Carbon Fiber Violin Bow 4/4

Beautiful, simple, and lightweight bow. It has good balance. It makes it easier to play or practice longer. Love the all black look. The white synthetic hair is something to get used to. The only negative thing I can find is applying rosin on them. We tried our favorite light rosin and didn't really stick too well. The dark rosin worked better, but not enough. So we followed the light sanding instruction. That did the trick. Still had to use dark rosin as the base and applied light rosin before playing. The sound it produced is almost indistinguishable from real horse hair. No complaints. The ease of use makes up for the almost imperceptible sound difference. It's not the braided carbon fiber that many would assume. It's not in the description. But the plain flat black look is very elegant. It comes with a nice warranty so I'm not worried about longevity. It's priced a little higher than the generic carbon fiber bows, but this one has the synthetic fiber and we really wanted to try it. So far, so good.

This was purchased as an upgrade to a previous carbon bow and met my expectations. Sound quality improvement was noticeably and would definitely buy again.

(Update!)This an update to my previous review which you can read below.I just spoke with Michael on the phone and he is sending me a new hand picked bow free of charge. But not only that he said he was refunding my money too. I'm speechless, I mean who does that these days? I have heard good things about Michael but customer service like that is unheard of in this day and time. Even though I haven't got the new bow yet I'm changing my rating from 1 star to 5 stars just on customer service alone. When you're dealing with hand made items such as this there's bound to be a clunker in there once in awhile but I have no doubt the new one Michael is sending me will be free of any defects and play just fine especially since he said he would pick one out for me and also have his luthier check it before sending it out. You just can't get any better than that when it comes to customer service and you can bet when it comes time to get a new fiddle that I'll be taking a good look at what Michael has to offer knowing that he will stand behind it should there be any unforeseen problems. Thanks again Michael, you now have a customer for life!(This is the original review)I had high hopes for this bow considering all the great reviews but it failed to deliver in pretty much every category. First of all let me state that I am a beginner and have only been playing about 4 months. I've made a lot of progress in that time but one thing kept plaguing me and that was bow bounce. No matter how much I tried to relax the bow would still bounce. Never the less I thought it was mostly my technique and not the the fault of the bow.Up until now I hadn't had any formal lessons but today I took my first lesson with an accomplished instructor. I told her about my bounce problem and she said "let me see your bow." She then proceeded to play and low and behold it was bouncing with her too. Not near as much as with me but it was noticeable. After taking a closer look at it she showed me how the hairs were not all laying flat as they should be under tension and said someone did a bad job of installing the horse hair. She showed me her Coda bow and what the properly tensioned hair should look like and there was no comparison. My bow hair looked wavy with a large percentage of hairs not completely taut. She said she suspected that was causing the bouncing. I played her coda bow and had no bounce issues and she said my technique looked good. When I returned to mine the bounce was back.Another thing she pointed out was the excessive amount of side to side play in the frog. This was less noticeable the more you tightened it but still there none the less. Also when she sighted down the shaft she said it was crooked. It could be straightened by slightly twisting the tip but you had to keep a constant eye on it.All in all I'm very disappointed with this bow and to top it off I'm discovering all this after the 30 day trial has run out so I'm stuck with it. I ordered an Eastman fiberglass bow yesterday so i guess I'll keep this as a back up but it's really not worth using as a back up. I'm not knocking Fiddlerman because I hear he is a good guy and I'm sure he would have replaced this had I returned it in time but being a newbie I didn't know what to look for when I got it. These are probably good bows but I guess I got one that slipped through quality control. Never the less I have to give it 1 star based on my experience.

For a while, I didn't care for this bow. Specifically, the synthetic hair. It seemed like it would never hold rosin, and I eventually sanded the hair much more than the recommended "15 passes". After maybe four months, it's holding rosin better and sounds better. I think maybe it was the Prelude strings. I went back to Helicores and I suddenly love this bow. My wooden bow sounds better, and I use it for performances, but I will bring this one to jams and I use it for daily practice. It's better than any other carbon fiber bow I've used, and I know that I will never need to pay for new hair.

So let's get it out of the way first. I own a Codabow Diamond GX. This bow is nothing close to it; even my 9 year old in a blind listen can tell the difference. So no; you aren't gonna be getting the same tone, warmth, control, or playability out of this compared to an expensive pro carbon fiber stick. A little background; I'm not a great player; just a regular player that now plays for fun. My move to carbon fiber bows and my abandonment of regular wood bows happened because I was playing in an outdoor performance with my orchestra when I was in college; and it was hot that day; and my bow was hot; and it snapped in the heat. Traumatized by this experience; I ended up purchasing a carbon fiber bow afterwards. In that same season; my bridge also sank deeply into the varnish of my violin; so when I changed to a new violin; I too purchased a Luis and Clark carbon fiber violin. Having moved up in quality of violin; I purchased a matching Codabow Diamond GX.So my bow hair to string; started sounding a bit scratchy, and so I had changed my strings and that improved greatly; but still a bit scratchy; and so I went I started searching for a local store that would re-hair a bow for me. But when I started looking; I thought; this is my ONLY bow; so while it's out for rehair at the shop; what am I gonna use in the mean time? I didn't want to spend a lot of money just to have a bow to hold me over for a week or so. The store offered to lend me a bow of equal quality while mine was getting rehaired; but I just didn't want the liability of using someone else's bow for a week. So I started searching for a bow that I can buy with the following criteria:1) Carbon Fiber (I live in Houston; humidity and heat are guarantees here)2) CHEAP (under $100, because I'll probably only use it once a year or once every two years when I rehair my bow..)3) Doesn't play like a $20 student bow, need it to be betterHaving gone online and listened and read some reviews; everything pointed me here. Ordered from amazon; less than $70 shipped; and away we went!Initial impressions; I had a cheap glasser carbon fiber bow back in the day; and so I thought that the fiddlerman bow was definitely a big step up in quality and refinement compared to the old glasser carbon fiber. The balance was ok; the hair quality wasn't bad; and it was playable without too much problem. It was the "Toyota Corolla" of carbon fiber bows IMHO; reliable; not great at anything but not bad at anything either.I feel that for the price; this is a backup bow everybody should have. Back in the day; my old backup bow got very little play; and sat in the case all the time; and over time; dropped a bit to one side. That won't happen with this bow. It is impervious to heat and humidity damage; and will sit happily in your case without being played for months or years. For the price; and it's playability; it's just a great bow to keep as a backup. Again; does not play like my codabow Diamond GX? Not even close.. but given the price; it definitely punches way about it's price. Buy one; keep it in your case; you won't regret it, even if it's only used once or twice a year. Still worth it.