Hi.I have been trying to teach myself the violin for about a year now and the quality of my sound does not seem too good compared to when i had a go on a good violin at school.Could anyone reccomend where and which type of strings i should buy please.The violin was only £50-a baudelaire so i am suspecting that they were not very good quality in the first place.Any advice would be appreciated,thanks.

You could try Dominants...but the problem may be the violin. At £50 it is almost the same price as a set of decent strings!

Aye it's true, the quality of the violin is more likely to influence the sound than the strings. Do you know of any luthiers/instruments repairers who could give it a good set-up?

No i dont really,but i might take it down to the local music shop and ask there.

I know string preferences seem to be a very personal thing and there seem to be a mind-boggling array of choice out there. I changed my mix of Dominants and cheaper unknown strings to Pirastro Tonica and there's a subtle but very pleasing tonal difference - they seem warmer, fuller...just nicer, somehow :-) I've got a basic Stentor violin, which was a cheap and cheerful choice, but I just like the slight upgraded sound I get with better strings.

I highly recommend dominant strings

I play with dominants but with a pirastro gold E.

The one thing about dominant strings is that the E string doesn't really live up to the other strings.

I agree: I use Doms with a Hill soft E.

I do the same as Sarah. The Dominant E is rather strident, and the Hill Special soft E is much better.

I am using Dominants for practice but for performance, i change my E string to a Evah Pirazzi Gold.

In which case you could end up spending more on strings than a violin (or nearly, anyway). I do wonder how much difference good strings will make on a £50 violin, mostly because the set-up will be poor, even if the craftsmanship is OK. It might be better to spend £15 on a good set-up for the time being. I imagine you haven't been playing long, in which case if you're still playing in a few months, or you progress quickly, then you'll want to upgrade the whole violin anyway, so I wonder whether it's worth spending excessive amounts of money sorting out your first violin. If you do decide to go ahead with new strings, then Dominants aren't going to be particularly objectionable (except the E, try a Goldbrokat maybe?) and you'll draw a good sound from them without the extra effort required for some strings.
Just some thoughts

I'm still on the same striongs I got when I first got my violin, and |I've only ever hyad one string replaced, and I don't know which type I changed to. Sorry can't offer any advice there.