Seman Violins

We are renting a violin for my daughter through Seman. Everyone is always very nice and helpful. I think rental prices are reasonable and they change out the instrument without any hassle when she goes up a size.

When my son was ready for a full size violin we looked long and hard for an instrument that would complement his playing style. We looked at several pieces in the $ 5 — $ 15k range so we wouldn’t have to ‘upgrade’ when he got to high school. However he finally settled on a Seman ‘white’ violin, a less expensive instrument (~$ 1.5k) imported from a workshop in China and then finished in the Seman shop. Without question the violin was a superb choice. Its tone quality and sound is easily the match, if not, better than the often much more expensive instruments my son plays with. We did notice a distinct ‘wolf’ develop during its first Chicago winter. However some new strings seemed to solve the issue.
Five years later, we couldn’t be happier with the instrument. My son is still enthralled with it, as are his teachers. It’s light and lively but with enough sound projection to allow him to perform an unamplified solo at an outdoor amphitheater. Not bad for a sub $ 2k piece.
Bravo, Seman Violins & anonymous Chinese workshop wherever you are.

Place is bright with nicely displayed instruments. Everyone is greeted upon arrival which is nice as we all like to be acknowledged as potential customers. Everyone was very friendly and helpful which again are wonderful qualities in the customer service field. Makes it not hurt so much spending money :)
— overall a quick, painless experience (except when they swipe your credit card lol). Highly recommended.

I wanted to rent or buy a cello for my daughter, who has been playing for about 5 years. I emailed Semans from their website to see if they had cellos available to rent. Noah emailed me and called me to let me know that they had cellos available. When I came in the store with my daughter, he had two beautiful cellos ready for her to try, and set her up in a practice room to play. She loved one of the cellos and it took minutes to rent. Wonderful experience– no pressure to buy whatsoever. When we are ready to buy a cello, we will go here.

EXCELLENT!!! These guys are the best. I have actually only dealt with Noah, but I’m sure the rest of the staff is equally great. Incredibly honest, genuine, and reasonable. There are many snakes in the business of dealing string instruments and repairs and this shop is not of the reptile variety I can happily say!
Noah has been incredibly helpful with his time and resources in helping me with many things. I am needing a new setup for my violin (chin and shoulder rest) and he is more than willing to take the time necessary to get me where I need to be. They have a decent selection of instruments in many different price ranges — for the beginning student and the performing musician.
The shop itself is beautiful, as others have shared previously. There are several rooms to try things out. I missed the concert hall in the back of the shop! Lots of cool artifacts floating around inside…
These guys with do honest work with whatever you might need. I think they have lots of out of town clients, which makes sense because of their great customer service and inventory.
A previous Unilocaler complained about the comments and service he received from someone in the shop after bringing in a violin he purchased online. If people in the shop were telling you that the violin was in terrible condition, it probably was. String instruments are something you don’t generally want to buy online. They are really pieces of art and you have to find a reputable source to buy them, even the cheap ones. It takes a lot of craft to build a violin and many that you see being sold online from ebay or god forbid Amazon are really not going to play like a string instrument needs to or should. If anything the shop maybe felt frustrated that you were ripped off with such a lousy instrument!

Great place! Very classy. Such a cool look to the building; very modern and they have an amazing concert hall in the back. The sales associate are all knowledgeable. They are very professional and customers come FIRST which is the most important of all.

Knowledgeable, professional, courteous, accommodating, fair, excellent product selection and service. Over the last 3 years, I’ve purchased a total of 2 violins, 2 bows, (traded in/​upgraded one of the bows, one of the violins) after extensive trialing in many other shops. Noah makes the buying experience as ideal as possible. He’s knowledgeable (since he’s a fiddler, and maker), very patient, and very accommodating particularly when it comes to the trial period for an instrument. He provides high quality loaners if you have a product purchased from them in for repair, rehair, etc. The trade-​in policy is the best I’ve ever experienced. Some people complain about the prices, unfortunately violins are not cheap. This is apparent if you visit any shop dedicated to string instruments. There are many trained makers on site, so all work is done quickly, My view is that you simply can’t go wrong here.

I am a totally novice violin player. My wife bought me a starter violin online and we brought it into Semans to make sure it was in decent shape. The first thing the man said to me when I brought it in was «this is barely an instrument.» When I told him my wife got it for me as a present he said, to her face «well you didn’t do a good job.» Just inexplicably rude and pretentious. As previous comments have mentioned, you better be Mr. moneybags. He kept trying to sell me new violins telling me my «piece of junk» isn’t even worth using. The only reason this review has any stars at all is because they quickly, efficiently and professionally installed new strings and readjusted my bridge. Unless you are a member of the philharmonic or don’t care about customer service, I can’t recommend them.

I went to Seman’s to look for a violin in the $ 10K range. They were friendly, knowledgeable, helpful, professional and extremely generous with their time. Noah Scott, in particular, made sure that all of my questions were answered and helped me evaluate the wide range of instruments they had on offer. They have an excellent selection of modern and older instruments. Some of the violins that sounded best to me were made by master violin makers in their shop, including one I especially liked made by Hee Young Kang. Highly recommended for both selection and oustanding customer service.

This is a beautiful shop! There is a workshop on one side where you can see the building and on the other are beautiful instruments and selections of CDs and books. I literally called on a whim. Just thought to myself, «Hey, I want to learn how to play violin.» and it went further when I realized I’m an adult and I can just pay to do it if I wanted to. So I looked into it and found this shop not too far from my house and saw that they rent violins. Only $ 70 for three months. And because they are hand crafted and expensive, I thought I’d need a background check and full body scan… but no! I found a violin teacher through their site (Josh Huppert… highly recommend him if you’re an adult learner), asked him what materials I needed, walked into their store and told them all that I needed, and I was out of there in 20 minutes!
Part of the money I pay goes towards a future purchase and the rest is for insurance. Noah helped me and he was very nice, personable, and pretty funny. He told me all I needed to know and answered my question while checking me out. I didn’t feel like he was annoyed, but I also wasn’t intimidated to tell them I didn’t know how to play at all, just that I wanted to learn. If you’re wondering if you should give it a shot, I’d say, YES! Go do it! It was such an easy process. They can answer all questions, provide you with a beautiful rental piece, resources, and a list of fair-​priced instructors. I highly recommend them!

I’ve used Seman Violins for violin/​bow repairs, and I think it’s great work for a reasonable price. They’re very up front about what the costs will be, and I haven’t noticed big differences between the actual costs and the estimates.

I went to this place a couple times with a friend of mine to get stuff for my violin. It was okay nothing special those times.
But when I went the last time with said friend I inquired about the violins, it just felt like the guy was annoyed or just didn’t want to put in the time with me. Ok, I wasn’t going to throw down $ 7000 on a violin right then and there, I was a beginner (Which I mentioned)! I hadn’t earn the right to carry around something that much or gotten myself past playing Oh Susanna in fiddle class to be investing in something that beautiful! Don’t drive a potential customer away over snottiness. You don’t know my income. I am not sorry I wanted to know about your products!
Anyhow it gave me a bad taste. Just make sure you walk in with a mink coat and $ 100 bills fly out your cooter. They will be more pleased to speaking with you :)

This is a great shop to rent/​buy a stringed instrument! We rented a cello from Seman for three years and also bought a cello a couple of months ago. The rental cello had a nice sound and was in good condition. The buying process was very easy. Noah handles the sales, and he is the nicest guy ever. No pressure tactics or upselling, he didn’t try to sway us into buying pricier instrument, bow or case. Everyone who works in the store is always very friendly.
We just moved to the Seattle area, so we can’t patronize Seman anymore, but if we ever move back to Chicago, we’ll come back to Seman for stringed instruments!