ok, so nothing against guitarists or anything, especially the ones with mad skills and those who actually try to learn the instrument (as opposed to "teaching themselves" three power chords and thinking they're amazing) but here's an interesting story for those of you who have Vipers with frets:
first of all - have you ever had a guitarist try to tell you where to put your fingers on a fretted Viper? my friend Nate plays guitar and he started arguing with me on how to play MY violin. i tried to calmly explain to him that i met Mark in person, got a private lesson with him, and learned EXACTLY how to play my instrument from the Master himself, but he wouldn't listen. he kept trying to tell me how frets are supposed to be used (he was giving me the "guitar version"). i remained calm (because i really never get mad), but it somehow got to the point where Nate was yelling at me and the guitar teacher had to come over and explain to him that i was right because the sustain on a violin is way different than that on a guitar and the frets were much flatter.
since then, i've had several guitar players try to tell me i'm playing my instrument wrong (our school's got SO many guitar players, it's insane; the sad thing is, only a few of them try to learn how to play for real). as usual, i just explain that an electric violin is different. most of them listen when i mention sustain and flatter frets because then they know what i'm talking about. it's usually the inexperienced, first-year guitarists who still won't listen. (note: there are a few guitarists at my school who think they're amazing because they "taught themselves", but they really only know three chords. those are the guitarits that annoy me - the ones with big egos who have no room to have one. i'm sure none of the people on the board are like this, so i'm not insulting anyone here, i would hope)
either way, all the guitarists i've met still bow down to my Viper
again, nothing against guitars or guitarists - great instruments and usually great people.

Yeah. When I tried a Viper, I didn't know that about the frets, and I played it like a guitar. I thought it was great, but think of what I woulda thought if I'd done it right!

I'm lucky I guess since most guitar players first see it, then hear me play the shiztah out of it then they come over and ask a million questions. I've yet to have one tell me I'm doing anything wrong.
Tell them they are doing their virbrato wrong! LOL

good idea . . . lol

I'm a guitarist so naturally I'm partial to their opinion. the viper 6 string viper is tuned like a guitar, so guitarists could show you quite a few tricks. Sweeping for example is the toughest skill to master in metal guitar, you could pull it off on the viper just fine if you can cross strings insanely fast. But either way you should consider an experienced guitarist's opinion, you might just get better.

The 6-string Viper is NOT usually tuned like a guitar, but instead tuned like a violin, just continuing down two more strings (high to low, E A D G C F).

That being said, it CAN be tuned like a guitar, but it requires figuring out which guage of strings to buy for each string and to what pitch they should be tuned. It's not as easy as just buying the instrument and tuning it like a guitar.

And of course there are opportunities to learn from every musician...everyone has their tricks.

my mistake, yeah i just looked that up, and you were right about it being tuned differently than a guitar. But I don't know about buying different gauged strings. Guitarists commonly alternatively tune their guitars, such as dropped D, C, or Bb. The viper appears as though is tuned mechanically, so it probably wouldn't hurt to drop the C and F strings each a half step. But I could be mistaken.

Guess there are ups and down to having frets! One question, I bought my sabre fretless, but can I ever have frets added some day when I could use them?

Sometimes it's best to let your instrument do the talking. If the listener still doesn't understand, there's not much more to be said.

The Viper is tuned mechanically, and you could tune the C and F strings down a half step, but this would get you the exact opposite of guitar tuning.

Since the violin is tuned in 5ths, your proposed tuning would give you: E A D G B E from high to low (intervals of 5th 5th 5th 6th 5th)

As opposed to guitar tuning: E B G D A E from high to low (intervals of 4th 3rd 4th 4th 4th).

That is why you need different guage strings to tune a Viper like a guitar, as doing so requires dramatic changes in tuning for each string, and it cannot be accomplished properly with normal violin strings.

Interesting, on mark woods site they advertise the viper as though you can easily tune it like a guitar, i might be mistaken, but I'll look into it.

Well it's easy to tune like a guitar if you get the right gauge strings. There was a post a while back about which strings to get for which guitar equivalent, but every time I search a forum (any forum for anything) I come up with bupkuss.

Just for the record... The FAQs on the Wood Violins site answer this question and give the suggested gauges for the strings. Here is the link:

http://www.woodviolins.com/html/faq.html#4A

Well I am both a guitarist and a violinist.

I made myself a 6 string fretted electric violin...
And I can easily say that ANY guitar player has no idea how to handle a violin...
Fretted or not.

And even if you tune the violin in fourths like a guitar, you lose that way some of the violin characteristics in the process... But I can understand some guitar players not wanting to learn a new instruments from ground up.

As for the sweeping technique as mentioned Hellraiser, which I can do proficiently on guitar, it's been done for hundred of years on violin. I suggest you go listen to Paganini's Caprice No. 1 and then ponder...

But doing sweeping exactly like a guitar on a violin wouldn't yield great results anyways...
That's the magic of learning an instrument: It just doesn't behave like another. You have to slowly learn its strengths and weaknesses and bring out the best it can do.

Applying techniques from an instrument to another (even though they seem related to some point) in a copy/paste manner is just plain dumb. IMHO.

AMEN! That's one of the reasons I love learning new ones and one of the reasons I play so many.


Sad, but true. Clarinet and sax finger almost identically, but I can't play sax for crap because of embouchure problems. Same with bass guitar and string bass. You'd think a lot transfers, but the only thing that really does is the EADG tuning.

When I first heard of vipers, I thought about getting one and tuning it as a guitar, but now that I've gotten more respect for fifths-tuned instruments, I'd never tune a viper as a guitar. On top of that, unless I'm doing chords that prohibit it, I never put my fingers between frets on any instrument, and always put them on top of the frets. Better sound, better intonation. @DaughterOfIreland: Your guitarist friend telling you how to play the viper like a guitar reminds me of my string bass teacher demeaning frets as being limiting and "cheater" devices. You just don't say than another's instrument is wrong. Period.