This is where you want to spend your money. Getting a master setup is the best thing you can do for your instrument. Only a real master violin maker like Olaf can do this, so don't go cheap on it.
I'm a flutist and have never played a violin (much as I have coveted them), but your videos never fail to fascinate and educate me. Beautiful work and simply lovely instruments! It makes me even more eager to play behind the string section again!
SO glad you fix these up. 😁 Mom & dad saved up & bought a new baby grand. We got it home, it was VERY hard to play. They checked around & found that a new company had built it, shipped in into this country, & . . . . . . the selling company was supposed to have a technician go through each, & do the final correcting work. They didn't. Where we bought it from wouldn't do anything about it. We finally got a pickup truck, hauled it back to the store, & tossed it on their porch. 😢 I am SO glad that you fix yours up. 🎉
What an incredible amount of work goes into the setup process! Thank you for taking us behind the scenes. I wonder how many string players, pros even, understand what effort you put into it.
Hi Olaf, since the Paris Olympic opening ceremony I’ve been wondering about those instruments in all that 🌧 rain. Could you give us your take on what kind of damage may have been caused? 🌧 🎻 🏃♀️ 🏊♀️ ⛈
Maybe Olaf can get TwoSet or Ray Chen to try out all the violins in his shop. Ray once tested various violins in an Italian shop, maybe time to do a follow-up video?
Yes, I can confirm that my Piere Lomont Master Violin is a wonderful instrument. In fact I will be practicing on it in a little while today. Yes, the tuning pegs on my Piere Lomont are as smooth as butter. Optimal playabilityas well in my opinion. Perfectly setup ans a surprizingly affordable price, what's not to like? OLAF, what kind of oil do you use when finish sanding the fingerboard? Sun Dried Boiled Linseed oil? Walnut oil? Suntanning oil? Crisco?
Yes, new strings tend to stretch a bit at first. I just put a new set of Dominant strings on my Viola and thery are now (3rd day) just getting stable again. I had to readjust the bridge to keep it perpendicular to the top plate as it was migrating a bit towards the neck due to tightening the strings as they stretched in. I only put Evah Pirazzi strings my my Piere Lomont Master Violin, but I want my Viola to have a bit less bright and warmer tone.
Will be investing one of your Piere Lomont Violins for my daughter I live in Melbourne don't need to test l know its a great violin as its to your standards
Danke Olaf...ich mag diese Videos und kann vieles davon entnehmen 😊 Du hast mir inzwischen vieles gezeigt und habe jetzt schon 5 Kinder glücklich gemacht durch wider Instandsetzung deren Instrumente. Keep up the good work my friend (on another continent)
While using a Kiridashi as your carving knife, do you find that you have better control over your pressure and depth of cut? is this because it is more rigid than a regular exacto/craft scalpel set?
Ah man, it’s such an intense process! I teach violin, viola, and cello at the sister company of a rental shop and do repair work for them. They recently got several instruments that were supposed to come set up already, but weren’t. They asked if I could set them up, and I’m excited but nervous to do the setup on them.
I am a little bit confused as to why this is necessary. It.looks like you get the violins completely finished from your supplier. But if they are made and set up so badly that this much work is needed for the instrument to become even playable (as the caption suggests), how is that even acceptable? Or am I missing something? I mean no offence it is just genuinely confusing to me.
They come to him "roughly" set up. Basically, just assembled, but to the "rough" specs he wants. Then he does the full, final, setup, to the tight specs he wants and does not entrust to anyone else.
Looking at the things he does NOT do: the body and neck are fully assembled - those are things that take a LOT of time and might be something the old masters gave to their apprentices to do. You can relatively easily measure how thick the top and bottom plate are, how long the neck is, you can use templates for the body shape. So, a decent maker in China can do this up to Olaf's specs. Quite a bit of that may even be done by a CNC machine. The things he DOES do: it seems to me like stuff that requires a lot of experience and is horribly difficult to specify - how do you specify such a complex curvature for the finger board or how do you convey the exact adjustments to the sound post when gauged via sound? And since he changes the strings anyway, why not do the standard bridge change?. I'm learning CAD right now - you can specify complex curves on a technical drawing, but you'll go crazy while doing it and the person who has to read and implement it will send an assassin after you for making him so miserable. So, I totally get why Olaf prefers to do the finger board by himself. 😉
I'm not a violinist but I do play guitars. So I can only speaks of guitar's case (please keep this in mind). Usually they don't do proper setup right at the factory. The reason is these instruments are built in bulk, and will be shipped to all kind of places. Climates of the environment (humidity, temperature, etc.) affects the action of the instruments so if the instruments is setup well in one environment, it might not be as good in another. Also, setup is player preferrence. Some like the strings closer to the fingerboard, some like a little higher, etc. It's possible that a good setup from factory might be out of specs for some player. For example, I do like factory setup of Fender's electric guitar, but everyone I know said the action is too high. Many factory do basic setup with average setup just to make sure when the player tried it, they can play it. After the purchase it's up to the player to take the instrument to a luthier/technician to do the setup, or doing the setup themself (electric guitar setup is not too difficult and it's not so easy to mess up any way). For custom instruments, luthier will talk to you when they build your instruments, and will do setup as per your specifications.
@@zeereep9521 yes, It looks finished and they do a wonderful job on the body of the instrument. It's just that final set up which makes a big difference to the player that is not my makers expertise.
This is where you want to spend your money. Getting a master setup is the best thing you can do for your instrument. Only a real master violin maker like Olaf can do this, so don't go cheap on it.
Agreed! He did an amazing job on my violin!
Most people have no idea what a setup is, or why it’s done!
I'm a flutist and have never played a violin (much as I have coveted them), but your videos never fail to fascinate and educate me. Beautiful work and simply lovely instruments! It makes me even more eager to play behind the string section again!
SO glad you fix these up. 😁
Mom & dad saved up & bought a new baby grand. We got it home, it was VERY hard to play. They checked around & found that a new company had built it, shipped in into this country, & . . .
. . . the selling company was supposed to have a technician go through each, & do the final correcting work.
They didn't.
Where we bought it from wouldn't do anything about it. We finally got a pickup truck, hauled it back to the store, & tossed it on their porch. 😢
I am SO glad that you fix yours up.
🎉
😮
What an incredible amount of work goes into the setup process! Thank you for taking us behind the scenes. I wonder how many string players, pros even, understand what effort you put into it.
Hi Olaf, since the Paris Olympic opening ceremony I’ve been wondering about those instruments in all that 🌧 rain. Could you give us your take on what kind of damage may have been caused? 🌧 🎻 🏃♀️ 🏊♀️ ⛈
I want to hear you really play some nice piece on a nice spot with one of your beautiful instruments!
Maybe Olaf can get TwoSet or Ray Chen to try out all the violins in his shop. Ray once tested various violins in an Italian shop, maybe time to do a follow-up video?
Yes, I can confirm that my Piere Lomont Master Violin is a wonderful instrument. In fact I will be practicing on it in a little while today.
Yes, the tuning pegs on my Piere Lomont are as smooth as butter.
Optimal playabilityas well in my opinion.
Perfectly setup ans a surprizingly affordable price, what's not to like?
OLAF, what kind of oil do you use when finish sanding the fingerboard?
Sun Dried Boiled Linseed oil?
Walnut oil?
Suntanning oil?
Crisco?
Yes, new strings tend to stretch a bit at first. I just put a new set of Dominant strings on my Viola and thery are now (3rd day) just getting stable again.
I had to readjust the bridge to keep it perpendicular to the top plate as it was migrating a bit towards the neck due to tightening the strings as they stretched in.
I only put Evah Pirazzi strings my my Piere Lomont Master Violin, but I want my Viola to have a bit less bright and warmer tone.
I just changed to Thomastik Dominants on my violin. They stretched in three days. It sounds great! Perlman and Hahn both use them.
Will be investing one of your Piere Lomont Violins for my daughter I live in Melbourne don't need to test l know its a great violin as its to your standards
Danke Olaf...ich mag diese Videos und kann vieles davon entnehmen 😊 Du hast mir inzwischen vieles gezeigt und habe jetzt schon 5 Kinder glücklich gemacht durch wider Instandsetzung deren Instrumente. Keep up the good work my friend (on another continent)
Nathan Cole, one of the greatest violinist who has ever played,
While using a Kiridashi as your carving knife, do you find that you have better control over your pressure and depth of cut? is this because it is more rigid than a regular exacto/craft scalpel set?
Ah man, it’s such an intense process!
I teach violin, viola, and cello at the sister company of a rental shop and do repair work for them. They recently got several instruments that were supposed to come set up already, but weren’t. They asked if I could set them up, and I’m excited but nervous to do the setup on them.
awesome
Really enjoy your videos
Very educational thank you. You don't just have them drop shipped from the factory....
🙂
I wanna buy a pie lemont where i can buy It?
Can i kindly ask you if i could send you some pictures of a old violin i came across. Do you have email. Sincerely Chad from Canada.
Good enough is not!!! In his vocabulary!
Now if you can fix bad players?
Нет ничего для жизни невозможного. Исправить можно всё. Я могу исправить ошибку любую, даже Страдивари.
@@davidhudson5452 haha ..
That's my next project 😁
I am a little bit confused as to why this is necessary. It.looks like you get the violins completely finished from your supplier. But if they are made and set up so badly that this much work is needed for the instrument to become even playable (as the caption suggests), how is that even acceptable? Or am I missing something?
I mean no offence it is just genuinely confusing to me.
They come to him "roughly" set up. Basically, just assembled,
but to the "rough" specs he wants. Then he does the full, final,
setup, to the tight specs he wants and does not entrust to anyone else.
Looking at the things he does NOT do: the body and neck are fully assembled - those are things that take a LOT of time and might be something the old masters gave to their apprentices to do. You can relatively easily measure how thick the top and bottom plate are, how long the neck is, you can use templates for the body shape. So, a decent maker in China can do this up to Olaf's specs. Quite a bit of that may even be done by a CNC machine.
The things he DOES do: it seems to me like stuff that requires a lot of experience and is horribly difficult to specify - how do you specify such a complex curvature for the finger board or how do you convey the exact adjustments to the sound post when gauged via sound? And since he changes the strings anyway, why not do the standard bridge change?.
I'm learning CAD right now - you can specify complex curves on a technical drawing, but you'll go crazy while doing it and the person who has to read and implement it will send an assassin after you for making him so miserable. So, I totally get why Olaf prefers to do the finger board by himself. 😉
I'm not a violinist but I do play guitars. So I can only speaks of guitar's case (please keep this in mind). Usually they don't do proper setup right at the factory. The reason is these instruments are built in bulk, and will be shipped to all kind of places. Climates of the environment (humidity, temperature, etc.) affects the action of the instruments so if the instruments is setup well in one environment, it might not be as good in another.
Also, setup is player preferrence. Some like the strings closer to the fingerboard, some like a little higher, etc. It's possible that a good setup from factory might be out of specs for some player.
For example, I do like factory setup of Fender's electric guitar, but everyone I know said the action is too high.
Many factory do basic setup with average setup just to make sure when the player tried it, they can play it. After the purchase it's up to the player to take the instrument to a luthier/technician to do the setup, or doing the setup themself (electric guitar setup is not too difficult and it's not so easy to mess up any way).
For custom instruments, luthier will talk to you when they build your instruments, and will do setup as per your specifications.
@@zeereep9521 yes, It looks finished and they do a wonderful job on the body of the instrument.
It's just that final set up which makes a big difference to the player that is not my makers expertise.