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Showing results for tags 'g string sounds bad'.
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I just finished refurbishing and setting up a 1920s Leon Bernardel violin that I recently acquired. Before I do much work on a violin, I do a quick, cursory setup with cheap strings to get an idea what a particular instrument might have to offer, to see whether it would be worth putting much time into. Knowing that this wasn't going to be worth a lot of money in any case, it still sounded like it had some potential, so I went ahead and cleaned it up pretty well, made some ugly scratches go away, polished it up, and put in a proper setup. I thought my efforts were rewarded, since it sounds big, open and warm, fairly focused, powerful, but not as clear and radiant as some of my best fiddles. The big problem is that the G string "chokes" up high, sounds strangled. It might just be my bow technique, but other , similar value violins that I have set up the same way with the same strings don't choke that way, only student quality violins, IME, and not ones that start out sounding so good and responding so well. Am I missing something regarding setup? Is there something that others do as a first response to try to improve response high on the G string, or is it just a sign of a weak violin? I'm curious and a little disappointed, because I had better expectations based on early indications and experience. (I've had instruments that were a little disappointing on initial setup, but which came alive after a few days of playing or just hanging around the shop, and showed that spark that takes them from OK to exciting, especially old instruments that had been dormant for decades.)
