Violectra is the trade name

Trade name

A trade name, also known as a trading name or a business name, is the name which a business trades under for commercial purposes, although its registered, legal name, used for contracts and other formal situations, may be another....

 of an electric violin

Electric violin

An electric violin is a violin equipped with an electronic output of its sound. The term most properly refers to an instrument purposely made to be electrified with built-in pickups, usually with a solid body...

 produced by Barcus-Berry with the pitch equivalent of an acoustic tenor violin

Tenor violin

A tenor violin is an instrument with a range between those of the cello and the viola. An earlier development of the evolution of the violin family of instruments, the instrument is not standard in the modern symphony orchestra...

, sometimes called baritone violin

Baritone violin

A Baritone violin is a member of the violin family and has two specific meanings:* a violin tuned an octave below conventional violin tuning . This is commonly accomplished by stringing a standard violin with heavy gauge strings, sometimes specially manufactured for this purpose. Oversize...

. It is tuned an octave below normal violin; i.e. between viola

Viola

The viola is a bowed string instrument. It is the middle voice of the violin family, between the violin and the cello.- Form :The viola is similar in material and construction to the violin. A full-size viola's body is between and longer than the body of a full-size violin , with an average...

 and cello

Cello

The cello is a bowed string instrument with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is a member of the violin family of musical instruments, which also includes the violin, viola, and double bass. Old forms of the instrument in the Baroque era are baryton and viol .A person who plays a cello is...

. It was developed in USA by Barcus-Berry in the early 1960s but maybe not perfected (so to speak) till a bit later. Jean-Luc Ponty

Jean-Luc Ponty

Jean-Luc Ponty is a French virtuoso violinist and jazz composer.- Early years:Ponty was born into a family of classical musicians on 29 September 1942 in Avranches, France. His father taught violin, his mother taught piano...

 was one of the first famous jazz violinists to play it, Michał Urbaniak and Elek Bacsik

Elek Bacsik

Elek Bacsik was a Hungarian-born American jazz violinist and guitarist.Bacsik was born in Budapest, the son of Arpad Bacsik and Erzsebet Pocsi. He was of Romani ethnicity and studied violin at the Budapest Conservatory, but found his primary musical inspiration in bebop pioneers Dizzy Gillespie...

 too. Fiddler Vassar Clements

Vassar Clements

Vassar Clements was a Grammy Award- winning American jazz, swing, and bluegrass fiddler. Clements has been dubbed the Father of Hillbilly Jazz, an improvisational style that blends and borrows from swing, hot jazz, and bluegrass along with roots also in country and other musical...

 has brought the instrument into the progressive bluegrass scene. Urban Blitz

Urban Blitz

Urban Blitz is best known for his electric violin, baritone violectra and lead guitar work with the 1970s London protopunk art rock band Doctors of Madness....

 introduced the instrument into the rock music

Rock music

Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...

 context.

The first recording known of with it is by the maker himself John Berry

John Berry

Sir John Berry was an English naval officer of the Royal Navy, and was in 1675 the captain of the annual convoy to Newfoundland that took place during the years of the colony's founding....

 on a 1963 demonstration album. It was probably used by some LA studio musicians

Session musician

Session musicians are instrumental and vocal performers, musicians, who are available to work with others at live performances or recording sessions. Usually such musicians are not permanent members of a musical ensemble and often do not achieve fame in their own right as soloists or bandleaders...

before the jazzers got hold of it.