Amateur Bard

This isn’t necessarily a real in-depth analysis of my recently acquired violin-shaped object. I do plan to do a side-by-side comparison with the Prelude, but I haven’t had time to take photos yet. Instead, let’s take a peek at the pictures I snapped on my phone while I was unboxing.

I had spent the day eagerly checking the front porch every time I heard a truck in the neighborhood. Finally, a giant box appeared in front of the door! The shipping box was 48″ x 22″ x 13.5″ (1.2m x 56cm x 34cm, roughly) with a big UN3091 lithium battery label that, frankly, left me slightly baffled until I realized they must have included a tuner in the package. Well, what a nice little bonus! As opposed to the nasty little surprise when I opened the shipping box and saw that there was no padding or packaging other than a plain cardboard box. And of course that box came open during transit… The case is in the black half of the box in the above picture.

Ignoring the ominous rattling sound inside the case for a moment to examine the outside of the case. It’s… fine. Like, for a case that’s part of a $50 outfit, I’m not expecting miracles. The fabric pulls and puckers weirdly, which is mostly just a cosmetic flaw. The zipper works, but the pulls are weirdly long and I’ve already gotten them stuck in the hinge of the handle a couple of times. The velcro on the case flap doesn’t line up. I briefly thought about turning this into a case for Kytte or for a doll carrier, but… nah.

So the ominous case rattle was partly from the accessories packed around the scroll (groan!) and partly from the fact that the case isn’t the right size for the instrument. There’s almost an inch between the violin and the side in some spots. Very convenient for a factory that doesn’t want to make or buy multiple models to fit their various instruments, but kinda sucks for the customer.

This outfit includes a clip tuner (not my favorite for violins), a shoulder rest, and a little block of rosin. I don’t have a picture of the rosin on it’s own. It’s the very typical clear yellow cheap-o rosin. It probably won’t do any harm… Probably.

I pulled the tuner out of the box and tried turning it on. Nothin’. I wasn’t sure if it was just super crappy or maybe the battery was dead? Even better! No battery. I’m not annoyed because I don’t need it, but for someone who genuinely was buying this because they want to learn to play? This is pretty shit. Also, mildly baffling because it *did* come with a lithium battery warning sticker on the box.

Oh, wow! This shoulder rest says that it magically fits 1/8 to 4/4 size violins!

Hm. (I mean, in the most technical sense, I *can* wedge it on the very end of the violin, but then the shoulder rest is right up against my neck which makes it totally useless!)

Another point that just makes me mutter “fucking for real?” under my breath: A setup pamphlet, a package of strings, and a fingerboard sticker were all included underneath the violin in the case. The case that has a functional outside pocket. At least this instrument has nitrocellulose varnish but it still has a matte patch on the back now from rubbing on this stuff during shipping. That’s a mostly cosmetic problem, but it’s just a frustrating lack of care on the part of the company.

The setup guide is mostly correct, but I just don’t think that a newbie needs to be DIYing their instrument. The free strings would be nice if they weren’t, y’know, bad strings, but considering how easily the strings break from poor setup, it’s the least the company can do to include another set.
I’m a big fan of finger tapes for beginners. However, these fretboard style fingerboard stickers make me shudder. I’ve seen enough remnants of these to not subject even a poorly produced violin to it.

We’ll continue our tour with this bafflingly bad bow. Well, no, it’s not baffling. It’s expected. In all of my VSO windowshopping, I’ve never seen a bow that looks acceptable. The wood for the frog is one of the roughest pieces I’ve ever seen; I live in a house where someone made the (truly) baffling choice to put poor grade outdoor wood siding on an indoor wall as an accent, and this is about the same stuff. There’s a big flake from the tongue sticking over the ferrule, the frog doesn’t fit to the stick, the button isn’t in line with the stick, the eye may be painted on?

I’m sure that the slide isn’t actually made out of the same stuff as milk bottle plastic but gosh it looks like it! You can also see that the ferrule isn’t on straight. It’s hard to see in this photo, but the ribbon of hair is so thin that you can see the stick through it.

Here we can see the shoddy paint job on the button. I don’t know 100% if it’s true, but I was told once that the black band is supposed to be ebony? Which of course it wouldn’t be ebony on this grade of bow, but I sort of expect that if you’re going to paint it on, you should clean up. Or just don’t paint it. There’s an awful lot of wood dust in the thread of the screw, which seems Highly Questionable, although I don’t know a whole lot about how bows are made. The winding is a bit of foil duct tape. The thumb leather is just rubber, which is probably the nicest bit of the whole bow.

Now, unfortunately, I didn’t take many pictures of the violin body because most of what I want to take pictures requires a bit more control over settings than a phone camera provides. The box isn’t terribly egregious–I’ve certainly seen questionable instruments without any grain to the wood, extremely heavy, etc. This at least has a top with relatively straight grain, although not particularly fine or attractive. Amusingly, the widest part of the grain is under the bridge and the narrower grain is out on the bouts–the opposite of conventional building. I don’t think this is a veneered piece, but I’m willing to be wrong on that. (For example, the maple back as seen through the f-holes looks very similar to the varnished back, but I don’t know enough about timber to swear 100%, and the edges look like they have grain rather than being layers of veneer.)

The seams look messy, like glue seeped out and wasn’t cleaned before it was varnished. I’ve seen worse amateur repairs, I guess… I am including this picture though to laugh at myself. I was looking at the chin rest to see if there was cork under it (yes, the thinnest, tiniest pieces) and I was very irritated to see that whoever had put on the chin rest had over-tightened it and cracked the edge! Like, at least it’s on a less-than-$50 violin… And then I realized that it’s the edge of the saddle, which is the same color as the body. Weird. The chin rest looks to be black dyed softwood, it has that particular totally matte finish.

Probably the hottest mess out of this whole hot mess is the pegs. Yeah. Those aren’t even remotely fitted. I want to take a ruler to these, I wonder if they’re just peg blanks. I’ve seen a number of poorly fitting pegs but this takes the cake. The ends fit about maybe 1-1.5mm into the smaller holes? Not enough at all to hold at pitch. This isn’t really something I can DIY fix*. There’s not enough peg compound in the world…

(*Sure, I could go buy a 1:30 reamer and a peg shaper, but that’s quite spendy. If this wasn’t a lark, it would be well worth whatever a luthier wanted to fit these, or more likely, fit a better grade of peg.)

Here’s a nice close up. We can see the roughness of the fingerboard, the lack of cleaning, the most perfunctory string grooves which also reveals that the nut/fingerboard isn’t ebony, and the A+ stringing job. (I mean, sure, I’ve seen pictures from around the 1900s where a violinist has crazy tails on their gut strings, but I’ll give ’em a pass for Romanticism and also because gut strings.)

Well, that’s about it for now. I will be taking some more photos and maybe video comparing this to the Prelude, because I think it’s interesting to look at a VSO versus an inexpensive violin. As a non-expert, it appears like the boxes are similar, although the Prelude has more overall care in the craftsmanship, but the fittings on the Prelude are clearly serviceable, and there’s absolutely no competition when it comes to the set up. The Prelude as an instrument may not get you to Carnegie Hall, but it’s at least a step in the right direction.