawn into filaments seven thousandths of a millimetre across. A material that was reserved for aerospace for decades. We build violins from it.

The body is made by vacuum infusion, in one piece, with no glue seam. Then comes the part you look at every day: sanded, lacquered, sanded again, lacquered again, finally polished by hand. Two full lacquer cycles, each one checked separately.

That effort is the reason the pattern shifts instead of sitting flat. Under stage lighting your instrument looks different with every change, and people will ask you about it.

Alternatively the Orchestra Finish: a wood appearance to your specification, colour, flame, one-piece or two-piece back. For anyone who wants to blend visually into a string ensemble, and for anyone who simply prefers the look.

Specification

• Wittner fine tuning pegsYou tune at the peg, precisely and without slipping. No four fine tuners on the tailpiece, no sticking in dry air.
• CITES-free composite fingerboard and chin restHypoallergenic, feels like ebony, lasts considerably longer. And no protected wood to raise questions at a border.
• Wittner tailpiece with Kevlar loopStable in tuning, light, insensitive.
• Grooves in the lower ribsSo your shoulder rest stays where you put it instead of sliding off in the middle of a movement.
• 5 year warranty on the bodyYour security. The actual service life is far longer. Carbon fiber does not fatigue, and nobody yet knows where the limit lies.
• Cordasonus pickupBuilt into the bridge, 6.3 mm jack, no battery, rotates in 45 degree steps.

What you can choose

• Five stringsAn additional E string, for maximum flexibility between violin and viola repertoire.
• Orchestra FinishWood appearance to your specification.
• Milo Stamm Royal bridgeHarder wood, more overtones, more brilliance.
• Anima Nova carbon sound postA fitted sound post sits where it sits. This one adjusts in length inside the instrument, to within hundredths of a millimetre. You change the tension between top and back whenever you want.

Delivery takes about two weeks, up to four with Orchestra Finish. If your configuration is in stock it ships at once. Send us a short message and we will give you the date.