thirteenthsteph

They don't look painted to me at all, perfectly normal, as @Urban Luthiersaid.

Has anyone tried these violas? I'd like to hear how it actually sounds.

I don't think I am asking for the opposite of that per se, I just think that my bow is a bit too much on the bright side and would like to sweeten it a bit, bringing towards the middle. Wouldn't want it muddy and sluggish.

A side note: I have noticed that the crickets next to our house do a fine job of making me absolutely deaf to the hissing of my viola and here it sounds sweeter than ever. Perhaps I might be able to sneak in an orchestra of crickets in a jar in whichever hall I perform...

Fatter and thicker both work for me, but primarily I am looking for sweeter, rounder. While I understand less hair might be desirable for the more focused sound that travels well (because of the higher frequencies?), but the resulting hiss is quite noticeable to the listener as well as the player and I can't say that I will be playing in any large halls quite soon.

This is all very interesting. While I wouldn't trust this particular luthier to move around my soundpost (from experience), I think he does a pretty good job with rehairing, at least compared to others here. I will however think about which direction (less or more hair) might benefit my bow before bringing visiting again.

That I am very aware of, I just make do with what is available...

I did you mean?

My rehairer simply offers three grades of hair (from expensive to a bit more expensive ), but I was not aware of any differences in the properties of hair, I just thought that he considered the more expensive options better. I will ask him, thanks for the tip.

Sure, that would be the best option, I was just thinking if there was a less costly way... After all what I was suggesting was completely reversible, but I understand that it would probably fail.

No, it's not due to a recent re-hair, it has always seemed harsh to me, but blamed it either on bad playing on my part or on the viola, whereas I only recently realised that with different bows my viola sounded much better.

The OP is a he. The tape idea is interesting, I might try it myself. Regarding increasing the amount of hair inserted, I too imagine it would only (adversely) affect the feeling of my bow and not really the sound, as I doubt that more hairs would be in contact with the string, they would just form a thicker band.

@David Burgess Okay, I will discuss it with him, thank you.

@David Burgess Won't that affect it negatively otherwise though?

@Michael Darnton I see... Well, that sucks, but I can't say I did not expect it. The thing is I bought my viola and my bow from this luthier and while I can return the viola and upgrade by paying the difference, I can't do the same with my bow, so I'm kind of stuck...