Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

If you are a professional violinist, this violin is not for you. If you are a violin teacher with an elite mentality, then NO VIOLIN FOR YOU! To my semi-trained ear this is a good sounding instrument. There are several reviews on YouTube from actual violinists who say this is a great beginner violin. If you want to try out playing a violin without having to rent one, this is a great choice. I've never played the violin, but I do play other instruments and I can read music, so this isn't exactly starting at zero for me. However, I was able to rosin the heck out of the bow and get the violin tuned using the included tuner. I got some fairly nice sounds (again, to my ear) out of it. I can tell when a note is flat or sharp and it takes a bit of fiddling around (pun intended) with the pegs and fine-tuners to get this thing into tune. You tune one string and then that will throw another one out of tune, ad infinitum. But eventually I found that the best way to tune this is to turn all the fine tuners to the middle of the screw and then use the pegs to get close (within +/- 15 cycles) of the note you're tuning. Once you get that done with the pegs, then go back and use the fine-tuners to get it as close to the note as possible. You could also do it by ear if you have a nicely-tuned piano if you have the musical background for it. I don't have a piano, so I trusted the tuner. And the GDAE strings sounded close to the violin tutorial I found on YouTube, so I know the tuner works and is useful. Once I started playing I was able to get some clear and very resonant sounds from the violin, with the help of a nice tutorial on YouTube, I also discovered what too much rosin looks like. Like I said, I rosined the heck out of it and spent a fair amount of time wiping the fine rosin dust off of the violin. Then I loosened the bow very slightly and rubbed the back side of the bow lightly with my fingers until all of the small rosin clouds disappeared. So, I recommend starting off with maybe 10-15 swipes along the included new rosin then test and add more if necessary. Also, rosin dust will make you sneeze and leave you with sticky-fingers. I've always wanted to learn to play a stringed instrument, but never really looked into it seriously. I have several friends who play professionally and I learned from them that good violins (I mean really, really, really GOOD violins) can run into the 6 figure range, so I never pursued it seriously. For me it will likely be just a hobby, so for less than a C-note (pun intended) I can try out playing the violin. It may not be the best, but look at it this way: If I go to the store to pick up a gallon of milk and bring it back home, whether I drive there in a 1972 VW Bug or a brand new top-of-the-line Jaguar, the job gets done and the milk tastes the same either way. People may sneer at you for driving a "clunker", but that's their problem, not yours.