I have a question of how electric string instruments work.

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I was wondering how people who make electric string instruments, make them sound like their acoustic counterparts. Acoustic string instruments get their sounds largely from the shape of the bodies, I assume, but since electric string instruments have solid bodies normally, how do they produce a similar sound?

How do they get an electric guitar to sound like a guitar, and how do they get an electric banjo to sound like a banjo. How do they an electric cello to sound like an acoustic cello, and how do they get an electric harp, to sound like an acoustic harp, and so on, etc.

I found this. And I did not know electric guitars went back to early 1930s!

And just found this from a maker of electric instruments.
I expect the reason, or at least part of the reason, different electric string instruments still sound like their acoustic relatives are because the strings are of different weights and lengths for each different instrument.

And then of course the electric sound signals can be adjusted for tone, pitch, frequency, and whatever else there is which can be electrically adjusted.

Oh okay, but if for example, you were to take the string off an acoustic guitar, and put them on an acoustic banjo body, would the banjo now sound much more like a guitar now, or no?

I would expect it to still sound banjo because the electric sound system is designed to behave as a banjo.

Oh okay. If it's the electric sound system that greatly determines the sound, are there any string instruments, that are electric, where the electric sound system can be altered to sound like any string instrument? For example, if you want it to sound like a guitar, you switch the setting to guitar, while playing the strings... or if you want it to sound like banjo, you switch to banjo, or if you want it to sound like finger plucking a cello, you switch to that, etc... Rather than having to buy all those electric string instruments?

Or would inventing such a system be possible, to switch from one electric sound to the next, as long as it's the same notes on the strings?

Since the electric sound system of an electric instrument starts with the vibrations of the strings on that specific electric instrument, I would expect that it may be possible to, at an extreme, make an electric ukulele sound like an electric cello but that's likely to require enough artificial manipulation of the sound signals that it may be less work and expense to use a synthesizer to create the sound from scratch.

And I'm a bit surprised that an actual musician who truly knows this stuff hasn't stopped by to post here.

Oh okay, that makes sense. So if an electric string instrument, didn't have any sound manipulation to make it sound like a guitar, or cello, etc, what would it sound like without any manipulation at all, naturally?

You have a few factors that make an instrument sound like it's supposed to. Most of those are physical, an electric guitar still sounds like a guitar when it's played without an amp, it just sounds like a quiet guitar because it doesn't have a big empty box attached to it (the acoustic guitar body).

The 'envelope' plays a big role in making an instrument sound like how it sounds; envelope refers to how the notes produced behave. These are usually broken down further into Attack, Decay, Sustain, and Release.

Attack is how the sound behaves when it's first produced. An instrument like a guitar tends to have a 'quicker' attack than something like cello. If the attack is more gradual it will sound more like a cello or viola than like a guitar.

Decay is how quickly the note starts to fade. Sustain is how loud it stays from attack until it goes away. Release is how the tail end of the note behaves.

Beyond that aspect, the electronics themselves will play a role. Instruments designed to be electric will use pickups dedicated to that purpose which all impose unique sound characteristics on their output. Pickups designed for use with acoustic instruments often work differently and tend to have their own different sound characteristics. Interestingly, pickups designed for non-electric instruments tend to have more options for sound shaping.

As for making one instrument sound like another, that will be influenced by what those instruments have in common.

A guitar tuned to C might seem like it should be able to emulate a cello being finger picked. It certainly should do a better job than trying to emulate a bowed cello. But, working against you are the fact that a cello has a longer scale and lacks frets. That doesn't mean it can't do it at all, it just means it won't be perfect.

A short-scale, fretless electric bass would likely get closer than a typical electric guitar would.

Even playing that instrument with a bow won't quite get you to proper cello sounds though. Bowed instruments like violin, viol and cello have much rounder fretboards than picked ones like guitar or bass. This makes it much easier to play single notes with a bow and much harder to strum chords. The fact that you can't play it exactly like a cello would impact how it sounds.

As for the banjo example, because a banjo has a much shorter scale (distance from the nut to the bridge) than a guitar a banjo won't sound like a guitar even with guitar strings. An electric banjo might sound similar to an (electric) tenor guitar (basically a guitar with really short neck that has it's nut where a normal guitar has it's 12th fret) , or an electric mandolin or some other shorter scale, higher range picked stringed instrument.

One of my guitars has a bass string on it, but it doesn't sound like a bass even though that string is from a bass and is tuned to a note that basses have and guitars don't usually have. The shorter scale makes it sound like a guitar and inherently impacts the instrument's voice. If someone made a bass with 25.5" scale it would just sound like a really low tuned guitar. If someone made a guitar with a 34" scale it would just sound like a really high tuned bass.

If one really needs to get a guitar or other stringed instrument to pretend to be something else the best option is to use a hex pickup and guitar synth. The hex pickup picks up each string uniquely, so each note is captured by itself instead capturing the whole sound together and that gets fed into a synthesizer that uses your guitar as a controller, basically replacing your 'guitar sound' with something else.

Oh okay, that's very interesting, thanks for all that input...

When it comes to how the picks up make an instrument sound like their acoustic counterpart, say for example you take the picks ups out of an electric guitar and put them in an electric cello instead. Would the electric cello now sound more like an electric guitar now?

Hello.
When it comes to musical instruments such as guitars, there are many factors that determine the sound of an instrument.

Electric Guitars and Acoustic Guitars can sound similar but I wouldn't say that most electric guitars sound like acoustic guitars in terms of tonality. There are few newer exceptions.

When it comes to acoustic guitars, there are all sorts of aspects as to what makes that guitar sound the way it does.
With Acoustics, the most important aspects of a guitars design is the actual design of the guitar (how it is manufactured), but also the type of woods used in the design, its thickness, the way it is treated etc.

On top of that, even the type of strings on a guitar can change the sound of an acoustic guitar.

With electric guitars, the woods used and the design of the guitar (its depth), are also important as well as the strings.
But also the types of pick ups used, the placement of the pickup, the height of the pick up next to the string, the combination of the pick ups used. yep, lost of things involved.

On top of that you can also plug the electric guitar into all sorts of amplifiers and speakers, as well as all sorts of effects pedals and units, and on top of that, you can also use signal processors to change the sound of the guitar.

That's how many of the cool guitarists get their far out sound.

Now for your question, would putting a guitar pick up on a cello make your cello sound like a guitar.
I would not necessarily bet on that.

The guitar pick ups are often designed to be used on guitars that have guitar stings spaced out to fit the strings.
The guitar pick ups are also designed to be x amount of mm from the strings.

If you try and place that on a cello, i would doubt that the strings would be spaced the same way that a 6 string electric guitar is, or even a 4 string electric bass, i would also imagine that the strings action (the distance from the body / pick up and the string) is far too far for the pick up to pick up the vibration.

I also am aware of the power of the cello strings, as the cello strings likely vibrate a great deal more than the guitar, and likely carry a great deal more low frequency energy, so even if the pick up could be placed in the right place for the cello, the strings would likely over power the pickups.

Not saying don't experiment, however, perhaps you could buy an electric pick up for a cello and find a suitable effects unit that will make your cello sound like an electric guitar.

Although its not the same, I know of an electric violin virtuoso who i watched play the main stage at Glastonbury in 95.
Ed Alleyne-Johnson, who playing goes from classical violin, to psychedelic rock of hendrix etc.

Cool.
best cello pick ups
best cello pick up

make your cello sound like an electric bass

There may be a way of making your cello sound more like a guitar, by employing the right EQ / Effects
although will likely not sound that great, in the same way as if you try and make a bass guitar sound like a guitar.

Sonnuus B2m

One option that may be a kind of work around, is to use a Sonnuus B2M converter with the pick up system on the cello
As this will convert the audio into midi

although if i were you, i would take your cello to a shop that sells these and ask if you can try it out
to see how it works out, as it may not work

and midi guitar doesn't always sound that great unless you choose a decent virtual guitar program or synthesizer
that emulates realistic guitars, perhaps look for "physical modelling" synthesizer in the spec. as these are supposed to model how real instruments react. Some are better than others.

Hope that helps.

Well the thing is, is that you can tell if it's synthesized a lot of the time though, and it's not the same sounding for me, a lot of times.