Is there a good Carbon Fiber Bow?
Hi all!I'm looking for a good carbon fiber bow, in fact I got in touch with Berg shop in Bloomington, Indiana, but never had a chance to actually meet them in person in order to try it. My colleague has one of his bows but the price is kind a high for me ($7500) So I was wondering if somebody could recommend decent bow less than that. Thanks!
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The one I chose handles very well; while its sound isn't at the level of great pernambuco, it is quite adequate, and better than many "good" wood bows with my instruments. No idea how it stacks up against the various JonPaul options, which have been the favorites on this board.
Supposedly, guys from the Emerson Quartet recommend this option to their students, and perhaps use it themselves.
More recently, I had the chance to "toy" a bit with a good pernambuco bow of €8,500... and what a joy! I don't know how a €8,500 CF bow would be, but I seriously doubt that it can outperform a good pernambuco bow like the one I tried.
However, the variability in Coda Bows at a given price point is far far less than the variability of wooden bows at the same price points. They have been engineered to reproducibly perform and play well.
I'd recommend Coda Bows over generic unbranded CF bows because they have better quality control.
Disclosure: I am not a dealer and I do not sell or distribute Coda Bows.
you could investigate on Musing bows (made in germany by the founder of Arcus himself). I tested several ones, many months ago. They surpassed the highend Coda bows easily in everything.
I understand that might be your experience, but it isn't mine.
Tone is a matter of personal preference, and Coda Bows can match up very well and produce excellent tone with many, perhaps most, violins.
I have tried hundreds of wooden bows and dozens of Coda Bows, and the playing characteristics and better tone quality is much more reproducible in the Coda Bows than it is in wooden bows in a similar price range.
My son uses a Luma Coda Bow that has outstanding playing characteristics and matches extremely well tone-wise to his dark-sounding pre-WWI German violin. And we have compared it to many wooden bows on this same violin.
I play violin, cello and viola - going back 80 years. In addition to the Berg deluxe bow I also have a full set (vla,va, vc) of Coda Classic, Arcus Concerto and CF Durro bows as well as a Rolland Spiccato violin bow. My "classic" pernambuco bows include Paul Martin Siefried (my richest sounding violin bow), F.N. Voirin and Richard Weichold violin bows and Paul Martin Siefried and Albert Nürnberger cello bows. Neither of my pernambuco viola bows rises to that level although my W. Siefert viola bow is not bad and the other viola bow labeled C. Bazin is best on the other viola. I have a total of 20 bows now, down a bit from my previous total having sold some of the cheaper ones to students and gifted some better ones to family members.
Among my 9 total instruments (4 violins, 3 cellos, 2 violas) sometimes one of my CF bows is the ideal bow for the instrument, the music or the venue (it turns out choice of strings on the instrument also affects my choice of bow). I always pack at least one CF bow in the instrument case that leaves home with me. Which CF bow is in the case depends on which instrument is also in the case.
The only way to evaluate a bow is to fully test it on your instrument.
The Berg does not sound as good as my wood bows, and in that regard I agree with Lyndon. I always use one of my wood bows when I play with others, but for the daily wear & tear, and protection of the pernambuco and to prolong the hair, the synthetic bow can be a useful tool.
However CF bows are very stiff in general and doing blows of chords kills the sound easily. There are always work around and one need to play them a little different than a wooden bow.
Learn how to use your tools and control them. Then decide what's suitable for you. Bow shopping is always an educative journey.
I have 2 very good pernambuco bows - one of it give a big sound but heavy and somewhat stiff to play. Another one give more overtone and VERY forgiving to play, making all techniques easier to pull off. I have not play a CF bow as good as these, including an Arcus Cadenza gold before they name their bow like Samsung or Huawei.
On a side note - I had a chance to briefly play a Francois Tourte and several Sartory including one that's G/T. I doubt any CF bow will come close to that complexity of the overtones produced on the Tourte.
(EDIT: this was a viola bow. The violin bow is somewhat less expensive, of course.)
The relatively low weight wasn't really a problem for me when I tried a bunch of A, S and T bows (in the 4-6 grades, none of the really high end). They were a joy to play, extremely well balanced and agile, and one can play them for hours and hours without getting tired. And in contrary to what I expected, it didn't need significantly more arm weight to tear a big sound. Only reason I decided against purchasing one at this time was that my violin actually prefers softer sticks, something CF isn't intended to be. Part of the problem might have been my own technical imperfections, but it also was the character of my violin that didn't make it a good match. On other, warmer sounding violins this was a different story...
On viola, where I really need the additional weight for the C string, I didn't like it, but on the violin I never found anything comparable, and if you're considering a CF bow for pit duty, you should definitely give the arcus a try.
"My limited amateurish experience makes me agree with Lyndon."
That comment is definitely a keeper.
Another thing. The balance of ARCUS bows can be adjusted. My ARCUS bows were from their early production and the lightness is very nice for sightreading - I found that I could actually correct errors I was about to make before I made them better with these bow than with any others. Bernd Müsing sent me a titanium bow screw to replace my steel one to lighten the frog region and thus move the CM of my bow a little closer to the tip. And some years later I had my luthier add a mass to the tip to finish the job so my violin and cello ARCUS bows are now balanced like my other bows. My ARCUS viola bow is unchanged and balanced much like my CODA Classic violin bow and works just fine on my violas.
The ARCUS bows are stiff (STIFF) very stiff, stiffer than any other bows I have and work best if haired very generously. In fact my luthier charged me extra to install the amount of hair I requested (but I was right!). I did a lot of measurement of my bows' stiffness back before 9/11/01 and used the data to determine optimum hair quantities for each of my bows. Interestingly most of my "softer" bows had been haired to generously, so optimizing them was much easier. - "haircuts" (well actually "minor trimming").
Another thing. The balance of ARCUS bows can be adjusted. My ARCUS bows were from their early production and the lightness is very nice for sightreading - I found that I could actually correct errors I was about to make before sI made them better with these bow than with any others. Bernd Müsing sent me a titanium bow screw to replace my steel one to lighten the frog region and thus move the CM of my bow a little closer to the tip. And some years later I had my luthier add a mass to the tip to finish the job so my violin and cello ARCUS bows are now balanced like my other bows. My ARCUS viola bow is unchanged and balanced much like my CODA Classic violin bow and works just fine on my violas.
I'd recommend J.S. Fisher for Arcus bow trials:
https://store.fisherviolins.com/
I have an old Sonata, that plays better than what it should do :)
Budget available vs performance [playability & tone] ?
It would seem to me that in the "under $2000.00 range that the carbon fiber bows may have an advantage in consistency of quality/value.
Wooden bows in the same range are likely not pernambuco, and as with anything made out of a a natural material [wood] I assume the performance would be quite variable?
I suspect that silver and gold mounting has nothing to the playability or performance of a given bow over nickel or even stainless? [Whether attached to a wooden or a carbon bow].
I am a fairly new fiddle player, so any opinion of mine isn't worth anything in the bigger picture, but if I had a budget of under $1500.00 for a bow, and no brick and mortar stores in the vicinity where I could try anything other than a basic elementary student bow,..... Wouldn't I be better off with something like a Coda Marquis that I can "mail-order"?
I am also certain, that at my level of playing now, and into the foreseeable future, I probably wouldn't notice any significant difference between several examples of the same make and model bow?
Right now I have:
A Chinese [I think] "pernambuco" bow from IVC ($200.) Very flexible
A pre WWII German bow "student" level Brazilwood/pernambuco? that I had re-haired by Jerry P at Triangle Strings...Very Stiff
And a CODA DX at the low end of their range.
I've played on Arcus bows for a number of years, but found that I wasn't making very reliable comparisons with them versus other sticks until I had figured out how to make them work. Certainly those first few weeks I didn't sound as good on Arcus as I did on the Ouchard and Morizot bows I played regularly, and nowhere near the other really nice bows generously lent to me by colleagues to try. My friends who have never played Arcus bows generally don't like them the first time they try them either, and are usually dismissive of them in the first few minutes. Experience has been a great teacher though, and a re-working of some of the technical approach and discovering what the bow is capable of has narrowed the gap considerably.
I got tired of switching bows for different settings--and Arcus has proven to be an interesting and effective solution. I took my time coming to this decision, and compared it against many bows from those of modern makers at the 5k-6k range all the way against superb antiques past 50k. I had colleagues help me conduct blind listening tests, and also recorded myself frequently in a concert hall using a Blue Yeti microphone in repertoire ranging from Bach and Paganini to Ysaye and Sibelius. The fact that the bow plays as well as it does while costing no more than a decent bow from a modern maker is also attractive, and one interesting note: it *records* supremely well, very full and rich tone and incredibly clear articulation with no apparent scratchiness or distortion.
If anyone is considering an Arcus, and would like to discuss things like how things like bow hair tension and approaches to varied bow strokes are different from a conventional wood bow, feel free to contact me!
(I went for an M, which is their 'heavier' make, because my violin was very new and also very brash and bright, so I picked bows and strings to temper that)
The relationship between an instrument's sound and the bow used is quite fascinating. I carry a couple of cello bows in my viola case (along with 2 viola bows) to use when I want my viola to sound more like a cello. It works! I select the bows in my case depending on which violin or cello I'm carrying.
I find bows fascinating that so much can be engineered into a stick. Because of this relationship between instrument response and bow-stick resonance I wonder about the validity of the Norman Pickering research on strings using a rotating, rosined disk to vibrate them.
Honestly, I don't know who carries Finkel bows in the US, but this can be easily found out by asking (info@finkel-bows.ch). And there will be other manufacturers, a few of them already have been named.
Just found a Finkel Jumeau hybrid viola bow in the US eeeh-bay for $1k. I don't know their lineup, but if this plays half as well as the violin bow I've once met if this kind, I'd regard it as a fair price. (I'm not in search of a viola bow now, still in love with mine.)
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Pro-Master-Carbon-Fiber-Pernambuco-Skin-Violin-Bow-4-4-Ebony-Carved-Silver-360/133032578715?hash=item1ef95c0e9b:g:sM0AAOSw-6BchtyL
Sadly, too expensive for a backup bow...
The image has too poor a resolution to get a good look .
My Cadenza bows all have "wood cladding." It's a veneer that is wrapped around the bow (if you look closely you can see the seam on the underside. I don't know how they do that cladding around the contour of the tip. Makes you wonder if the "pernambuco cladding" is actually a synthetic material that can be thermally shrink-wrapped onto the bow. Does it matter? Not to me. The bow works well enough for my purposes at the moment. It holds up just fine to col legno although I use an 8" length of 1/4" rosewood dowel for that.
The "S" series Arcus bows are pretty much the original super-light model as invented by Bernd Musing. They are around 48-49 grams vs. 62-64 grams for the typical pernambuco bow. That may not sound like much but if you play with one it feels like it's going to float away. You actually have to adjust your technique and play with a softer grip (which to me is one of the key benefits).
Another thing to know -- all S-series sticks, from the $1500 S5 to the insane expensive S8 and S9, are produced from the same tools on the same production line and have the same qualities. They are graded after they are manufacturered and the ones with the best vibration characteristics are assigned the higher grades and given more expensive fittings.
In my experience the difference between an S5 and an S7 (which costs like 3X as much) is subtle. I think you are getting 90% of the benefit of an Arcus Bow if you spend $1500 for an S5, which is not a bad deal.
I've played a lot of carbon bows and I'm not enamored of them at 60-62 grams. At that weight I would prefer the greater flexibility of pernambuco.
But 49 grams, for me, is the game-changer. 49 grams with all the strength you would ever need -- and the carbon stick is incredibly quick, which you feel instantly when you play fast passages. It's not that there aren't things I miss from pernambuco bows, but the tradeoff is well worth it for the benefits.
To my knowledge, no one but Arcus has managed to produce a bow under 50 grams. Musing insists it's because it's difficult (and expensive) to manufacture carbon tubes that are thin enough and strong enough. I don't know about that, but I'm not aware of another maker that has managed it.
The sound you hear as a player is different than the sound someone hears playing beside you. And the sound heard by someone at the opposite corner of the room is different again. And yet another sound is heard by someone with different ears or different expectations.
Plus there are tradeoffs when it comes to sound and violinists deal with this all the time. You can produce a gorgeous dark sound playing in 5th position on the G string, but depending on the context, you should really play in 1st position on the D string because you'll be able to articulate more cleanly and your listener will be able to hear the notes.
Sometimes the things we violinists do to impress ourselves with our splendid technique are completely lost on audiences, because their ears have totally different expectations and different ideas about what sounds great.
I suspect dark "rich" sound is probably overrated by players because we hear the overtones and undertones so well playing on our own instruments (and we inescapably appreciate virtuosity). But meanwhile a clear, clean ringing sound is more appreciated by people in the 10th row and underappreciated by players. They don't even hear the overtones and undertones but they do appreciate when they can hear a beautiful line. This is what cantabile is all about.
I think it makes sense for a pro violinist who does a lot of traveling to have a better grade of synthetic bow, but for most of us, if you are spending several thousands, then look for a pernambuco bow, and ration its use. I heard somewhere that Kreisler would buy the then inexpensive bows Hill bows, wear out the hair, trade it in for another, then Hill would sell it as an "ex-Kreisler" bow.
Can anyone tell me? I no longer have a website to link.
I've tried a few JP Bravos and admit to not liking any of them. I also haven't liked the lower end of the Arcus S-line.
Hopefully photos of my Berg Deluxe and 3 other bows are visible in this link:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1v-8A6nesnd8fitvfCNeqPwTaLoLEkFJI?usp=sharing
I would posit that violinists over-appreciate darker sounds with lots of overtones and undertones because that's what THEY can hear, and under-appreciate clarity (because we already know what the musical line is -- we have the music in front of us).
Meanwhile our listener in the 10th row hears almost none of those rich overtones that we love so much from our own instrument. And meanwhile that listener needs maximum clarity because he/she is hearing the music we're playing for the first time.
Sometimes the clear requirement is to go up on the G (like the famous opening of the 4th movement of Mahler 9), but other times the right choice is usually lower position, higher string, more clarity.
https://drive.google.com/open?id=17tnGM5C1pSsOIvGNKEyWterQVisPsFNC
Thank you for sharing :)
That's not a reason to avoid the upper positions. If a violinist's sound is so muddy in the upper positions that he's aversely affecting the audience's ability to understand the music, he's not a very good violinist. Indeed, I would argue that's true if a violinist's upper-position sound is even harming clarity.
I've been told that below $1,000 CF outperforms wood, penny for penny. If I had $7,500, I wouldn't dream of buying CF. I guess all you're buying is R&D.
Müsing certainly tells the truth about the resonance of the ARCUS bows. However, as with any bow/instrument combination they have to match because the "resonance" of some instruments is not as pleasant as others, and naturally, hearing varies between people. I am fortunate that some of my instruments match perfectly with my ARCUS bows (something I did not fully appreciate before getting my current hearing aids 4 years ago).
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