D’Addario KV310 4/4H Heavy Tension 4/4 Scale Kaplan Vivo Violin String Se
The World Is Ready For A New Sound
Kaplan Vivo delivers brilliance, clarity, and a robust feel. The strings settle quickly, exhibiting a rich tonal color palette and superb bow response. Kaplan violin strings offer professional-level players an unprecedented combination of beauty and power.
The Movement Begins
Scaled to fit 4/4 size violin with a playing length of 13 inches (328mm), these strings are optimized to the needs of a majority of players. The strings are also designed with unique packaging that provides unparalleled protection from elements that cause corrosion.
Kaplan Vivo Features
- Kaplan Vivo delivers brilliance, clarity, and a robust feel
- Synthetic core produces a rich, powerful tone
- Short break-in time and excellent bow response provides superb playability
| Weight: | 10 g |
| Size: | Set |
| Dimensions: | 12.07 x 12.07 x 0.83 cm; 10 Grams |
| Model: | KV310 4/4H |
| Colour: | All D’Addario strings are designed, engineered and manufactured in the USA to the most stringent quality controls in the industry |
| Colour: | All D’Addario strings are designed, engineered and manufactured in the USA to the most stringent quality controls in the industry |
| Origin: | USA |
| Size: | Set |
I very much like everything except the D string.
The other project and have a nice sound that balances the mellowness of my instrument.
The D string doesn’t have a nice sound and I feel like I have to coerce everything I het out of it.
If I had a do-over, I’d buy Pirazzi Gold D, and the Kaplan G, A, E.
These are wonderful strings! They gave me the bright sound I really wanted. Especially on the lower end. It’s still rich (robust) and still has a darkness, but it has the bright sound a violin is meant to have. With most other strings, I got a sound more along the lines of what a viola should have, darker and mellower. A violin is meant to be bright and sweet. Especially in ensembles. HOWEVER, the silk wrapping at the tailpiece started to come undone. The black did, not the silver. I’ve had this problem a lot, so I must scold D’addario, and tell them to figure out how to make the black spiral wrapping over the silver more secure. I still give five stars because this is based on sound, not the silk wrapping.
Even at B6 on the E string, there is ZERO white noise! The string blend is beautiful. Bright on the E and warm on the G. These are the best quality strings I have ever used. They add just the right amount of volume to my violin.
Die teure Alternative zu den Pro Art Saiten, die man hierzulande ja leider in SOFT nicht mehr fr alle 4 Saiten zu bekommen scheint. Saiten haben sich sehr schnell “akklimatisiert”, muss nurnoch wenig nachstimmen. Der Klang ist wesentlich weicher und freundlicher als Pirastro Obligato, die ich vorher hatte und nicht mchte.
Lieferung schnell.
Kenne die Saiten von dem Video auf der d’Addario-Website. Ich habe die A-Saite gekauft, weil die auf meiner Violine irgendwie zu wnschen brig lie im Gegensatz zum Klang der anderen Saiten. Die Kaplan Vivo hat das ausgeglichen, sie klingt schn weich.
Although I’m not the main musician in our household, whether you are a beginner or an expert, it will be easy to hear the difference when these strings replace some lesser ones.
After being given the time to settle into your instrument, you can hear that brightness shining through.
They were also noticeably louder.
For the professional musician looking for a powerful sound without losing nuance, it can be found in these.
***D’Addario Kaplan Vivo Violin Set 4/4 KV310 4/4M Medium are not strings for a Stradivarius, as sounding tinny, metallic, and harsh on high quality instruments, but give brightness to a darker sounding violin. However, on an average fiddle they are intended for, they do produce the sound, which clarity and brilliance is satisfactory.
Without a doubt, they are “brighter.” Maybe too “bright” for me? I think because I am very much accustom to hearing my instrument “a certain way,” that these were almost alarming to me … like seeing a loved one with a new, completely different haircut. I experimented with them for about three-weeks. I thought they might “grow on me.” They did not. And, while they are not for me, I do believe that they are an excellent quality set.
I restrung my violin with the Amo set three days ago. I hope to review those soon … but I can already tell that they are a match for me.
Since this is an issue of personal preference and not quality, I have to give these strings five, bright stars. It is a beautiful set for the right person.
Embarrassingly, I paired these amazing violin strings with a relatively cheap Yamaha violin also from Amazon. I have played the Violin a lot when I was a kid and reached classical grade 8, after not picking up the violin for many years, I decided to pick up a cheap Violin from Amazon a couple years back. Violin strings don’t last forever and have a tendency to break every 1-2 years or so. These violin strings from Vine came at a perfect time as I had an E string go out recently.
These expensive violin strings really bring out more breath and depth to the cheap Yamaha violin. It makes it sound a lot more vibrant and rich. I can’t even imagine how these strings would sound with a more expensive violin.
To be perfectly honest, I haven’t played the violin very long, my violin isn’t very expensive, and maybe I don’t deserve such expensive strings. But I have played the guitar and ukulele for decades, so I understand good sound from a stringed instrument. I recently got new strings on my guitar and realized what a difference they made. I actually sound good!
These do sound richer and, believe me, I need all the help I can get. My only problem was with stringing them. It seemed that the ends wrapped with thread — the windings — were a tad thicker than my cheaper strings. That made it difficult to insert them into the holes in the pegs. That could be because of my inexpensive violin, but it really made it tough. The thread would unravel a bit and I’d have to snip off the end and start over again. The plastic protector on the e-string wouldn’t stay on either and is lost somewhere in the kitchen. We’ll see how we do without it.
Once installed though, the strings sound fabulous. I tuned the violin a couple of times and played for about a half hour in the evening. By morning, there was very little tweaking needed to tune again.
As a novice, I probably wouldn’t embarrass such expensive strings if I had to pay for them myself. As a Viner, it’s nice to have the chance to try them out and aspire to become a better player.
These are some pretty inexpensive strings but they still have a pretty good sound. They are fairly easy to place on your violin. You just add to the pegs and the tighten them up. After getting them installed just make sure you tune it then you are ready to play. These are not the most expensive strings but still have a pretty good sound.
I got these strings for my husband, who plays a violin that has been in his family for 100 years or so. He was extremely pleased with the clarity and brilliance of the sound he gets from these strings.
The Kaplan Vivo Violin is a rather expensive violin set. Is it worth the extra cost? I’m happy to say that it is.
We have a Gliga GAMA violin and we have grown to love its sound. We don’t honestly remember the make/model of the strings it had had when we first bought it. After we put the Kaplan Vivo strings on it, it is immediately obvious to us that it sounds better. It is very smooth sounding with better clarity and liveliness. It also appears to be richer and able to project a louder sound than before. In particular, the E string feels more powerful and brighter than the old one.
The strings have black and silver silk wrapping at the tail end, and have ball-ends. An adapter is available from D’Addario if you have a hook-type fine tuner. The Kaplan Vivo supposedly delivers brilliance, clarity, and a robust feel for darker instruments. D’Addario also makes a variant called Kaplan Amo which supposedly delivers warmth, richness, and flexibility for brighter instruments. We don’t have the Amo and therefore couldn’t compare the two. Anyway, we tried the Vivo and are very impressed with it.
These are beyond a doubt that best violin strings I have ever had. While I primarily play clarinet, I do play a number of other instruments more casually, including violin. My violin is my old 4/4 student violin that was inexpensive more years ago than I care to remember. These strings have brought a new life to my playing – which will encourage me to play more. I’ve even given thought to getting a better instrument because I am enjoying the experience so much more.
There are others who are much more experienced than I, who will give you the technical discussion on why the strings sound the way they do and perhaps, why the price is merited, how the strings are made, what music is best played, etc. All I can say is that I am extremely happy with my performance and am practicing more – all that from a new (expensive) set of strings.
That got my curiosity. I happen to have instruments in both categories and was lucky to have a chance to check out both sets.
For this review I was interested in brightening up the high end of an older instrument rather than adding warmth to the low end. While I find it’s possible to use bow position and hair angle to reduce brightness it’s difficult – if not impossible – to extract more high-frequencies than an instrument can project.
Before stringing my ‘regular’ violin (a German factory-made restoration and conversion to left-handed) with the Vivo set, I recorded some solo playing with a much-used set of D’Addario Helicore medium tension strings. In spite of the steel E, the instrument has always lacked ‘something’ in that E, as well as the upper register of all the strings.
I stretch violin strings as I tighten and tune them, much like guitar strings, to help the settling process along. Still, it took several days of playing the Vivo set for almost an hour a day (in fairly consistent weather) before they stopped what I consider serious slipping.
Fortunately the wait was worth it: To be honest, the Kaplan Vivo strings are a class above what I generally use and it was hard not to be impressed with the overall tonal improvement. I don’t think my little ‘Frankenfiddle’ ever sounded so clear and crisp, yet still sufficiently warm on the bottom, and the recording confirmed my close-up ear impressions.
As for specifically brightening up this darker instrument, I have to say clearly yes — but not dramatically — and it’s difficult to know how much can be attributed to the special formulation of the Vivo set versus the simple fact of them being new.
But the bottom line is the Vivo set sound wonderful on this particular instrument and I look forward to playing them for a very long time.