I’ve played violin for sixty years I started with a borrowed one then my dad bought me an really old one from an auction it needed everything including a sound post I had it rebuilt in a Glasgow music store they valued it at five hundred pounds that was in 1962 while I was away from home my mother gave it away to a cousin who was just starting to play while she had it she kept it under her bed and one day while jumping on her bed with a friend the bed collapsed and destroyed my violin years later my daughter bought me a cheap one to get me playing again and with new strings a bridge and ebony pegs it plays and sounds great ,your video has inspired me to get mine out today I own five violins now I buy ones in need of love and care and rebuild them I also play banjo and many more instruments
I took my first free lesson and I must say I got some good tips! But the teacher did compliment me on my technique (at my current level of course). So just learning from RU-vid can be a good starting point.
I had a similar approach like you, instead of buying a cheap wooden violin - i bought an electrical one. In general the electrical ones are much cheaper even the better ones compared to the wooden. I trained myself for a while and finally got to the point to be in need of a trainer. Right after that i bought a proper violin at a luthier for 750€ and I am quiet happy now. In any case the violin is much better than I am :-)
I looked at electric violins myself, around here they start from around 180 euro, so indeed not that expensive. I was thinking that i could play them with headphones and not bother anyone with my horrible screeching. But I heard there not that quiet, still the same volume as a acoustic violin with a mute. How is your experience with that?
In any case they are mich more silent. I practiced without headphones so obviously they are not silent. As the corpus is missing it is in any case less!
I think you have done a good job there. I’ve played the violin for years. You have a cheap violin and you have quite drastically improved it. There is no point taking a cheap violin to a luthier as the costs involved. e.g having a standard quality bridge fitted is about £100 in the U.K, and what you have done is more or less correct. Another very important aspect is the sound post positioning, but on many of these cheap violins they have unfortunately been glued in. I think you will find the pegs a problem, but it’s not too hard or expensive to buy a peg reamer and shaper and carefully do it yourself (you wouldn’t do it yourself on a Stradivarius) but you don’t really have much to loose here, worst case scenario, glue some Whitney planetary pegs in. One thing worth checking (I heard a slight buzz on the video), check that those fine tuners are actually clamped tight to the tail piece as they have a tendency to vibrate. Most violinists only have fine tuners on the e string, on my acoustic I only have on e string, but on my electric I have a tail piece which has them integrally fitted.
Thank you for you comment! I agree with your remark that it doesn't make sense to take a violin of that cost to a luthier, To be honest I would be a bit ashamed about cheeping out and then expecting them to fix it. I guess replacing the sound post requires some special tools, that I don't have, so I don't feel confident trying that. Till now I don't have any problems with the pegs, so I'll keep them as is for the moment. I do also hear some light buzz! (sorry for the bad audio, I'll try to improve that in my next video) I'll try to clamp down the fine tuners and see if that helps. Would you recommend removing the fine tuners for the G, D and A string?
Thank you! I had my first free lesson last week with a violin teacher and he told me the same. He buys cheap violins and replaces the strings and bow to make them playable.
The sound post needs to be slightly behind the bridge. If they glued the post in, set the bridge relative to the post to get the best tone. It'll make a big difference.
I bought on line lessons from Red Dessert violin. It's a very good source to learn on your own. She's thorough. You can learn from her but it's a LOT of work. Good luck.
Nice video! Thanks for demonstrating a cheap violin. I saw a youtube video of a pro violinist do side by side comparison of $10 million dollar Stradivarius vs $69 cheap violin (Glarry) and to me, most of the advantage of Stradivarius is at high difficulty pieces which demand lot of virtuosity. Easy pieces like twinkle star actually sounded better on cheap violin than Stradivarius (to my ears). Decades ago, I played with "real" violin (inflation adjusted $2000) bought from a professional violin shop and now I play with a super cheap plywood violin (not upgraded in any way, but I did re-size bridge myself) and I actually like the cheap plywood violin better. For playing popular melodies, I think cheap violins are fine, at least from my experience.
I agree! A beginner violinist can never get the perfect sound out of any violin, so your skill will not outperform the quality of a budget violin. I guess that at a certain point your skill may outgrow your violin and then it's time for a new one. How did you resize your bridge? Was it too tall?
It's good that you made some improvements to the instrument, but it doesn't mean that it was so bad to begin with. It was a fine violin for any beginner. Even the original bow was perfectly adequate in my opinion. I notice no difference in sound between the old and the new bow. The new strings do sound nicer, but that's got nothing to do with the violin itself. I think you should be more proud of your instrument, and your playing as well.
Thank you for the compliment! The instrument was indeed perfectly adequate for my level of playing. The main problem with the bow was that in order to get the hairs flat and under the right pressure I had to screw it on so much that the wood part would be completely flat.
Hello my friend,8th subscriber here!I also started to play the violin less than a week so i will watch your progress,if you find something thats works,share! The way you do your modification is so damn German!Haha!!(thats a compliment!)
I think, you have buy 65$ Bow, 50$ strings ecc, for the violin very very cheap? So you can t have the great sound and for beginner its very danger because you can t know if your hands your violin bow strings or other cause the imperfection sound.... If you can, return the violin and buy Gewa , or Easter or stentor also they is cheap , but quality build and control its valid, for this reason the student buy these brand, i in the life i learn that a instrument is a investment because if you don t play you sale, but if is very cheap you lost money and instrument and passion, you play good, think if you can 250- 300$ for basic affordable instrument... Not buy aliexpress china under 500$ because they have many defect , i say this because i buyed Viola on amazon Gewa pure set 16.5" with 190$ last piece, but violin is 140$ and the first minute i play without problem, all perfect i don t buy other accessories, it s better spend for control quality for have a best secure play without problem...
Thanks for your comment! I did go to a violin teacher last week and he told me my violin is okay for the level I’m playing at. It sounded good when he played it so I can no longer blame the violin for the bad sounds ;-) If I keep playing I will problably buy a good beginners violin from one of the local luthiers. I think its alawys better to buy a violin in person then order it online.
@@stringsoffrustration you all right, its better to choose of person, great, the teacher is necessary for these instrument, i now feel hard difficulty to embrace and take hold without hands the viola, maybe because very big... Have need your time for know about... Thank you for your share information
I've been considering doing that and my local luthier has a "rent to buy" system where a violin costs 18euro per month for 24 months. If I'm sure I'll keep playing I will do that and make a video about it!
@@stringsoffrustration An instrument set up at an luther is much better. Go to more then one luther.There is still to consider if you like this violin. On one hand 342 Euro is a decount amont of money but not a lot of money for a violin. So try more then one instrument at the price range you can afford and think about the mony you need for this hobby in the future. Rehairing a bow at a luther cost arount 70 Euro in your area. You need new violin pages about every 6 months.
