New violin always begins, for me, with the string quest. My violin has plenty of edge, power, and depth all by herself. She needs a bit of warming up, clarity, and darkening.
I tried just about every string out there, except various types of gut (liked and tried Olivs, but not stable enough) + Helicores. I really liked the Olivs + Helicore A + Gold Label E combo, but I still felt like there was more in her, and the Olivs constantly went out of tune, even after a week, and they were used before on my previous violin.
Surrendering to the fact that nothing really works, I decided to put on a fresh set of Dominants + Gold Label E, Hilary Hahn's and Itzhak Perlman's combo, I believe.
WOW.
I now sound like them. I think Dominants only really work on violins that already sound amazing all by themselves. Spend $16k on a violin, and you can use cheaper strings. Spend $3-6k on a violin, and using more expensive strings, you can make the violin sound more valuable.
Still, the $16k violin sounds WAY better. I <3 Camille. =D
More entries: August 2009
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