Ok, so back when there was the whole "go and post on Violaman.com" drive going on, I decided to try stringing my electric violin as a viola.  Not like I went out and bought a set of viola strings, mind you.  I just moved over the G,D and A strings of a violin set and added a C string that was actually an old guitar string.  (on guitar it was an A, I think)

I never did end up posting on Violaman.com that weekend, since it didn't sound very good, and I almost immediately ran into some problems. Gee, imagine that, huh?  LOL

I won't go into great detail on the issues I ran into, other than to say they were about what one would expect.  I had to tinker with string gauges to get any sort of reasonable balance, had to mess with how much silk thread to wrap the tail end of the strings with to adjust "ring" and so on.  Most or all of the problems could have probably been avoided by just buying a light gauge set of viola strings in the first place. 

But anyway, I did eventually get everything stable and reasonably balanced and my electric has been doing it's best impersonation of a viola for a few months now. 

One thing you figure out pretty quick, if you are still using your violin bow and rosin, is that you have to lean into it a bit more, especially on that low C string.  Since all the strings are proportionately a bit thicker, you actually have to use a bit more weight to your bow on all the strings than you are used to and maybe a bit more bow to get good sounds.  Using that instrument a fair bit when I practice/play, when I pick up my standard violin again, it seems easy to really make it sing out even on the low notes.  I'm thinking it builds a little extra strength in one's bowing and one picks up a little more "authoritay".

The other thing is the difference in range opens up some neat possibilities for some songs/pieces.  I had originally thought that I'd probably play a lot of songs that didn't make heavy use of the E string about the same.  Or that I'd probably just shift them over one string lower.  Which does work, but it ends up not really using that different range to it's best advantage.  Sometimes they sound really cool if you just drop them just a step or two and work up a new variation of the song/piece. 

Since I also often work up accompaniment with guitar or other instruments for those songs, doing them in a different key opens up some new voicing possibilities and etc.  Which is fun is that is your sort of fun.  I like that sort of thing, but I understand if some people would consider it just an extra pain in the buttocks.

It also ends up affecting violin in some cases, though.  Since I'll try a song in a lower key than usual on the viola-strung electric, and work up an accompaniment, and then play violin with that accompaniment.  Sometimes what I had previously been doing on that song with violin just doesn't work in that key so well, so I may look at voicing a passage in a higher register than I used to or etc and that leads sometimes to some pleasant discoveries.

Anyway... I know that other folks here play both violin and viola (including some who have restrung/retuned a violin into viola range).  So what have any of you noticed about how it affects your violin playing when you switch back to violin?