Editorial Review:Product Description:This beautiful Austin Bazaar brand electric violin set is ideal for the beginning student! It features everything you need to get started with your violin. The set inluces a padded case, headphones, cable, bow and rosin. The bow is a full brazilwood bow with unbleached horse hair. The included carrying case makes it convenient to carry to school or orchestra. This violin set makes a great gift and is a great value for the money! Buy with confidence as it comes with a warranty against any manufacturing defects.
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Customer Reviews
Average Rating:
-
Be prepared to tinker...
HAI WORLD
Things you might want before playing this violin: 4 fine tuners, new strings, sandpaper, and a 9v battery snap connector. As some of the other reviews suggested, this violin will probably not play out of the box. I purchased this through Violinsmart through the amazon marketplace; they supplied a bridge that was slightly larger than normal and without notches. Also within the first five to ten seconds the 9v battery snap connector broke in two and lodged itself in the 9v battery. The strings that the violin comes with are playable, but not easily tunable. The plastic pegs are some what finicky, but hold in place.
Go ahead and install new strings with the fine tuners, sand down the bridge and if you break the 9v battery connector, make sure you have a replacement.
Aside, this violin is a great way to learn to play the violin at a very reasonable expense. Yes, it will be made out of plastic and not be the greatest violin ever, but works as a practice violin. The perfect starter violin, just please remember to upgrade later. Don't forget to rosin your new bow for an hour before you start rubbing it.
This item came with the violin, bow, 4 strings, 1 fine tuner (E string), chin rest, shoulder rest, nylon soft case, wooden bridge, rosin, amp cord, in-ear headphones, and one 9v battery.
KTHXBYE
Rating: 
-
Amazing tone
This instrument, seems to have the soul of a violin, the tone is truly amazing. Lots of fun, without the serious responsibility of an expensive instrument. If you ever wanted to dip your toe back into the beautiful world of the violin, this is your perfect route.
Rating: 
-
No better violin for this price, after work
I have to say I am very happy with how this turned out for me. I decided to pick up the violin after not playing for several years. With a decent violin starting at about $600 minimum, I decided to go a different route, electric.
First, let me say, you will not be playing this badboy right out of the package. Mine took a bit of work to get into playable shape. Not a huge problem as nearly every violin usually does. I had to replace the strings as the ones in the package are the saddest sounding things I can imagine. For the beginner, I recommend a set of Prelude's. If you have some experience under your belt and can hear the difference, go for a set of Dominant's. I personally went for the Sensicore Octave's, but then again I like playing an odd violin/chello hybrid.
The provided bridge is way to thick, and high. I'm not a master of this but using a bit of sandpaper and a file I was able to cut it down to a serviceable size and shape. You may want to buy a new one, but you are going to be stuck shaping it no matter what you do anyway. The top of this violin is flat, not round like the classical ones, so a preshaped one may not do it for you.
The shoulder rest pad is nearly useless. It may be that my neck is too long for the thing, but attempting to hold the violin up with it would give me a horrible cramp. Buying a new rest is tricky due to the width of the violin. I managed to find a nice adjustable length viola rest that fit the bill nicely.
As for the bow, not sure what these people think brazilwood is, but this bow wasn't. Cheap fiberglass strung with what very well could have been plastic. It fell apart within a week for me, though I have noticed other buyers had different experience with this. The thing is not worth the price of rehairing, so you may need a new one depending on your luck. I was lucky enough to have an extra bow lying around so it didn't set me back.
A set of fine tuners on every string is required for this thing as well. While I have finally managed to get all of the pegs to stop slipping, the process of the initial tune is much harder than most violins. Due to the construction, tuning one string offsets the entire assembly and requires you to tune everything again. Fine tuners simplify this greatly.
After all of that, it is a nice sounding violin. Even without use of headphones or amp it has an interesting resonance to it. I would recommend this only if you are willing to put in the work. While it has the potential to be an awesome instrument, the initial effort may be a bit much for some to deal with.
Rating: -
With work, well worth the money
Lets start by saying the final product has a tonal quality I didn't expect from an electric violin. It has that heavy Jim Hendrix, Star Spangled Banner sound when the bass and volume are cranked. Want to rip up some heavy metal, this baby has no problem. Want some sweet classical stuff, it does that also (less volume, less bass, more treble, if thats what you want). The violin arrived with the used look. Touchup paint and light scratch's. The bridge has sting marks on it like someone had tried to use it. Now for the work it took. Starting at the top. The pegs are made of genuine plastic and the string holes appear to be made with a hot pin punched by a machine. The holes were too shallow, only going half way thru the pegs and the strings wouldn't stay in when I started to wind them. I took a pin size drill bit and hand drilled each hole in all four pegs. Easily done. I order four fine tuners because this package only comes with one fine tuner on the E-string. I also upgraded the strings to Thomastik Dominant. Well worth it. The bridge was way too high and had a curve consistant with the neck. Each string was 3/8" over the neck. I sanded the neck down so my stings now were G 7/32", D 7/32", A 5/32" and E being 3/32". After sanding so much wood off, the bridge ends up being too thick and you must also sand this thinner. Having a lower bridge puts less stress on the neck which can lead to the bow and arrow look. You can order a medium size bridge but it may still need to be fitted correctly. The last issue was the head phone jack. The head phone jack is located directly above the 9v. battery and the two don't occupy the same space very well. I took the back off the violin by removing six small screws and was able to make small spacers to re-mount the jack outlet using some household glue that was good for plastic. Couple hours to dry and good as new. When you finally tune the stings, use adaquate amount of peg drop. Plastic on plastic tends to slip. Get yourself a decent electronic tuner that does G, D, A and E. The bow is decent, for it sound ok. Use light sandpaper on the rosin and plenty of rosin. A dry bow is a hissing bow and the electric part really picks it up. The better strings also help quell this effect. Once this is all accomplished. I had a ripping instrument. I would have given it 5 stars except for the work I had to do on it. I recommend beginners try this one.
