VSO - (not something Symphony Orchestra)

Posted by Ying Wang on 20th Aug 2015

VSO - (not something Symphony Orchestra)When I first heard of the term ‘VSO’, I thought Graham was talking about a Symphony Orchestra. But, he said: “no, no. it’s called ‘Violin Shaped Object’ “.


I have seen numerous badly made violins brought in by customers, but nothing like the ‘VSO’ that was brought in by a customer recently.

I was handed over this VSO one morning, and my first impression was “why is violin's body so flat?” I turned the violin over, and back of the violin is so flat as if it’s like a piece of paper. After Graham pointed out several other issues with the violin, we made a conclusion that this poor ‘thing’ will never be able to make its way to become a violin.

Just for your curious mind, here is how we define a ‘VSO’:

Machine pressed bodycheck
Plastic tuning pegscheck
Plastic tailpiececheck
Painted black fingerboardcheck
Painted fake purflingcheck
Plus all other completely wrong set-up
e.g. flat bridge, wrong action (too high/too low)
factory strings etc.
check

I was appalled by the poor quality of the violin, but surprisingly to see that it actually came with a reasonable quality foam case. I was joking that the case might be worth more than the violin itself.

In the end, I ‘admired’ the VSO for a moment, and said ‘sorry, mate, you just can’t be a violin’.
And, I gently put it back in the case and let it rest in peace.