The Makers series of handmade violins are made by a husband and wife in China with only a limited number each year. Thus they represent something quite different to the usual factory violin instruments coming out of China, nuanced and expressive.
There is a real benefit to instruments coming out of a small workshop, firstly the timbers are more likely to be hand-selected in small quantities, so you are starting with higher quality timbers from the get go – just through the sorting process. Secondly a violin made by a single pair of hands means the individuals flair comes through uniformly and everything matches together just that little bit better. Often violins made in production have a different luthier working on each single component before being put together – this guarantees a certain quality and keeps costs down. The downside is the tuning for resonance isn’t something that flows through the whole process. Necks done a certain way affect the resonance a bit and needs to be in harmony with the plates its going to sit upon for example. So the Makers II violins have that individual attention right through the process.
As a further benefit every instrument is individual both in the way it looks and in the way it sounds.
The Makers II violin come through a single Australian distributer (Paytons) and you see them for sale in a variety of music stores specialist and general across Australia. They are sold as instrument and fingerboard, with the rest of the accoutrements needing to be added afterwards. This allows for the flair and inout of the retailer – but also means to sound its best it must be setup right. Interestingly the instrument is shipped without a label on the inside, and with a bit of digging I see its been badged by quite a few places in Australia…so you might not know it but you might be buying one under another name.
The instruments come in three grades A, B and C a variety of finishes and a Stradivarius or Guarneri shape from ~$600-1000RRP body only…so quite a bit more with case, bow and a good setup. The below instrument has been antiqued, and quite stylish, it makes a visually welcome change from the bright and shiny instruments that often come out of China. But how does it sound? I setup the below instrument up with Larsen Virtuoso strings and a 1 tree Despieu bridge. The instrument is represents a subtlety in tonal qualities, sweeter than most that come out of China that tend to optimise for project above all other qualities. I quite like the sound during the playing in period and will grow into a wonderfully expressive instrument once its new owner finds it.