When it's played without being plugged in, it sounds like a muted acoustic violin, since there's no body for the sound to vibrate. When it's plugged in it sounds like an amplified acoustic violin, and it works exactly the same as an electric guitar - you can plug it into an amp, run it through pedals, etc. I was messing around with it in logic last night with different effects, and some of the stuff you can do with it is pretty sweet. And yeah, the tuning is C G D A E. It's weird to play at first because the strings are much closer together, and I'm still bumping into other strings by accident every once in awhile. It's also sized like a violin, so the C string leaves something to be desired, and also, the C string is a bitch to get in tune. Most five strings violins have that problem though.
It's coming to MAGfest. Yay Xenotones!