Hey, everybody. A riff today on one of my hobbies, some amateur luthier work. I especially like to bring out the performance on low-cost, but upgradeable, instruments. It really is amazing what a bit of TLC and attention to detail can bring out of an otherwise sloppily manufactured, mass-market instrument.

By the way: BLUF, the instrument featured today is a BUY, but I can only vouch for this exact model, in this exact finish. Other violins I’ve encountered from this manufacturer you may want to pass on.

Here’s a bit I wrote earlier, elsewhere, with pics. Here goes, if your eyes haven’t glazed over already.

Important! This is a good instrument- potentially great, but you should know some things to determine if it’s appropriate for you. I purchased the Cecilio 4/4 size MV-300, Antique finish from Amazon for less than sixty dollars. IMO, the normal price, a hundred bucks, is still a steal for what you get.

The bane of music teachers everywhere is the student who shows up with a Violin-Shaped Object, or VSO. While these instruments can be made to play, they usually cost far more effort than they are worth. A hard rule is that a quality instrument must have good materials and acceptable workmanship, period. You will not get an awesome, ready-to-play-from-the-box student-grade violin for under a hundred dollars. In fact, expect to pay at least four hundred dollars as a bare minimum, and I’d advise buying from a knowledgeable and reputable retailer.

Now that I’ve said that let me sing the many praises of this violin, available at an unbelievable price point. I have a minor passion for violins; an outgrowth of this is exploring low-cost options. Not everyone has four hundred dollars, and I think music should be available to everyone. When I saw this violin on sale, I ordered it. Upon examination of the first one, I was so impressed by the base fiddle that I ordered two more, and to my shock, they were better! Very handsome, quality wood and the standard of manufacture was better. I’ll have to do far less work with the other two, as seen below.

See the nice, genuine spruce tops. Not plywood, as so many other fiddles at this price point.

And… the pretty, two-piece maple bottoms! It’s a scandal that these sell for this money, and that many end up in closets for eternity, doomed by poor fitment. It doesn’t have to be this way.

First, I am familiar with Cecilio products. I’ve owned and worked on a number of them. Therefore, I knew this violin was a fairly safe bet, but it would need fitting to perform well. However, I needed to examine the specific model. The description said the violin was made of ebony, spruce and maple. The pictures seemed to confirm this, although I doubted real ebony on a sub-hundred dollar violin. Importantly, Cecilios usually have real purfling- the inlaid wood strip along the edge of the violin’s plates. Very inexpensive violins have painted, decorative purfling. Also, poor-quality violin bodies are made of plywood. You should avoid this- it affects the tone. In addition, I know Cecilios have full-length bass bars, an internal tonal feature. These are essential. The profiles aren’t perfect, but they are adequate.

I mention this because you can’t fix plywood bodies, fake or absent bass bars, and painted purfling. To make an instrument playable, you have to have a firm foundation, and this is non-negotiable to me. 

The instrument arrived, and I unboxed it. As I expected, the case was serviceable, and it protects the instrument well. The factory strings are inferior. They are guaranteed to make the fiddle sound terrible. I discarded them immediately. If you buy one of these violins, order Red Labels with the instrument if you’re on a budget, or D’Addarios for a few dollars more. I’ve had problems with the factory tailpieces, so I installed a new unit that is about nine dollars- a carbon-fiber unit available on Amazon (note: if you get this, be sure to prep the tailpiece by putting a tiny dab of bearing grease on each screw. Yes, you can reuse the nylon gut from the factory tailpiece). The bow is OK. It will work, although you must trim a few stray hairs with fingernail clippers. Be sure to rub the hair down with rosin dust before use. Please ensure your hands are clean when you do this. Also, as expected, the fingerboard is painted, which is a shame because there is some really nice tropical hardwood under the flat black paint. However, it does not affect play, so it doesn’t matter that much. The chinrest is serviceable. It’s painted maple. See below for how it looked when it arrived. This is typical of Chinese factory violins.

Then, I closely examined the essentials—the body, the stuff that dictates whether you have a violin, or a VSO. This includes the top plate, the neck, the bottom, the bass bar, the finish, and the purfling.

I was very impressed with the core instrument at this price point. I’ve seen much more expensive instruments with inferior materials! Before I talk about the many deficiencies in this violin’s fit and finish, let me list the positives. See the images below; one of the pics was made upon project completion after I tuned, adjusted, and cleaned the violin. Wow! It turned out amazing for a sub-100 dollar fiddle! You can see the mildly flamed, two-piece belly, the tight-grained spruce top with yes, real inlaid purfling, and there is a picture of the peg box- excellent maple! I liked the core instrument so much that I ordered two more! The pics of the fitting problems, and there were a few, were of the worst of the three. If you order this instrument, you may get those problems, but it’s not necessarily a given. 

Look at this pretty belly! A sub-$100 fiddle shouldn’t be allowed to have this genuine mildly flamed, two-piece maple prettiness, but it does. YES, it is real maple, not veneered plywood—you can see the grain from the bottom through the F hole on top, as opposed to the White Ply of Death.

Now, check out the wood on this peg box! (You can also see the AWFUL factory work on the nut, which is the worst of the three fiddles I ordered. Yes, I fixed it. I’m getting there.)

Finally, a photo that shows the REAL purfling, although I took it to demonstrate careless handling at the factory.

Long story short, the bones of this model fiddle, the stuff you can’t improve, are solid. All three had vast space for improvement.

So, let me tell you what I did to this little fiddle; if you order one, you may have to do something similar, too. But not necessarily; 2/3 of the violins of this exact model were marginally acceptable. One was not. You’ll see pics.

I think this violin is best for someone who isn’t afraid to tinker or wants to learn how to do violin work for themselves. This is an ideal platform for that; the basis is solid and excellent. 

However, let’s talk about what I had to do to make this runt of the litter sing. One violin had a terrible saddle; it’s the ugliest (new, not worn antique) one I’ve ever seen. However, it’s functional, so I left it alone. See below.

Previously mentioned was a weird crushed point on the upper right; this probably happened at the factory. It’s cosmetic, not a show-stopper. See earlier image. Of course, the sound post was incorrectly placed and crooked; I had to trim and reposition it. While adequate, the bridge profile needed some fine-tuning, and I fit the bridge feet properly, too. A peeve of mine is that all three violins had perfectly good bridges, and most of them were ruined because someone at the factory didn’t know that the long-grain side of the bridge was supposed to face the player. Most of them were cut backward and will have to be discarded. A shame. I mentioned how I ditched the factory tailpiece. You should, too. The (blackened maple) pegs fit all right, although I did slightly ream out the D-hole. I used peg soap on the pegs and reinstalled them. 

Then, there was the nut, the little block of wood by the peg box that holds the strings at a uniform distance from one another, and, importantly, holds the strings very slightly above the fingerboard. Slightly? Yes. The E string is supposed to be .3mm above the fingerboard! That’s really close- see the images for how the nut looked from the factory. 

Yes, this is not good. More like 2mm on the G, as opposed to .4! And what’s with the wood putty boogers? Sigh.

This spacing isn’t good, either. By the way, it’s not nearly as bad as some nut spacings I’ve seen! Still, it’s inadequate.

The nut was terrible, but believe it or not, I’ve seen much worse. I had to work with a string gauge, a file, and sandpaper to get it close to right. You can see the before-and-after images. The nut was the worst part, but it’s OK now. If you do this, be VERY careful with your file. One slip, and you need a new nut, which is a pain. 

Out came the file…

…And, the improved nut profile. Not perfect, but much better.

The long list of adjustments I just discussed should be perfect on the aforementioned four-hundred-plus dollar music store instrument, and it darn well better have good strings. 

However, the total cost of this fiddle, including new strings and tailpiece, was less than a hundred bucks. At the end of the process, it was pretty darn good! 

If you feel like tackling a minor project to save money, or you want to learn how to do basic violin work, then this is hands-down the violin model for you. You can learn to do all the above by watching online videos, and there are only a few special tools required. These can be bought on Amazon.

By the way, it plays very well! This was the best part; this girl can sing! 

This is a good model if you know what you’re getting into. Recommend.