Booker is sounding violinny??? How did THAT happen???

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Posted by fiddlepogo on Saturday, July 23, 2011

Last Monday I took Booker the Bucharest AND the Eastman VL100 to a senior gig where the audience is very lively and gives me lots of feedback. It also has really good acoustics for fiddle. I played Booker the Bucharest for basically the whole performance. Then I remembered I had the Eastman with me, and took it out to try it, and asked the audience members their opinion... and one of them said BOOKER sounded like a VIOLIN, and the EASTMAN sounded like a FIDDLE!!!

And that kind of surprised me, because that's about the reverse of how I've always thought of them!

I guess the Prims and the tweaks I've done on the Eastman HAVE taken it in a more fiddly direction, although it's a rather mellow fiddle sound. I've been trying to get more clarity in the sound and especially in the E string, and I think I'm getting closer.

And the other night while playing at the mansion, my wife spontaneous said- "Is that the one you usually keep in that case? (yes!) It always sounded scratchy before!!!"

Anyway, Booker may be sounding violinny, but it's a GOOD violinny- it's got enough bite for fiddle tunes, but enough sweetness for waltzes.

It's time to leave well enough alone on Booker!!! The current sound is a composite of the last few good sounds I "lost"- there is a silvery quality to the highs, but not too much, and depth to the lows that makes waltzes a pleasure to play. And the dynamics are there, but not so much that I get lost in them, which was the case a couple of "lost" sounds ago!

Now, I'm focusing more on "Stinky" the ebayed 4KF with the darker finish and the Eastman. I found ANOTHER thing to tweak and tweaking it removed some of the tightness from "Stinky", and I'm liking it better. And it seemed to help the Eastman too.

What is the tweak??? Well, you can access two of the corner blocks on the lower f-hole openings, and you can polish them a bit with a Q-tip, removing splinters, bits of excess glue, dust, etc. And it changes the tone without removing any finish externally.

Again, the thing that totally blows my mind is how LITTLE material needs to be removed to make a change in the tone... the only result is a slightly dirty looking Q-tip!!!

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