Jordan Electric Violas
Base Price: $4,200
All models feature carved wood neck thru body, ebony fingerboard and nut, ebony button Schaller tuners, ebony Kaufman chinrest and firmly attached Kun shoulder rest. Individually preferred chinrest and/or shoulder rest may be substituted at no additional charge. I’ve done several electric violas over the years including this 16 ½” five string viola for Alexander Mishnaevski (the principal Violist with the Detroit Symphony).
Some electric makers offer only one size of electric viola. Since viola sizes are not standardized, my approach is to make violas to order to match the sizes of people’s existing violas. This involves more work than making violins where one adult size really does basically fit everyone. For the extra work of getting the needed measurements, making a plan based on each viola, and then building the instrument based on that plan there is an extra charge of $1,140 over the base price of the violins I make. Since there is only one case pricing option for all the violas I make, I include the price of the case with the viola.
Other than that, the pricing of the violin options are directly applicable to a viola.
The Jordan Electric Viola standard four string model features maple neck thru body finished in a solid opaque color of your choice and Starfish transducer bridge. It is custom made and sized to match your personal viola and includes a deluxe oblong case.
The options chosen will determine the final price of your instrument.
Wood and Finish Options
Pearlescent or metallic finishes - add $120
Lightly flamed maple with transparent finish - add $200
Heavily flamed maple with transparent finish - add $390
Exotic hardwood body - add $390 & up
Holoflash, or other custom finish - add $390 & up
Harlequin color shifting finishes - add $550
Gold plated metal hardware - add $190
Transducers
StringAmp transducer system - quoted individually
Internal or external preamplifiers. - quoted individually
Upgrades
Detachable upper bout - add $390
Five string instrument - add $390
Six string instrument - add $1,040
Seven string instrument - add $1700
Fretted Violas - add $1,000
BOWS
Any conventional bow can be used with our electric instruments. For those players who are thinking of a modern bow to match with their new electric viola, we offer the full CodaBow line of graphite-fiber bows.
STRINGS
We recommend Thomastik and D’Addario strings for our violas. Thomastik makes the special low and high pitched strings for our extended range instruments and their standard pitch strings are also unsurpassed in quality. These will be the strings that come stock on your Jordan Viola and you can always order replacement sets from us.
AMPLIFICATION
There are many excellent choices of amplifiers that work well with electric viola. Most of the best choices are designed as acoustic instrument amplifiers as these have ultra-high impedance inputs that match ideally with the types of transducers used to sense the string vibrations, and they are designed for accurate sound reproduction. We are a dealer for Fishman. There are far too many brands and models to list all the possibilities, but here are some popular choices:
AER (many models to choose from including Alpha and AcoustCube IIa)
CASES
Included Deluxe Oblong, Cordura cover, velvet interior, matching blanket, and four bow holders