Mendini by Cecilio Violin 4/4 Full Size Kit For Beginners - Hand Carved Acoustic Violins Set - Fiddle Solid Wood Kit with Hard Case, Bow, Rosin, Shoulder Rest and Extra Strings

I bought this violin back in July 2018, Mendini MV300. I am 63 and purchased it for myself. I did not want to spend a lot of money on a more expensive one and find my old body could not hold and bow it properly. I was able to.At first I wasn’t too impressed. I was hearing professional violin sounds in my mind (no, not senility!). I was hearing the tone, not talking playing quality, I wanted in my mind, but the sound from the violin was not it, it was rather scratchy and weird, and empty. I read up and purchased Pirastro Tonica strings for it and used my cello rosin instead of what came with it. Wow, 100% better. I really liked it.Then we, my husband and I, found a viola for sale rather inexpesively, about an hour away, so we went there to have a look. We bought the viola, it suited my purpose. While we were there, we were shown a Windsor violin outfit. It sounded pretty good (for a non-violinist test) and we bought it. I put the Celilio strings I removed from my Mendini onto my Windsor and it immediately improved in tone, but was not anything like the Mendini with the Pirastro Tonicas. Did not expect it to be, but it did sound better than the no name strings that were on it. It was a little brighter and little bit of a hollower sound than the Mendini, basically, not as good, but playable and gave a different sound.I wanted a better violin, and in my mind I am thinking a bright violin. So we went to a violin shop an hour away and purchased a way better quality violin. After I purchased a violin that had a bright tone, I decided that bright was really not what I wanted in a violin. I brightened my cello, but that has a deep sound anyway, so there was a difference that I did not think of.Now, this is the reason I have mentioned all of this and how it applies to my Mendini MV300. I am trading my bright good violin for a mellow dark toned violin next week, at the violin shop I purchased it at. I was curious, though. What was the difference in the sound between the three? I have learned “English Country Garden” and have it memorized. I played it on all three of my violins, and recorded them. I used the same exact bow, the one that came with the Mendini (I like it better than the carbon fiber one I purchased for the more expensive bright violin). After listening to all three, this is what I found:Naturally, the more expensive one had more depth, tone, etc. The Windsor sounded pretty good but was weak. The Mendini with the Pirastro Tonicas sounded very clear, and has as nice sound. It is hollow, though, but it is robust. That is not a complaint. It did NOT cost a lot of money and the wood is not the age and quality of the more expensive violin.This surprised me. It is hard to tell when you are playing it and it is right up against your ears. What I did change on the Mendini is the Celilio Strings, that were on it, to Pirastro Tonicas. I purchased a chinrest at our local music store that is more comfortable to me. It is not a center mount, it is side mount chin rest. I have no idea what brand it is. I also do not use the rosin that came with it, I used my Jade cello/violin/viola rosin (although I now use violin rosin I bought with the more expensive violin).Now, about this Mendini. I actually like this violin. I will be using it for songs that really need a brighter sound, after I get my mellow darker toned violin. I am not going to just put it away because I have a better more expensive one. It plays well. It is very comfortable to hold. It appears to be solidly built, just not the good quality aged wood of the more expensive violins. It is definitely worth the money and is definitely a quality that a student can learn on and them step up from.I really recommend changing the strings before using it for lessons. For some reason, from what I learned, sometimes an instructor will tell students that they need to get a better violin. They do not always realize that maybe the student can’t afford a better one and a whole can of worms is opened when (s)he tells her/his parents the instructor said I need a better violin. CHANGE the strings first! You will not believe the difference. Like I said, I did research and for what I wanted, the Pirastro Tonicas are beautiful!I use a washcloth folded in half for a shoulder rest. I do not use the shoulder rest that came with it. I had purchased a should rest, but found that for me, the washcloth folded in half on my shoulder up by my neck, with the chin rest I purchased, is extremely comfortable. I don’t use the one I purchased. This is different for pretty much everyone, so if there are issues holding it, etc, check out your chun rest and should rest options.This violin is simply wonderful for a beginner, and a little beyond, actually.The look (the least important factor as far as I am concerned). I have read where people are complaining because of the satin finish, not the shiny varnishy finish. It states in the write up and shows in the photos that it is a non-shiny satin finish. I really like it! I think it has charm and is so different from other violins.The bow. I love the bow. I love the weight of the bow. I purchased a carbon fiber bow to go with my more expensive violin that I am trading for a mellow dark tone violin. It is too light for me. Probably after I get lessons and get bow control, the lighter carbon will be nice. Right now, the bow with this violin is simply fantastic.The case: the case is great, but there is one issue, that I just let slide by. There is a slot for two bows. One of the slots is unuseable in my case. The black clip turns to hold the bow in bow in place on one was broken when I got my violin. The top of the clip was lying in the case beside the violin. Thought I could snap it back in, but it was not just unsnapped, it was broken. That is not a deal breaker for me. It does not change my rating or feeling about this violin. It is still worth more than I paid for, in my opinion.Bottom line, if you are a beginner or just want to see if you can actually hold and bow a violin, buy this violin. It is well worth the money and with the string upgrades and getting the shoulder rest and chin rest that fits you, using better rosin, you will have an inexpensive violin (not cheap - there is a difference) that will actually get you quite far into your violin learning. It has a great sound, although hollow due to the wood, and projects great with that string upgrade (that is key). The bow is perfect!

I teach music composition and just need something that holds a tune for the duration of a lesson and can help me show students how the strings work. I'm definitely not in need of a Strad for anything like that. For this purpose, a student-model violin like this one is great. I also don't have to worry if a student smudges it or if it incurs minor damage.I'd actually had a Mendini Cecilio violin for a similar purpose (writing some string music of my own) and regretted having to sell it during an aggressive pre-move downsizing I felt pressured into. For a couple years I was looking to replace it and even secondhand violins were not available in my area at this price point. So I was able to find this "used" one (with really hardly any signs of u se) and am very pleased.I might upgrade the shoulder rest and will need more rosin at some point but these are typical violin maintenance things anyone will have to think about.I'd recommend this model if you are a composer or general music ed instructor who just needs to show people around the string family.

I have to start by saying that if you are hoping for a good musical instrument that is ready to play right out of the box, then this one is probably not what you want. It can, however, be a reasonable value if you are willing to put some work into it or pay a shop to put some work into it.When this violin arrived, the bridge was already on it and to be able to rosin up the bow and get some sound out of it only took tuning it up. That is probably the good news. The bad news is the bridge was poorly cut. It was neither centered correctly on the instrument nor were the string notches cut in the right places on the bridge. So all the strings were about 1/4 inch off from where they should be. Both the nut and the bridge were too high, so the playing action was awful. The strings that come with it do not sound very nice, and the rosin was broken. When you go to open the rosin, open it carefully and not over the instrument or case, so you won't have to clean the bits of it off those if yours is broken as well.Good points: The case looks nice and seems reasonably well made. The bow is nothing great, but it is playable. The shoulder rest isn't anything great either, but it didn't fall apart and it holds on to the instrument reasonably well, so I'll call it usable enough. The extra bridge looks like it is actually maple, and also usable, if not particularly good. The satin finish actually looks sort of nice in person. Mine is a bit more orange than the pictures shown of the item, but it is not really what I would call a bad color. Weight and balance of the instrument are pretty good, and the neck is nicely thin. The belly does appear to be spruce and the back and neck do appear to be maple.Bad points: Where to start? I already mentioned the bridge being badly done. I needed up needing to re-trim the bridge and set it in the proper place. If you didn't want to learn how to do that, then it could be done at a local luthier or music shop, but the cost to have it set up by a professional could easily run you as much as the instrument cost in the first place. Getting the bridge right will help with the action but it is still high. The nut is just a rectangular block of ebony with some slits cut in it, it is not shaped properly for any sort of violin. The nut also had the string at least 3 mm high, when the string height at the nut should be less than 1 mm. When I was reshaping the nut with files to make it right, I found out another interesting thing.If you are expecting actual rosewood for the fingerboard, you may be in for a disappointment. Under the black paint, the fingerboard on mine was made of some very light coloured wood. I understand that not all rosewood is a dark red, but one of the distinguishing characteristics of rosewood is that it is at least pinkish. This is not rosewood. At least mine wasn't, you may have better luck with that. I decided to strip off the black paint to get a better look at it. Some sort of a hardwood, people who know more about wood types than I do guess it to be a light walnut or perhaps hickory. It has a knot in the middle as well. But since it seems to be at least some sort of hardwood, I decided to just sand it and finish it with a coat of tung oil and it seems to be working ok.The tuning pegs are also painted and slip badly. I scraped the paint off the shafts and roughened the wood a little with some 200 grit sandpaper and now they hold quite reasonably well. Some of the pegs do have a reddish colour under the paint and may be some sort of rosewood. The chinrest is made of some fairly lightweight wood that is almost white. Again, not rosewood. I found the chinrest uncomfortable enough that I left it off and play the violin without it. But to be fair, getting a chinrest that actually fits the player already installed on any violin as it comes from the factory isn't very likely. If you want one that fits, you go to a music store and try some and buy the one you like.There is also a small knot on the back, but the wood grain is tight around it so it isn't about to come loose and fall out or anything, so I don't care about that. If that would bother you as an aesthetic consideration, be warned that these violins may have such flaws. At the price, you are not paying for perfect looking wood.After all that (which was about a weekend's worth of work) and putting on a better set of strings, and playing it with my usual bow rather than the "free" one that came with the violin.. It doesn't actually sound too bad. The blonde fingerboard I ended up with is rather an unusual look, but I like it better than I liked the poorly applied black paint.To summarize, this *can* be a nice little instrument if you are willing to put some work into it or pay someone else to work on it for you. I got mine to where it plays and sounds reasonably decent. The look is unusual and not perfect, but likeable enough in my opinion. However, if you are looking for a violin that will play good and sound nice right out of the box, then this is probably not the one you are looking for.I can even say that after the work I put into it and upgrading the strings, rosin and bow, I rather like it. I had fun working on it, and I feel what I got was worth what was paid. However I will only rate it one star, because the chinrest and fingerboard are NOT rosewood, even under the paint. I understood when I bought it for about 70$ through here that I would not be getting something on a par with a $1000 dollar violin, but I feel this product deserves the low rating for being misrepresented in the description. In good conscience, I also could not recommend this instrument to anyone expecting to play it at a gig the same day it is delivered nor for a beginner looking for an instrument that arrives in a playable enough condition to at least learn on.