Franz Nicolay
SPB: What instrument is the hardest to tunefully amplify in a larger venue?
Nicolay: It doesn't come up very often, but the musical - or "singing" - saw is next to impossible to successfully mic. The sound is soft and high-pitched and has no obvious point of creation, so you just have to point a mic at it and turn it up as loud as you can without feeding back. The problem is especially acute since for the performer, to accurately set and hold the pitch you need to hear it pretty well, so you need monitors turned up as well. Basically it becomes a feedback machine. Better to use a theremin. Or just a violin.
