Violin Setup
Careful and up to date setup can make good violin sound even better – equal on all notes, bright, easily responding…
Regretfully, even the best possible setup can not turn poorly made violin into a good (well sounding) one.
Proper violin setup – a necessity
A well reasoned opinion exists that making a good violin represents only one half of developing a well-sounding instrument. The other half is accomplishing a successful instrument setup.
Violin setup always has been an especially complex process. A lot of delicate actions must be performed. But when an instrument is well made and properly tuned, it is a pleasure to handle and play for a musician and also to listen for an audience.
Czes briefly described the whole problem in his article “Some violin setup basics”. Also, there are lots of good and not so good articles concerning violin setup on Internet. Among prominent examples, showing complexity of a whole process can be mentioned article of a Ann-Arbor based violin maker Joseph Curtin “Some Principles of Violin Setup”.
An experienced luthier knows what must be done and how to ensure the maximum playability and the best possible instrument sound.
As a rule, a violin maker’s attention is focused among other things – on testing of all joins, quality of a fingerboard surface, bridge, sound post, its position, operation of pegs etc
Proper and complex setup ensures good playability. But to get the best acoustical result it is necessary to perform fine soundpost, bridge, fingerboard, tailpiece tuning. This can be done by joining best traditional methods and contemporary testing technologies.