VN75 Student Violin - Full Size (4/4)

Reviewed for the seller instead of the product by mistake initially. Basically violin is great for the price but you need to keep some things in mind. There is a lot of gate keeping about "violin shaped objects" in the violin community. Some will say any violin under $100 or even under $200 you can get will be a violin shaped objects. If you are getting this and planning on going right into paid violin lessons with it then stop, don't do it. If you are self learning and want to learn the ins and outs of not just playing but the instrument itself then I would actually recommend this. When the instrument arrived, it did not include any instructions. The bridge was not put on and so I had to do some research and follow some tutorials to place the bridge properly and to the instrument (using a tuning app. Then after tightening the bow strings until a pencil can just fit under the lowest point, I tried to play some notes and pretty much no sound came out. This is because the bow has to be rosened, it does not come pre coated. Since the rosin was smooth, not much was being deposited on the bow and so very lightly scratching the surface of the rosin helped. The sound was pretty bad the first day, but the violin had a kind of break-in period where it needed to be frequently tuned and didn't sound the greatest. After a day or two it started to sound a lot better. The g-string still sounds a little muddy and the d string has a slight background squeak. The single best improvement that could probably be made to the violin is to get new strings such as $23 D'Addario prelude strings. It is also probably worth noting that the bridge did not come with marks for where the strings go, if you have the time and the tools it would be useful to properly measure and mark. and also to fit the bottom of the bridge feet to the violin better (which if you are an expert would involve cutting tools but for beginners fine sandpaper will get you 60% of the way there with 10% of the effort).