I have a fiddle with a smaller body 7/8ths. It is a Chinese fiddle from eBay $160US and I think about $80US postage. I paid a little import duty, so anyhow you get the drift it’s a cheap and cheerful fiddle suitable for a beginner. Well that’s exactly how it sounded. I put a set of the Larsen strings you’re referring to and it improved the fiddle significantly. I haven’t played it for a few months because I didn’t want to mess my intonation up for the larger Tenor that I play. I can’t recall anything specifically about the E but overall I’m very happy with them. The only thing I have difficulty with is the name Larsen put on them.

I would suggest trying the Larsen Original E string, medium gauge, not the gold plated one... it seems to balance really well with many other strings..and it is inexpensive.

Play Happy

Swing

Has the soundpost been adjusted? If there’s a balance issue, it’s likely that the post is out of place. You can adjust around a bad soundpost position to a small extent, but it tends to come at a penalty.

The Helicore E is a very high tension string. Switching to an E at lower tension could have a pleasant effect, but I would make that change only AFTER getting the post to the best spot with the existing set, then try a different E, then adjust the post again as necessary. Changing tension on one string affects all the others.

I don’t think the Tzigane is a magic bullet. Larsen has a bad track record with longevity in its violin and viola sets (the cello A and D are the gold standard). I tend to use Goldbrokat medium gauge E strings for their warmth and clarity—they seem to work well with just about everything. It won’t do any harm to try Tzigane
if you’re interested, but I think you can get more from a different string. You can alternatively use the Goldbrokat heavy gauge as an intermediate step between their medium tension E and the Helicore if you like to feel a little more resistance to the finger.

Other things to consider:

-is the bridge in the right place on multiple axes?

-are the string grooves the right shape and depth and are they lubricated with pencil lead?

-is the bridge stuck to the varnish? If it is, you’ll lose a lot of power

-how old are the strings? Is the E tarnished? Oxidation on strings damps them considerably.

A former employer used to say that strings were the easiest way for a customer to adjust an instrument without messing up the setup; doing it that way wouldn’t get to the root of the problem, but it would allow the customer to modify sound without worrying about dropping the bridge or the soundpost. String mixes (excluding the E) were a quick way to tell that a violin was out of adjustment even before putting a bow on it or looking at the post.

There are no issues Rich, just want to get the very best out of the sound of this old fiddle! My luthier cut a bridge with lowered heart for this fiddle and made sure the neck was being restored cleaned it worked on the varnish,  so he took good care of it. Just planning to experiment with different brands of E string, and I want them in the warm spectrum. Goldbrokkat, I'll see if I can find it here. I thought if the E is a  bit more outspoken warm, then the beautiful warm and darker G and D will jump out even more. Then they become real 'ear catchers'. The bridge is in the right place.

The good thing about this old fiddle is no matter how bad the set up, its character is always preserved, it has an own voice I find and no matter what you do to it, that own voice shines through. Before I used a bad bridge and even 4 different strings , leftovers, but still you could hear this own sound in the first place. It's my lucky fiddle :-D I will never get bored of this one.

Quincy - I was also going to suggest the Goldbrokat - they're quite popular, and inexpensive. I use them as spares for replacements. They come in several gauges too. This is the kind of situation where I'd suggest you consult your luthier, rather than researching online yourself, since he knows the instrument.

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Originally posted by Quincy

There are no issues Rich, just want to get the very best out of the sound of this old fiddle! My luthier cut a bridge with lowered heart for this fiddle and made sure the neck was being restored cleaned it worked on the varnish,  so he took good care of it. Just planning to experiment with different brands of E string, and I want them in the warm spectrum. Goldbrokkat, I'll see if I can find it here. I thought if the E is a  bit more outspoken warm, then the beautiful warm and darker G and D will jump out even more. Then they become real 'ear catchers'. The bridge is in the right place.

The good thing about this old fiddle is no matter how bad the set up, its character is always preserved, it has an own voice I find and no matter what you do to it, that own voice shines through. Before I used a bad bridge and even 4 different strings , leftovers, but still you could hear this own sound in the first place. It's my lucky fiddle :-D I will never get bored of this one.

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Do you know why the luthier chose a low heart bridge? Those are made to accommodate lower projection usually so that a luthier can make a compromise with a low projection and put off raising it. Low projection causes a lot of issues. If you really want the best out of your instrument, you may want to check this.

I agree that fiddles have characters of their own that show through. It's the luthier's job to bring that voice out as well as possible and the player's job to work with the instrument to say something interesting while playing. 
 

The Larsen regular E or the Prim Lisa E would be my choices.

Awhile ago I bought one of just about every type, brand etc of E string. Was NOT cheap to do! I am still going thru them but so far the gold plated ones seem to work best.

I’m not a fan of gold-plated E strings. They do sound a little warmer at first, but they’re especially prone to whistling and the plating wears off with use.

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Originally posted by The Violin Beautiful

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Originally posted by Quincy

There are no issues Rich, just want to get the very best out of the sound of this old fiddle! My luthier cut a bridge with lowered heart for this fiddle and made sure the neck was being restored cleaned it worked on the varnish,  so he took good care of it. Just planning to experiment with different brands of E string, and I want them in the warm spectrum. Goldbrokkat, I'll see if I can find it here. I thought if the E is a  bit more outspoken warm, then the beautiful warm and darker G and D will jump out even more. Then they become real 'ear catchers'. The bridge is in the right place.

The good thing about this old fiddle is no matter how bad the set up, its character is always preserved, it has an own voice I find and no matter what you do to it, that own voice shines through. Before I used a bad bridge and even 4 different strings , leftovers, but still you could hear this own sound in the first place. It's my lucky fiddle :-D I will never get bored of this one.

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Do you know why the luthier chose a low heart bridge? Those are made to accommodate lower projection usually so that a luthier can make a compromise with a low projection and put off raising it. Low projection causes a lot of issues. If you really want the best out of your instrument, you may want to check this.

I agree that fiddles have characters of their own that show through. It's the luthier's job to bring that voice out as well as possible and the player's job to work with the instrument to say something interesting while playing. 
 

 

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He explained it to me, but I totally forgot about the explanation, but I do not think anything was wrong with the projection! The neck was lowered (due to time, the fiddle is probably from the beginning of the 20th century) and my my luthier corrected the position with a piece of wood, but I cannot say if the lowered heart has to do with this neck correction or not. There was quite some space between strings and fingerboard before and now there is less space in between them and it feels more comfortable to play. The other fiddle I got (the one with the Chinese wood) and that I first bought from my luthier has even less space in between strings and fingerboard, but I am so used to play on this old fiddle after my luthier worked on it, that this old fiddle feels like the most comfortable of the two. I'll be happy to experiment with E-strings in the warmer spectrum :-)

@Rich Maxham, here is a picture  :-) never mind the stains because of my wooden mute :-D And yes, it needs a decent cleaning because of all the rosin!

Also the Tzigane E string has arrived, I put it on this evening, played a bit but very timide because it was already late. I don't know yet what to think about it. It IS sounding less sharp and screaming, but I don't know yet if that is a plus or not. The fiddle seems a little more sweet this way? The question is do I really want this? I had expected a more dark obscure sound to be honest! But it sure helps for my ears to have a less outspoken yelling E string.

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Originally posted by Quincy

@Rich Maxham, here is a picture  :-) never mind the stains because of my wooden mute :-D And yes, it needs a decent cleaning because of all the rosin!

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It looks like there's a decent amount of wood over the heart, so probably not that low a projection. If a piece of wood was added to raise it, it was likely a repair known as the New York neck set, where a shim is put in at the place where the neck is mortised into the top. That way the neck isn't taken out and the top doesn't come off fully. It's also sometimes referred to as a "neck pull up" and I just call it "raising the projection."

A former co-worker of mine was a fan of the low-heart bridge and regularly used that on his new setups. He would also sneak the projection down half a millimeter by planing the neck a little extra before gluing on the fingerboard. His reasoning was that those choices made a brand new fiddle a little more approachable and sweeter under the ear.

E strings change the timbre of the E registers, but any change to the set has an overall impact as well. That can be good or bad, and it's one of the reasons why some players go down the rabbit hole looking for a unicorn set of strings. 

So far for the experiment. I clearly missed that bright metallic sound and the character it has. Switched back to the Helicore medium E :-D Now my old fiddle has more personality again :-)))

The Tzigane E was causing a loss in personality I find. These Helicores like eachother!!

Yesterday I saw that Pirastro has released a new string called Sollus it is a synthetic core string that mimics gut. This may have the warmth that you’re chasing. The E is still a plain steel.

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Originally posted by martyjoe

Yesterday I saw that Pirastro has released a new string called Sollus it is a synthetic core string that mimics gut. This may have the warmth that you’re chasing. The E is still a plain steel.

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I think you mean the new set called Insula. They are being promoted as gut-like due to the use of a new "high tech synthetic material" never used before. They will retail at $105 when they're released.

I think it's worth keeping in mind that similarity to the sound of gut has been a selling point for synthetic strings for decades, so that in itself is nothing novel.

It seems to me that there is a move in the string industry to bring out new proprietary synthetic compounds to justify increasingly inflated prices. 

That’s the one Insula sorry about that just another brain fart.

I think the suggestion that gut is low tension is extremely misleading. Gut strings were and are made in different thicknesses and players can select among them for their instruments to achieve certain goals. For instance, there are some period players who believe that tension should be equalized along the tailpiece, so they choose strings based on the thickness needed for balanced tensions. There are players who choose based on feel under the finger. In the old days, string thickness gauges were used by shops and players as a way to assess the strings. Even further back, shops often produced the strings they sold themselves, and certain places were known for their strings. If you read the accounts of the old soloists from the days when gut was in global use, you’ll find anecdotes about players having specific sources at shops where they would stock up. They would buy enough strings to last until their next visit on tour and they would grumble about it if they were stuck using strings from a different place in a pinch.

Add to that the fact that pitch was NOT standardized for centuries. While it was indeed lower in many places, it was in some instances higher than 440. The organ at the major church in each city was typically the basis for tuning.

Therefore, tension could be quite high on a given violin, or it could be rather low. The “gut sound” was not unified by tension.

Dominants are generally thought of as middle-of-the-road strings in terms of their darkness/brightness. Obligatos, however, are considered the warmest sounding strings on the market, long described as the closest in feel to gut. However, looking at the string tension chart mentioned in the other string thread will suggest that Dominants are among the lowest tension and Obligatos are surprisingly high tension. Clearly tension did not lead to those popular descriptions. My favorite set of strings is a somewhat higher tension set but it has more warmth and depth than many other sets that are higher OR lower tension.