It's very important to get someone to go with you who plays. You need to hear the sound both under your chin, and from several feet away.....they are not the same. String brand and set up both make a BIG difference in sound.

My "co-fiddler" has been saying she is not happy with her fiddle sound....sounded fine to me from several feet away. She made me play it tonight, and I heard what she has been hearing, and it is awful. Sort of like mini wolf tones on the E and A string. If I had to play it all the time, I wouldn't like it either, but I don't know what is wrong with it. It has always sounded OK to her until a recent string change, and she didn't change brands either. (????) Who knows? Fiddles are haunted, I think.