Posted by fiddlepogo on Friday, May 31, 2013
(Note... I already posted this in the thread about transitioning from steel strings to synthetic strings not being easy... but it occurred to me too late that it really was more of a blog entry... so if you read it there, don't bother to read it again here!)
I had an "away" practice session where I could really concentrate. It occurred to me that since I had lost a couple more bow hairs recently, maybe the amount of extra weight I had under the frog was now too much... so I took off the dots of masking tape under the frog.. VOILA!
Bow went immediately into a better balance... AND... the tone improved.
Evidently while the carbon fiber bow was on the verge of being too light for the Prims, so it needed the extra weight, it was just OVER the verge of being too heavy for the Zyex strings.... I was getting this tone that had a quality like a tearing sound... and it was the too heavy bow that was putting me barely over the threshold.
Also, I think some of the bounciness was that steel strings act like a stable fulcrum for string changes, even with a heavy bow... synthetics flex a bit.
Anyway, with the improved tone, I decided to take it to the music store where they have a John Juzek, a (IIRC) Tonio Di Luca and a Stainer copy... and ANOTHER Knilling 4KF.
Last time I liked the Di Luca best, then the John Juzek, then the Stainer- this time for some reason, the John Juzek pulled ahead. I also tried the Knilling 4KF.
So...
1. John Juzek
2. Knilling 4KF
3. Di Luca
4. Stainer.
And only the John Juzek was THAT much better than MY Knilling 4KF.... but not $700 better!!!
I think I'll go back to tweaking it some more.
Also, it helped me realize that even though the synthetics on my Knilling have pushed me out of my previous comfort zone a little... it's still nothing compared to getting used to a whole new fiddle!
So.... it put things in perspective... a good one!
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