This company appears to distribute its instruments through a variety of channels. The first R&Bell I saw had a sticker that said "Distributed by Meisel," a company in the U.K. The next one came from Mikael Jansson, and is distributed by a company in Japan called Saga. It's not clear to me where the actual maker is.

The first violin I saw had a hollow plastic body (could be bakalite), with controls (sliders for tone and volume) and pickup identical to the model shown above. The only real difference I can see (based on this picture) is that this model has a partial upper right bout, whereas the model I've seen directly had no upper bouts.

The piezo pickup is in a flat plate on which the bridge rests. Any standard violin bridge can be used. I've not seen this particular pickup before, and assume it's produced by R & Bell. According to the sheet I have on the Saga-distributed violins, the weight is between 500 and 550 grams, which is pretty light. There is a specially-designed shoulder rest based on the Kuhn available, and they also make a case specifically for the violin that's somewhat smaller than a standard violin case.

Pricing:

EV case: 4900 Yen
EV shoulder rest: 3300 Yen

Contact Information

Saga Japan
81 Kawamuracho
Moriyamaku, Nagoya
Japan

Phone: 052-796-1588
Fax: 052-796-1630