Fiddlerman Carbon Fiber Violin Bow 4/4

This is a replacement bow for one that came with a used student violin. Perfect! It works and what an improvement to the tone! I am a returning violin learner. I am hoping the bow will improve as I improve my technique. The price is good. I had no issues with setup. The new bow did take a few minutes to get the rosin right.It's a good bow for the price. I can see a better bow in the future as I get better at bowing. For now, this bow is perfect!

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.

(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.

I don't often feel compelled to leave product reviews, but as a professional violinist I just wanted to let potential buyers know that this is a great bow! For reference, I've been playing on the Coda Marquise for years- I switched to carbon fiber due to the number of outdoor gigs I play in all types of cold and humidity, and wanted a bow that wouldn't be as affected by the environment. I was looking for a spare bow that I could take camping or to festivals and wouldn't have to worry about it, and was shocked at how well this bow played. The balance and craftsmanship is all great. $70?? For the price, it really can't be beat. I'm only returning it because it is definitely on the light side, which does factor into responsiveness. For reference, the Coda Marquise is 2.25 oz, the Eastman Cadenza is 2.18 oz, and this Fiddlerman is 2.04 oz. While I ultimately decided to go with the Eastman Cadenza, this would be a great bow for a beginner who's looking for an inexpensive, quality bow that will actually produce a good sound.And for all the negative reviews that complained that the bow didn't make a sound out of the box, that's to be expected. You need to add ample rosin to any bow before it will pull the sound out of the strings- especially when the hair is brand new. Furthermore, all the rosin in the world won't help a player who doesn't have any bow technique.

Fantastic bow, I'm an older beginner and bought 2 cheaper bows that are ok. What a difference this bow makes. my playing and tone improved as soon as I picked it up. Perfect balance. I used Fiddleman dark rosin, makes my 130 year old french violin with Dominante strings sing. All the positive reviews on line and You Tube are 100% right. I will absolutly buy again if I need to. Fiddleman bows and the Fiddle Shop are great!

Got this for my son to upgrade from his cheap wood bow. Loves it. Sure, there are nicer bows, but for a 13 year old, who hits themselves in the leg, etc, it's a great bow.

I really want to give the bow 2.5 stars because it's a really good bow, but I suppose I'll just round up. The bow that came with my violin was overly bouncy and I couldn't play smoothly. This bow fixed that. It seems to be the same weight as the other bow but the balance feels better and I had far fewer issues with bounciness. It doesn't produce as much volume, but that's not an issue for me. I really enjoyed the softer sound from this bow.The issue I'm having is that the bow is shedding hair really fast. I've had it for a little over a month and I lost 4 hairs a week since I got it. Last week I noticed that one third of the hairs are slowly being pulled out of the tip of the bow so I just stopped using it. My other bow has been with me for about 3 months and I've only lost 2 hairs. I'm not sure if this is the cause, but the bow was shipped fully tightened and I have no idea how long it had been in that state. That's a bigger deal for wooden bows, but surely it can't be good for the carbon bow to be in tension for long periods of time.

Excellent. It does exactly what a bow should do!

best buy carbon fiber violin bow!

The product was received in good condition. No hair was broken.

جيد للتمرين

Magnífico arco, y de muy buena calidad. Buen equilibrio y sonoridad. Muy manejable para diferentes golpes de arco. Recomendable

As a beginner I love how smooth and good this bow is.