May 8, 2007 · The nut and bridge grooves may be different, and pedantically again you can’t change a violin into a viola by changing the strings. But practically, you aren’t going to hurt your old violin by changing the strings as you suggest, and it won’t do irrepairable damage to your technique either, so just give it a whirl and see how you get on.

Apr 8, 2004 · thanks for all the suggestions. My fiddle is a late 19c hand made english violin with a lovely mellow tone and soft sound ideal for kithchen sessions. It is quite quiet and as i also play in pub sessions I have used helicore for volume but they can sound too harsh. I have settled for tone each time and accept that other fiddles and players are ...

Dec 16, 2015 · If you buy a set of strings for a violin (or indeed, for any other stringed instrument) the envelope containing the lightest-gauge string is always marked “1st” - with the remainder being marked in ascending order of thickness. To sum up, there are two entirely different conventions: one for tunings and the other for string purchases.

Apr 12, 2010 · For gut strings (and metal ones if you don’t want to risk using alcohol near your fiddle) the best way of keeping strings clean is to keep either a wine bottle cork or a pencil eraser in your fiddle case and use it to rub the rosin off the strings regularly. Personally I do as Miss L does and carry individually sachetted alcohol wipes with me.

Aug 15, 2011 · Ive tried lots of strings and Im pretty happy with the helicore heavies. They sound decent on my fiddle and the A string dosent come apart on me like they do on the mediums. Im due for a new set as my G broke on me (replaced it with a G helicore medium for now) . I keep hearing I should try Prims so im considering them as my next set.

Jan 8, 2016 · But they just lack the flixible richness of the real thing. Good strings will make a bad fiddle sound good and bad strings will make a good fiddle sound bad. Im exagerating but you get my point. Strings and Bow Are the real instrument …..in a sense the fiddle is basically the amplifier and EQ The quality of tone comes from the strings .

Oct 13, 2004 · Synthetic gut will be better than true gut. Natural gut strings are less stable and long lasting. Also less responsive. An advantage of these over steel strings with an old violin would be less stress on the neck. Newer, healthier instruments can handle steel fine, but older ones might have some neck drift with the higher tension.

Feb 4, 2008 · Absolutely. I’ve used gut strings for many years, and they are rock solid once they stretch in. That fool was probably using a new set of gut strings (don’t know what he meant by ‘old gut’) that hadn’t been broken in yet. You have to let new gut strings stretch for up to a week before doing something like attending a workshop with them.

Feb 18, 2003 · Susie, are you tuning the viola-strung fiddle with viola tuning (CGDA?). I tried that once as an experiment (before I got into ITM) because my fiddle has a particularly deep tone on the G and D, so I used a viola C with the fiddle G, D and A (I was using Dominants at the time, and I think I’ve still got that viola C).

Jan 3, 2016 · I have dominant strings on my violin, and use Hidersine Deluxe rosin on the bow (it has a rich deep fat wide sound on the lower strings, a wide broad rich bright sound on the middle strings, and a bright rich sound on the upper strings also.