I purchased a non-functioning Violano in 2008 and spent the better
part of a year overhauling it in my spare time with the help of the
repair book by Art Reblitz and Mike Kitner.  Mine plays pretty well
but has what I would describe as "strings that fight each other" in
certain passages of music.

The front and rear guide combs that align the violin fingers are
supported by a pot metal bracket that sags over time and twists the
guide combs slightly out of position.  This, along with the heavy
corrosion that I had to remove from the fingers themselves, makes it
almost impossible to have the fingers lift the strings at the precise
point.  Songs which play three or four strings at once aggravate the
situation, but a violin solo using one or two strings at a time sounds
beautiful.  I suppose the violins themselves are prone to degrade over
time and this can also cause raspy or harsh sounding tones.

Strings can also make a big difference, and I'm convinced that no two
violins strung up with identical strings will sound the same.  My own
Violano was harsh sounding until I switched to strings wound on a gut
core for the D and G strings, but yet I've heard other machines with
all steel strings that I thought sounded just fine.

Browsing YouTube today will give you recordings of only about two dozen
different Violanos.  With the various estimates I've seen of surviving
machines (from 800 to as many as 2000), you'd think there would be more
recordings of these fascinating instruments available on the internet.

Regards,
Bill Meyer
Syracuse, New York