Violins with Fancy Treatments

It's difficult as a violin maker to ever proceed like a scientist because in order to make a meaningful test of a new idea, we have to make a new instrument which takes ages. As a result, experiments into things which may improve sound or responsiveness tend to be made on the fly on real instruments. It's only when instruments come back for adjustment and we can marry up notes in the workshop notebook that we get to see exactly how these experiments have worked out over time.  I was put in mind of this last week when a violin made two or three years ago came back for some tweaking and I was able to hear it played quite a lot - the wood treatments which I'd been working on at the time for some of my commissions have had an amazing effect on brilliance. I've never believed in hiding behind likely improvements in sound. Instruments should sound good from day one, but it's always very good to hear that they improve in little ineffable ways and players say ease of playing also.