My Piere Lomont violin

i just got an order for a pier lamont violin i better go and set it up quickly dad i'm just filming don't wear that t-shirt dad wear this one oh my god that's awesome cool thanks all right that's much better what a great shirt look at that my daughter made that for me [Music] anyway back to filming so i've got this online order for the pier lamont violin so i'm going to go and set it up i've been at this location for over 25 years now i'm always looking for the best possible instruments for my clients the problem i've had is that i've been getting my instruments from suppliers and wholesalers in australia but these suppliers weren't violin makers so they would go to china and europe and source instruments and then they they picked the ones they thought would be best and came back but the problem is they're not string players nor are they violin makers so the understanding of the instrument of the maker of the quality just isn't quite there they were good instruments i found some good instruments but i never found instruments that i was 100 happy with so a few years ago i actually went over and i connected with a few people in china and found some nice instruments so i basically looked at the work of over 200 different makers and i can tell you that there was a lot of rubbish there were some good instruments but there were a lot of instruments that i just wouldn't go anywhere near uh one workshop i went to basically manufactured 200 instruments per day with 40 workers how crazy like how can you make a quality instrument like that but i did find one or two makers that were just amazing like these are small workshops they basically they make their own varnish they cure it on the roof of their house it's just beautiful they have around 10 people working for them and each maker has a lot of experience they've had well over 20 years experience and the makers that work for them have also had a lot of experience so they end up making some really good instruments they source good quality materials one of the places i went to they've just had a huge shipment of timber right from europe and i was so excited about it so what was important to me is that the instrument is extremely well made that they use good quality materials and of course it has to sound good now the way they come to me i personally think they're kind of unplayable a lot of people would probably play them already but it it just needs that extra that final master tweak so things like planing the fingerboard doing the pegs a new bridge sampos high quality european strings and and all those fine details so they are the details that i take care of and this is how my pierre lamont violin came about so these days i sell p lemon violin on my website as well as on my in my shop in fact i have a pierre lemon violin right here isn't this beautiful like it's just amazing and the varnish like it's slightly antiqued so it doesn't look like a really new instrument so it's got they've built in these kind of worn looked areas they didn't put too many bumps or scratches in i just got a really beautiful look to it but the the order that came in was actually for a pier lemon master so i've selected a pier lamont master which is just beautiful have a look at this yeah so this is the pierlamon master that i selected and the great thing is on this one my son has actually already fitted the pegs so the pegs are working beautifully look like they're just turning really smoothly i actually think he's a little bit more of a perfectionist than i am either that or uses an incredible amount of peg base but the pegs are just turning beautifully he's done such a good job so normally i would be fitting the pegs so on this instrument i don't need to do it but i still need to plane the fingerboard i also need to make a new bridge and sound post and then i need to do the final setup so i'm just going to do that now if you want to watch in the violin the player audit is a pierre lamont master so not a p lamont it's a little bit more expensive i think it's about two thousand eight hundred dollars or something like that it uses better you know better materials and the pre-lamonde has uh really beautiful pegs also i sign the label which i think is really nice and it just sounds amazing i just love the sound of this instrument look at look how beautiful it is it's just so gorgeous first thing i'm going to do is plane the fingerboard first i have to take the nut off got to make sure protect the instrument and i've got to make sure i don't get my t-shirt dirty better get my priorities right there and protect the instrument more so the next step is sanding that's looking really good i use five different grades of sandpaper each one finer than the last one the roughest is about a hundred and the finest is about 400 grade sandpaper okay i'm up to the 400 great sandpaper which i no longer need to have the leather on here because that's really fine and i don't and i actually use it with oil so okay the fingerboard is finished so it's really beautiful now i've got to glue the nut back on i heat the nut up so it glues quite quickly and i don't glue it on very strongly because i need to be able to plane the fingerboard again okay i'm ready for the bridge but first i better clean up my workbench okay the workbench is cleared and uh it's time to fit a bridge first i have to select a good quality bridge and yes not that one i'm gonna use a despio three-star bridge uh i really like them they're nice bridges so my knife is really nice and sharp so the times come to to fit this bridge i've already done the rough fitting so the biggest problem that uh that i found with instruments a lot of instruments in this price class that people buy is that they're firstly um you know there's some shortcomings in the way they're made but then uh you know quite often they don't even get set up properly so uh you know shops say they set up the instrument but then you know some things actually aren't correct you know like the fingerboard needs to have the right curvature pegs just need to work super smoothly and and i've come across instruments where that's just not the case i mean when you're learning your instrument it's so hard to learn in the first place why make it harder for the player by by not getting all these things right so that's something i'm extremely fussy about and so i have this master setup process that i use where i really make sure that everything's perfect and it's something i guarantee as well you know i want to make sure so the string height is exactly perfect the string curvature is right the string spacing is right and everything just feels really nice on the instrument and then of course it has to sound good and that was the other thing that i had a real problem with when i was looking for instrument there are a lot of makers that make beautiful boxes you know and make beautiful instruments that look nice but they're just not made that well so working with these makers that i work with so this the the pierlamond is an instrument that is basically designed by me made for me exactly to my specifications by makers that i know are really good it's just so important that an instrument is just made exactly right and it's super important to me so it's i'm so lucky to have these wonderful makers who work with me on on and they really want to make sure that everything's right they're great to work with so yeah and i have so i have these beautiful pierlamont instruments now and they're such good value um you know a similar instrument uh made in europe you you'd look at at least six thousand dollars for for the same kind of quality possibly the same quality and while you know a lot of the tradition and the craft goes back to europe not everyone can afford six thousand dollars and that's why i'm just making absolutely sure that you know that i have some good quality instruments that aren't that expensive so the benefit when you have a well set up instrument is that it's so much easier to play it's easier to do double stops it's easier to make a good sound on the instrument just everything works so much better anyway the bridge is pretty much fitted so i'm gonna i'm gonna mark in the height now so i do that just by looking down and the getting the height exactly right is the string height is super important so for violence on the g i usually go to around 5.5 millimeters the end here on the e at 3.5 millimeters and you know it just that just makes playing comfortable i do have some clients that like it higher it's very very rare and then i've got some clients that like the height a little bit lower but you know this that these heights actually work really nicely so i'm marking that in um and then i'll cut that out then i have to thickness the bridge so just very roughly it's just a lazy way of not sawing this and then i use my rasp to just get this curvature right so all the rough work is super easy but then uh you know i've got to be much more careful with the fine finer work okay there we go now i've got to get the thickness right and uh and then it's carving time so i'll start on the thickness using a plane to get the thickness right just thicknessing the bridge the bridge thickness is really important to the sound you don't want to leave a bridge too thick or too thin sometimes people make bridges too thin and they can't actually transfer the sound vibration from the strings to the top plate so is this uh balance okay so i'm now going to just carve the bridge so i've got the right thickness and that's again important the onus wife and a couple of other ladies were vanishing at the time and they are so good at vanishing these instruments because they're you know they're not looking the the look they're trying to get is not a you know like a really freshly varnished new look it's you know it's a slightly antiqued look uh with a bit of wearing and uh so it's just really great to see them all um uh yeah making the instruments look amazing they're definitely very good at varnishing seem to be quite a lot of banter like i don't speak chinese but they they definitely seem to be having a lot of fun the same time so over the years i've come up with my own unique bridge design so um it's sort of based on research uh and uh you know things i learned from my father i like to put you know my own individual kind of look to the bridge what i like about it is actually has a bit more that feel of like an older bridge you know really like the 18th century bridges you know i was quite surprised when i saw stradivarius's original bridges you know how different they look and uh to me they have a bit more of that kind of feel like i said before a lot of makers make their bridges way too thin up the top here not necessarily ideal for the sound okay fabulous now it's time to mark the string spacing i don't need this yes it's a joy of when i was younger my eyesight was way better so i use glasses so i can see well and when i do really detailed stuff i have to do extra magnification what's important to me is that the quality of my work is the same just sanding the bridge lovely okay and then the second last step is to oil the bridge and then i'll be putting on my stem okay it's time to put the label inside so i've just got to sign the label okay i've just signed straight through it now so i just popped the label in the violin so now it's just time to lower adjust the nut get that all right and then it's time to put the strings on it's very important getting the nut height right because um you know it's it's your first second third finger you know and it determines the string heights there determines the string feel under your finger so it's super important and then the string spacing has to be a hundred percent even so go with 16 mils which is standard occasionally i'll do um slightly wider or slightly narrower for people with different size this is the standard so it'll work for most people it's gonna be such a beautiful instrument when it's finished really looking forward to hearing the first sounds and then once that's done i'm gonna let the instrument rest over the weekend give it another try on monday and just do the final adjustments i think the players picking the instrument up on wednesday [Laughter] okay so i'm just going to put the fine tuner on the tail piece and then that'll go on the instrument and then it's string time let's see how long it takes me uh to put these strings on that's always a fun thing okay here we go the trick is also i might be doing this fast but i'm also working on doing it neatly at the same time so i want them properly onto the peg make sure the bridge is straight ah when i first started i made the bridge fall over quite a few times luckily when i first started i wasn't allowed to work on expensive instruments okay so i did that in just a little bit over two minutes but uh the funny thing is i i discovered that the the sound face was just a long way away from where it should really be so i've gotta get that sorted oh it's quite in quite a funny spot really must have just slipped so i'm just going to put the sound post in the theoretic position and then i'll allow the instrument to just settle in and then once it's settled in i'll move it into the uh you know tweak it a little bit okay and i'm done the violin is finished and set up now i'm still gonna tweak it a little bit so it's not at its very final stage i spend a lot of time just perfecting everything setting it up just just perfect i've still got to give it a little bit of a polish gonna do a bit of you know just check over the varnish get the neck feel right and everything so there's still a few little little details to go but uh but this is roughly it um and i'm just gonna have a try and see what it sounds like okay let's have a try [Music] hey [Music] oh it's got such a nice tone and i think it's perfect like it's it's got that slightly richer a little bit deeper sound which is just perfect if uh you know if you just enjoy playing violin and and and you love hearing yourself a little bit as well i think the pierlamond is just absolutely stunning and uh it's really good value it's under 3 000 australian dollars comes with a bow and case and they're really nice as well and it's literally you're kind of ready to go i've only got the one fine tuner on there so if you need four full functionis you've got to let me know because otherwise you'll just get it with one and you might get frustrated for a lot of adult learners i just recommend getting get a fine-tuning tailpiece and uh you know it just it just makes life a lot easier this is the pierlamon master i also have the pier lamont which is as an outfit i think it's 2100 or the pia lamont master model um absolutely beautiful um you can just get it on my website um internationally freight it's free which is great okay so the client's gonna come and pick up this instrument that i just set up there they're about to come and uh so they ordered it online and uh but because they're in brisbane they're actually going to pick it up they only live like about 15 minutes away from here uh but you know we actually send instruments all over the world i use it yeah it could be this is uh this is the violin i've set it up it's which you feel like i'm really uh yeah yeah yeah it comes with this case comes with a good quality carbon fiber bow so the carbon fiber bows they're just really good value because they play as well as as a lot of much more expensive bows so i've i've come across like this carbon fiber this is my florio carbon fiber bow and to me i've i've tried some seven or eight hundred dollar pen and blue bows and this place just as well and sometimes even better yeah well if i know i can start practicing more yeah that's right yeah yeah that's good yeah yeah thank you very much yeah no worries at all yeah okay see you later so if you're thinking of buying an instrument you've looked at my seven essentials the pier le monde master literally ticks all the boxes for me personally i also really love the instrument i love this sound they're really well made everything's right i've set it up myself and i think materials are great it's made really well i think you will really love this instrument if you know if that's something you'd like to do if you if you are thinking of something and you're quite happy to buy an instrument internationally you know i send all over the world i've sent instruments to europe asia americas south and north america all over australia haven't sent any instruments to antarctica yet so if you're in the antarctica you're looking for an instrument i have no idea i have no idea how to get it to you i'm sorry i don't know if freight could even be free it might be i might have to send a penguin or something anyway if you like my videos hit the like hit subscribe hit the little bell so that you find out every time i post a new video anyway see you guys bye

Channel: Ask Olaf the Violinmaker

Views: 7,152

Rating: 4.9592667 out of 5

Keywords: violin maker, violin shop, twoset olaf, violin (musical instrument), twosetviolin olaf, olaf violin, the violin studio, ask olaf the violin maker, violin makers workshop, olaf grawert violin studio, violin setup, violin setup bridge, good quality violin, violin reviews intermediate

Id: cmXkYrTXt2c

Length: 20min 30sec (1230 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 06 2021