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~~~ GENERAL INFO ~~~
I was motivated to purchase one of these intruments, because the bow of my viola had broken and I hadn't
yet pinned down some way to have it repaired. (The violin comes with a bow.) I figured that I could
afford approx. twice the cost of purchasing a bow from a music store - and reasoned that given the
resource of eBay, I could probably get both a bow and an electric violin for that same amount. My
reasoning proved true, and I was able to get a "Julliard Pro 5-string Electric Violin" for the
incredibly low price of $66.00 plus $15.00 for S&H. Here's where reality stamped its foot - the rule
of "you get what you paid for" held true. I paid an incredibly low price to obtain the violin,
and I received an incredibly low quality instrument in return for my money. I'm writing and posting this
review of what I received for the edification of others who might be considering purchasing one of these
instruments as an option. My experience indicates that if you purchase one of these, you should expect
that it will require repair and replacement of approx. half its parts immediately after purchase, in
order to be a useful instrument for an actual musician. My recommendation, therefore, is: Don't buy it
unless you're prepared to perform a major rehab project to make it truly useful.
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~~~ GOOD STUFF ~~~
The two aspects of what I received that impressed me as being better than average, were the violin's
case and the container of rosin.
The case is very nice. It's made of a thick, solid foam, with a black fabric exterior and a
silky-feeling tan interior. There's a roomy compartment at the upper end for holding rosin, etc.
There's an elastic piece connected to the lid of the compartment, so when you let go of the lid
it will snap back down into place and nothing will fall out. There's a pair of small straps which bind
together via velcro, for wrapping over the violin's neck to pin it in place. There's a piece of fabric
in the approximate shape of the violin's perimeter, to separate the instrument from where the bow will
rest when the case is closed. There are 2 pivoting t-shaped retainers in the case's lid, for holding
bows. (NOTE: Those retainers can only go between hair & rod, and are unreliable for holding the bow
if the lid is open.) The retainers pivot nicely, with a noticeable click when reaching either 90-degree
orientation. There's a black plastic handle on the side of the case, properly located for carrying the
case with one hand. There's a zipper which runs the full length of the case, curving around slightly
onto the side opposite the handle side, for when the lid is lifted. There's a small flap with velcro
located to fall inside the handle area, for securing the ends of the zipper when it's zipped shut. (I
suppose, it keeps the zipper tabs clean, also.) There are rings on the back side of the case, and 2
black web straps with metal catches, for carrying the case on one's back. So far, those rings, straps,
catches, etc. have worked perfectly and comfortably. There's a roomy zippered compartment on the outside
of the lid of the case, for carrying extra stuff. As I began by saying in this paragraph, the case is
very nice - it's probably worth at least half the money I paid for the entire purchase. In fact,
it's so nice, that I'd almost (but not quite) recommend purchasing one of these violins just for the
sake of obtaining one of these cases for some other violin.
I was quite pleased with the rosin I received. It's quite a large chunk of dark amber rosin. The chunk is
round with flat ends, like a section sawed off a cylindrical rod. It comes in a blue plastic container,
with a piece of blue fabric bonded to one of the flat sides. The container has a large hole in the
base of the bin part; that hole is sealed by the presence of the fabric when the rosin is in there.
The lid seals well and comes off easily. The fabric gets folded over the upper surface of the rosin
in the bin part, and hasn't interfered with putting the lid back on. My guess is that the main purpose
of the blue fabric is to help keep one's hands clean when handling the rosin. In practice, though, I
find that it interferes with applying the rosin to the bow; I end up just folding it back completely
out of the way and holding the rosin directly. (Maybe I'll end up trimming the fabric a bit, so it's
not longer than the distance of the sides of the rosin cylindrical section - then, it would work
quite nicely.)
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~~~ NEUTRAL COMMENTS ~~~
The instrument came with a pair of small headphones and a patch cord for linking the instrument to
an amplifier. Both worked perfectly. I haven't tested yet, to see if the two outputs of the electronics
can be used simultaneously; i.e., if headphones can be used while amplifying via an amp. The jack
for plugging in the patch cord is on the left sidewall of the lower portion of the instrument's body
(when viewing from the front). The jack for plugging in the headphones is on the back of the instrument,
in the lower section of the body, displaced toward the side away from the patch cord jack. The tiny
sliding switch for turning the electronics on & off is right next to the headphones jack; both
are part of a pre-amp unit installed into a cavity of the body. The battery compartment is located on
the back side of the instrument, approximately centered. I suppose the placement of all these items is
logical re. construction requirements, but I see the placement of the on/off switch as being an
aspect which will require continuous careful attention to detail when putting the instrument away into
the case for storage. Here's the reason: The instrument came with a 9-volt battery installed, but the
battery was completely dead and needed to be replaced before the instrument could be used in an
amplified manner. (It won't amplify via patch cord or headphones, without the pre-amp on.) There's a
tiny red indicator light next to the on/off switch. It's not visible, when the instrument is resting
in the case - so, my guess is that at some point before I received it, when the instrument was put back
into the case, it was slid slightly during the placement into the case; the switch for the electronics
got turned on and was left that way. My recommendation to the manufacturer, would be to stop providing
a battery or simply provide but not install the battery. My recommendation to owners/users of this
violin, would be that they be very careful when putting the instrument away; the alternative would be
frequent replacement of the battery.
ADDENDUM NOTE: It's now 02/01/07, and it should be mentioned that the patch cord that came
with the intstrument became useless several months ago. The soldering holding the cord into
the plug on one end of the cord came undone under normal usage.
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~~~ BAD STUFF ~~~
Now, for the down side(s):
The bridge of the instrument was not to my liking. (I suppose, there might be someone out there
who would have liked it - but, it's not me.) For starters, it was too tall. The action around
the octave chime point of the string was about a quarter inch on the 5th string and about
3/16" on the 1st string. This felt way too high, when I tried to play it. The difference
in action at the chime points was due to the fact that the curvature of the bridge's top was
uneven, comparing 5th string to 1st string; it was curved so the 5th string's action was much
higher. I've learned since I first wrote this, that unevenness in the bridge is considered both
normal and desirable. I was given the opportunity to view a picture showing the proper curvature
of a bridge on a viola. Comparing how this violin's bridge was to the viola bridge I reviewed,
I find that I still consider the treble/bass difference on this violin's bridge to have been
excessive. To compensate for the unevenness of the bridge height (side-to-side), I ended up
removing the bridge piece and cutting the top curve down (and evening it out side-to-side) with
sandpaper. That took about an hour and a half, and although I've got experience doing this for
guitar bridges I ended up making it slightly too short. To compensate, I fabricated and placed a
very thin shim under the base of the bridge to make it just right. To make sure that the shim
didn't distort the vibrations passing from bridge into body, I made the shim from white oak,
a good hardwood.
When I first got the violin and examined it, I thought that the pegs were black plastic, and
not wood. They didn't hold very well against the pegbox; slipping easily when trying to
tune the string - especially, the 1st ("E") string. The 1st string is almost impossible
to get properly tuned; it's taken at least 5 minutes of messing around (sometimes, 10) to get it
to stay put at a pitch close enough that it can then be adjusted with the fine-tuner. I tried
using the compound for making the surface of the peg tacky, on that 1st string - and, it only
made it worse. It absolutely would not retain any tension, so I ended up trying to wipe it
all off. Then, it just became extremely difficult and unreliable again. Eventually, the unreliability
of the E string's peg caused it to spin loose - and, when I tried re-tightening it, I ended
breaking the string. I purchased some replacement ebony pegs, thinking that new pegs might solve
the tuning problem re. slippage. When I extracted the original peg and examined it closely, I
concluded that I was wrong. The peg isn't plastic; it is, in fact, wood. However, comparing the
original peg to the 4/4 size peg I purchased, I discovered that the original peg is only about
3/4 of the new peg's size. The new peg is longer, and the barrel is larger. I don't have any
3/4 violin tuning pegs to compare the original peg to, but my suspicion is that the makers of
this violin used 3/4 pegs in a full size body. (Cutting corners on the cost of wood?) I think
this is why the peg won't hold: The smaller barrel of the original peg puts less peg wood against
the wood of the pegbox. I've been researching it, and there's only two possible "fixes"
that I've come up with. One, is to do what all the experts say will be bad for the pegbox, and
use chalk to increase the friction between peg and hole. The other, is to take the violin to
a luthier, and have the luthier modify the pegbox to use the set of otherwise-useless full size
pegs which I'm now the proud owner of.
This violin normally comes with only one fine-tuner, on the 1st string. I'd had email contact with
the distributor, inquiring about the availability of fine-tuners for the other strings, and (perhaps
needed?) the availability of replacement tailpieces to accomodate all 5 strings having fine-tuners.
The distributor went out of his way to please this customer (me), and installed a set of fine-tuners
for the other 4 strings, so it arrived having all five fine-tuners. In his email, he wrote that they
would be the best fine-tuners available. I don't agree. The very next day after receiving the violin,
the fine-tuner on the 4th string broke. The problem, is that the fine-tuners he installed are the
wrong size. Let me clarify: On the model of fine-tuner he used, there's an arm which extends toward
the headstock of the violin, and has a portion which rises for the string to get caught onto. On that
rising portion, there are two flat tabs which the string gets caught between with the ball end of the
string against the tabs. Leverage on the end of the arm under the tailpiece causes the arm to pivot
vertically under the tailpiece; that cause the end of the arm toward the headstock to rise in an arc
and pull on the string as it does so. On a fine-tuner of proper size, the ball end of the string caught
in the rising end of the arm would not contact the tailpiece; any contact which might occur would be
via the portion of the arm under the edge of the tailpiece rising too far. If the arm of the
fine-tuner is too short, the motion of its end in a rising arc will cause the ball end of the string
to hit the headstock edge of the tailpiece - and if the musician isn't aware that contact has
occurred, pressure builds up there between ball end of the string and the edge of the tailpiece.
Further turning of the screw trying to raise the pitch increases that pressure - and, results in
what happened to me; one of the flat tabs on the end of the arm broke off. I removed the broken
fine-tuner and examined it closely. It looks like pot metal - very cheap; not durable at all. Luckily,
I had some extra fine-tuners tucked away from when I replaced the tailpiece & fine-tuners on my
viola. Those fine-tuners have a longer arm, and stronger catch-ends for the string end balls. I was able
to replace 4 of the 5 fine-tuners on the violin's tailpiece, with those old units, leaving only the
fine-tuner on the 5th string needing continuous excessive caution from now on. This trouble I went
through re. fine-tuners was aggravated by what I wrote about the pegs; they're plastic, and don't
hold well against the wood of the headstock. The only way to get the strings tuned (unless you're
really, really experienced and skillful at adjusting pegs) is to try to get the string to hold at some
pitch lower than what you're after, and then nudge it up using the fine-tuner. In practice, this ends
up being a pitch which is at least a quarter-tone lower than what you're after. My guesstimate of the
effective range of raising pitch with the shorter-armed tuners that came with the violin, is slightly
less than a quarter-tone. So, my recommendation regarding fine-tuners, is don't bother
requesting them from the distributor. Instead, expect to need to go to a shop somewhere and purchase
a set (of proper size and quality), and install them yourself.
As far as it goes re. design, the tailpiece of the instrument seems to be of good quality. I don't have
anything worthwhile to say about it; positive or negative. It's just there, and does its job. However,
I'd really like to find a replacement 5-string tailpiece with better fine-tuners that come built-in as
an integral aspect of the tailpiece; i.e., of the same design as the "AXL" brand tailpiece
I purchased for my viola. If I find one that's up to par, I'll add information about it into this web
page.
There's a hairline crack, about two inches long, between the side of the body and the back, located
just off the base of the instrument. It's only visible when you really look closely. I'm not 100%
sure if it actually arrived like that, because of something which happened during my struggle replacing
the fine-tuners. There was a moment where I was careless and the violin took a small tumble to the rug,
off the stand I had it sitting on; about 3 inches elevation off the floor. The surface of the body is
painted - and, I found the crack when I'd finished the work on the fine-tuners and then proceeded to
give the instrument an initial polishing with Martin guitar polish. Despite the fact that it might have
been my carelessness which caused the crack, I still recommend extreme caution to anyone who purchases
this instrument. It didn't fall that far. If it was the fall which caused the cracking of bond between
side and back, then the crack was caused by an event which didn't have very much force involved; i.e.,
it's excessively fragile. If it arrived with the crack, and I just noticed it during close examination
while polishing, then the instrument was defective when it arrived. Either way, I can't recommend this
violin as being of quality materials and construction re. the body. Because of my uncertainty re. when
this crack was created, I won't be attempting to return the violin based on its presence; that wouldn't
be fully honest. Instead, I'm going to need to force some carpenter's wood glue into the crack, carefully
pad both front and back faces, and clamp it for 24 hours as a repair job. If I do it right, the repair
and crack in the paint will be virtually invisible.
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IN CONCLUSION
I hope you've enjoyed my little critique of the "Julliard Pro 5-string Electric Violin"!
My recommendation, is DON'T BUY ONE unless you are willing to perform a major rehab project
in order to make it useful. If I find there's more to tell at some future point, I'll add it onto this
page as needed.
~~~
Scruffy Eagle
~~~
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