Toddler Cello Strings/ Octave Violin test

When my 1/8 cello strings came in the mail, I was so excited I spent the evening testing them on my regular violin. It is an unusually poor candidate for an octave violin setup because the neck is sunken, but I was interested in a benchmark to measure the effect of my changes to the standard, which are numerous although individually small in degree.

There are purpose-built octave strings (Sensicore Octave sold by Southwest Strings) but they are about $50 - and the C string if you want to go full chin cello is $20 by itself. Steep for an experiment. I found Prelude 1/8 cello strings on eBay for $9 from someone who didn't mean to order toddler size cello strings. A 1/8 cello is bigger than a violin, but for that price I figured I could make it work.

Right off the bat, there were mechanical difficulties in winding such a fat gauge of string. I had to trim off 8 inches or so of string - all the winding. I used viola fine tuners because violin ones can't fit that diameter of loop, and bored out the string hole on a new peg significantly. My normal pegbox was not deep enough to accommodate the gauge of the C-string at all. Even the octave G was tough to wind in such a tight radius.  It did not want to bend enough grip the tiny peg.

However, at last I fudged it enough to play a bit.

My flimsy light bow did eke out some sound, but I definitely want a viola or cello bow with some black hair and very sticky rosin. It was a lot of work to get a wispy sound out.

The vibrations to the chin were indeed strong. However, I rarely play more than a half hour at a stretch, and not continuously at that. I'm a lightweight.

The sound was very interesting. I can see why one maker called his octave a "grizzly". You know how a lion's roar has a staccato quality, like you are hearing each individual wavelength peak, rather than one smooth sound? I am not sure how to describe that although there is surely a scientific term for the phenomenon. This shared that growly quality.

Also, the pitch varied significantly with bow pressure. You can force a violin to do this a little -- mash the bow and hear a little rev in the engine. But this was present, to large degree, with every stroke unless I worked hard to keep it artificially even in pressure -- thus the useable length of the bow is short since the tip is too light completely, too great of a contrast. Hopefully a cello bow will reduce this effect or it will be annoying to impossible to play without going off-key.

The bar is set pretty low -- my viola can only be better! If it isn't, I can just string it as a viola.