I am looking to buy some new rosin as mine is old and not very effective at its job anymore.

What would you recommend? Is there a good quality rosin other than the one mentioned on the other thread that comes at a more reasonable price, say under £10?

Also what is the typical lifespan of rosin? I would have thought about a year.

Those who believe it has a limited lifespan do seem to feel about a year or so. I think there is some kind of backstory to the Tartini brand rosin that a lump of it was found from the original time and it was still so good they made a mass production run from the recipe, so that would sort of indicate it lasts a few hundred years! I would suppose a lot depends on your temperature and humidity control. I used to use a dark rosin, but it goes sticky in the summer where a light rosin will not, or at least not as badly.

I spent a lot of time perusing rosins because I thought £8 was a lot by comparison to other brands. But then I worked it out based on the theory of one purchase per year and suddenly 15p a week didn't seem an unreasonable asking price!

What sort of playing do you do most often? What sort of conditions do you normally play in (indoors, outdoors) what sort of music do you make, are you sensitive to rosin dust and what sort of strings do you have? If you are looking to shop around for rosin rather than just buy whatever then these factors make a difference. Buskers, for example, are fond of Schwarz black rosin as it still sticks in freezing outdoor conditions, but in a concert hall it would probably bring your bow to a standstill. If you do a wide variety of playing in all sorts of conditions then probably a standard old "good all-rounder" is for you, the Hindersine, etc. That seemed to be the outcome of my research on the matter before I decided on the Pirastro.

Incidentally, I paid £8 for the Goldflex, so it does actually come in that under £10 price bracket. Tartini has a dedicated following, but it's £12.80, and I just thought that was too much. Mostly because I do drop things!

Just checked several places and the Goldflex is £8 or under in most.
My daughter likes the Eudoxa rosin on her Eudoxa strings. It's about the same price.

Goldflex is good, so is Jade.

Don't trust the colour of the rosin to tell you how sticky it is though - the days of 'dark is sticky and light is harder' are over - most companies will put dye in their rosin these days to give the colour their customers prefer - Jade rosin is dark green but is the same stickiness as goldflex - perhaps even less. It's dyed dark green because it sells lots in America and apparently surveys showed that was the colour they liked !

My luthier often tells people good quality rosin abounds - as long as you're not buying the cheapest rubbish you can get your hands on, it really doesn't make a difference.

He claims that any difference you hear is either A) psychological or B) so tiny that anyone standing more than a foot away won't hear it.

He chuckles at the idea of violinists stressing over every little thing "Oh, I must have this rosin - it will make a better sound' or 'if I get my tailpiece changed, my tone will improve' or 'I want a dark sounding fiddle' or 'can you just recommend a G string that will make a better sound' - his reply is often 'just learn to play the damn thing and stop shopping for stuff'.

I have to say - I largely agree with him!

generally true, I think it can be all too easy to blame your equipment!
I'm not sure how sticky the Goldflex is in comparison with others, but it seems to play smoothly and takes away some of the surface noise that annoys me (although no-one standing more than a foot away can probably hear that anyway!)

I use Kaplan Artcraft dark and really like it. It's not the cheapest rosin in the world (around £5) but I find a little bit goes a long way.

For some reason it seems to create very little dust compared to other rosins I've used in the past (both light and dark). I did find, to start with, that I was over-rosining my bow, until I realised that it gave me the dig and stickiness I needed without there being visible rosin dust. Once I worked out that it made less dust I haven't had any problems with it. I find that I can do around 3 hrs of playing before I need to rosin the bow again. It isn't sticky to touch either.

Most of my playing is in orchestras playing mainly classical/romantic repetoire.

I occassionally perform as a soloist but only maybe three times a year at most, where as I have around 13 orchestral concerts a year. All my concerts are indoors unless I go on tour where there is always one outdoor concert.

I use obligato strings.

I think you'll be fine with Goldflex or jade, then - or any basic rosin.

I know that pirastro brought out an obligato rosin, supposedly specially designed to bring out the best sound from the obligato strings - but I fear we may be venturing into 'shopping instead of practising and playing better' territory again with that!

I'd go with whatever you fancy - as long as you're not paying a quid a kilo, you'll be fine.

I'm gonna join in here. I've always been interested in buying either goldflex or tartini, was about to go for the tartini but everyone's now saying how good the goldflex is choices choices...! any opinions on those 2 in comparison? (i know it can't make THAAT much difference but... you know!)

He is, of course, referring to difference you hear. I don't have any claim that Goldflex sounds better than the stuff I threw out, merely that it feels better. I don't have any expectation that it will improve my playing to listen to in any way but psychological security, but psychological factors are huge. If your shoulder rest (or absence of one) is a set-up that makes you feel as if you are constantly chasing the fiddle around and it keeps dropping off your shoulder then the effect on your playing is huge because you don't feel that sense of security that no, the violin/viola isn't going to shoot across the room if you do a wider vibrato. It almost certainly won't, but you have to feel and believe that it won't and then you will commit. The Goldflex feels 100 times more secure and smooth than the Hindersine, which always felt as if my bow was about to get away from me. Possibly I never used to put enough on and I could have got a good result if I caked on tonnes, but it seemed to make so little difference I ended up hardly using it. The Goldflex went on so easily by comparison. Once on it may well be no better, but you always have to get it on there in the first place, so a rosin that goes on smoothly and easily is high priority for me. I suppose it would be similar to changing the size of my viola to a 15in instrument - it's still a viola, it's still a great viola, but it's not for me and I can't play it.

I'm not sure how much I believe that the different Pirastro ones really do match their individual strings, but since the Obligato would be a suitable rosin for you in any case I'd say you may as well choose that one unless you want to get something cheaper.

That's exactly it - goes on easier, feels better.

Always had to scratch the surface of the Hidersine to get it started. Not with the Goldflex.

Ah but one could argue that the difference we feel is due to replacing old rosin with new - like when you change strings... just to play devil's advocate.

You'll need to advocate a bit harder, cos I didn't like the Dominant rosin at all, and it's new too. On the violin I have gone back to the Hindersine and every time I have both cases open I put Goldflex on everything. And I have to open the tin with a knife.

I have inherited my sisters violin as I am about to start playing. It has had 'Hidersine, No. 3V Violin The world famous improved rosin' in the case for over a decade lol

Hi, I'm not sure if you can get Tartini rosin in the UK, but for the rest of the world it has long been discontinued and replaced with "Andrea Rosin". Andrea-The person who found the old ancient rosin. It has raved reviews and i swear by it. It is the best. period

It was first set up in Seoul Korea but due to corruption it moved its production to US.

you may visit the website for more info.
http://www.cremonainamerica.com/

The other best rosin which i found from my research is the Libenzeller from Germany, also discontinued but you can still find it if you're lucky.

Hope this helps

The German rosin was another one with gold flecks in it. It was a small cottage industry, quite literally, the lady made them in her kitchen! She died a year or so back and there was no-one to carry it on. It was about £20 a cake but supposed to be wonderful (£20 wonderful? who knows?), but the closest to it is supposed to be the Goldflex one which apparently people have swapped to without a problem.
You have me interested in the Andrea one too I like things with a bit of a story to them!

I will take all points into consideration when I visit my music shop this weekend.