A good bow for a new upright player?

[brake]

I'm looking to get maybe both a french and a german if the prices are right..maybe not at the same time. Either way, what's a decent cheap bow? The cheaper the better, seriously.. I just want to get something that I can learn with and eventually buy a quality bow once I decide which I'd rather play.

[Andrew McGregor]

Glasser carbon fiber, I'd say. Consistent, so you can just order one and know what you're getting (which is better than just OK, for not a lot of money). Any wood bow you'd have to get someone who knows what they're doing to test the particular bow.

[brake]

....$750? Thanks anyway, dude.


Is there anything in the sub-200 dollar range that won't fall apart?

[greitzer]

Brake, are you taking lessons? Are you near a shop that sells bows? If the answer to both questions is "yes," ask your teacher to come with you to a shop to help you pick a bow. Or, ask the shop if you can take a couple of bows back to your teacher for him/her to evaluate.

If you're not taking lessons, but there's a shop in your area, try a couple of bows that you can afford and see which one feels best to you.

If no shop nearby, I believe a number of folks have had good things to say about some inexpensive bows they've ordered from Bob Gollihur via the web. I think they're in the $200 range. Lemur Music also has some inexpensive bows that supposedly are pretty good.

[shadygrove]

From the comments I've seen here on Talkbass both the Gollihur and Upton wood bows are a step up from the Glasser fiberglass for not much more money. I've had Glasser fiddle bows and while OK to learn on and no worries of warping or getting a lemon IMHO it is worth spending a bit more to get a wood bow from one of these or another reputable company. I've also seen some favorable reviews on the Yita bows from ebay if you can win an auction at the right price.

I recently ordered a german bow from Upton for myself for Father's Day, which unfortunately means when it is delivered it will disappear till 6/15. I'll follow up on this post when I get my hands on it and let you know what i think.

[chuck1073]

I'll put in a vote for the Upton bows. I have both the french and german. While they're nothing fancy they are super functional and a very good value for a beginning player. I was able to pick the french bow out of a group of 6 or so that Eroy brought out one day...along with a very nice/pricey bow that was used as the benchmark. While none of the UB workshop bows measured up to to that particular bow I was able to walk out with a very nice sounding, easy playing bow for a very reasonable price. I'm very happy with both bows for practice..I'm even using the german now for several solos on the gig. Working on my french hold....that's a work in progress for quite awhile I'm sure.

[downneck]

another vote for the upton bows. i've got a german that i'm very happy with, for the dough. i'm no expert, as i've only been playing URB for a couple years, so take that opinion with a bit of salt it doesn't come close to my teacher's much-more-expensive bow, however if you don't have a couple grand to drop on a bow it's a good beginner option

[anonymous12251111]

Originally Posted by Andrew McGregor

Glasser carbon fiber, I'd say. Consistent, so you can just order one and know what you're getting (which is better than just OK, for not a lot of money). Any wood bow you'd have to get someone who knows what they're doing to test the particular bow.

I'd completely stay away from Glasser. A lot of their bows have German sticks with slapped on French frogs. I'd go with an Upton OR look at Ken Smith's model bows.

[shadygrove]

I've had my Upton german bow for a week now and am pleased with it. It is straight, the wood and trim parts look nice and I like the extra grab of its black hair compared to white haired bows i've tried. Seems like a good value for anyone looking for an inexpensive bow to get started with and it's definitely given me a reality check on my intonation.

[butch1950]

+1 for upton, i use it as my backup bow.

[dchan]

This may be conjecture, but it does come from my own experience and from reading the experiences of others on this board: I have a feeling that Upton has better $99 German bows than French bows.

From my experience, I have previously used a $99 Upton and was pretty dissatisfied with it within a few months, probably because I already was pretty advanced bow-wise at the time. This was in no way the fault of the Upton guys, as Jack had suggested that I was ready for a more advanced bow; I just chose to believe all that hype created on this forum. But still, for not much more than the $99 they charged, I played a bow that I was completely blown away by but unfortunately did not buy.

On the the other hand, the experiences by those who bought the German Upton bows seems pretty positive. Now it may be because these players were only beginners at arco, but I can't really say for sure. But a pretty large number of players seem satisfied, so I can't really argue with that.

[JayR]

Yeah, I'm a german player but I've been toying around with the idea of buying a cheap-o french bow just to get proficient with so I can work with french bow students, down the line. Thoughts on the Upton french bow for this purpose? $99 seems like a pretty small price to pay. Are they at least capable of basic spicatto?

[butch1950]

Originally Posted by JayR

Yeah, I'm a german player but I've been toying around with the idea of buying a cheap-o french bow just to get proficient with so I can work with french bow students, down the line. Thoughts on the Upton french bow for this purpose? $99 seems like a pretty small price to pay. Are they at least capable of basic spicatto?

yeah any day of the week it would work better than the fiberglass bows. In my previous comment what i was tryin to say that if i was in a tuff situation that my default bow was broken (Knock on wood) that i would feel plenty confident using the $99 french bow for upton. Yeah it dosen't match up to my Ivory Tower Bow but it would do, and really, professionals can sit down behind a plywood bass and make it sound pretty good no matter what gear they are given, you know you've seen it. I think if everyone woried about practicing as much as they did bass gear, we would have a whole lot of eugene levinsons running around. :

[dchan]

Originally Posted by JayR

....Yeah, I'm a german player but I've been toying around with the idea of buying a cheap-o french bow just to get proficient with so I can work with french bow students, down the line. Thoughts on the Upton french bow for this purpose? $99 seems like a pretty small price to pay. Are they at least capable of basic spicatto?

Spicatto in my case? No. Whenever I tried any sort of spicatto towards the tip-half of the bow, my Upton bow bounced uncontrollably. In fact, this was the main reason why I had to abandon this bow within a few months after buying it. My current bow is no spicatto champ, but at least it allows me to control my spicatto.

Note that this may not be the case for every one of Upton's French bows; it just happened to be the case for my particular one.

Originally Posted by butch1950

Yeah it dosen't match up to my Ivory Tower Bow but it would do, and really, professionals can sit down behind a plywood bass and make it sound pretty good no matter what gear they are given, you know you've seen it. I think if everyone woried about practicing as much as they did bass gear, we would have a whole lot of eugene levinsons running around. :

If there was one thing that was good about my Upton, it was its sound. It had this nice, deep woody and "bassy" sound that was really pretty on the G and D strings. On the other hand, while it had a similar sound on the A and E strings, it just didn't have the power to produce any sort of loudness. I'm not too sure what the reason behind this was.

I'm certainly not anywhere close to Eugene Levinson or any other bassist you want to throw in there, but I certainly made my Upton bow sound pretty good on my bass. However, it was doing anything else with that bow, such as spicatto and other complex strokes, that left it bewildered and pretty uncontrollable. A bow that sounds good but that can't do many basic things is still a bad bow. And while practicing is definitely the most important thing, you can't become a Eugene Levinson with bad equipment unless you're super talented..

I'm not certain whether my Upton was a fluke bow or not. Compared with my current bow, it was almost an inch or more longer, which is really significant; in addition, it was really flexible because of this length and the relative softness of brazilwood. A shorter length would have probably made the bow better.

So my advice to JayR is this: whether you buy you cheapo bow from Upton or whomever, make sure you're completely satisfied with it before committing to it. And don't be too satisfied with the 'small price to pay' mentality. As mentioned in my previous post, not long after buying the Upton, I tried out a brazilwood bow for not much more money that was just simply incredible, whether for spicatto or anything else. T

[butch1950]

(Quote) Yes, a Pro can also make Plywood Basses and Brazilwood Bows sound better than most players can but rest assured, they are struggling using 10x the effort to do so not to mention the lack of enjoyment pushing an old Car up hill with a flat tire!

Get the best you can afford and the best within that price range. Price alone does not = quality or performance. Having an experienced Bassist/Teacher to guide you is extremely valuable as well. Buying gear is a bit like woodworking. Measure twice and cut once. It will save you time and money..[/quote]

Agreed thanks Ken

[JayR]

Originally Posted by KSB - Ken Smith

Spicatto is not an important technique to learn in the beginning. The Bows that work best for this (in skilled hands mainly) cost up in the thousands usually. Also, not all bows with big price tags are Spicatto friendly either.

Oh, yeah, the reason I was asking about spicatto response is because it's really the one thing I can't do very well on french bow. I play a little bit of cello here and there for fun, so I'm pretty comfortable with the overhand bow grip, but I've found my biggest problem when working with french bow students is how to either A) execute a decent spicatto with their bow (I can't count how many middle school kids I've had to teach Eine Kleine Nachtmuzik to this year) or B) actually explain the mechanics of spicatto with french bow. That's the main reason I'd like to actually have one around the house, and then maybe go get a lesson or two from a dedicated french bow player so I can have a working understanding of the techniques.

[LouisF]

Not that anything beats having a lesson with a good teacher, but I found
these two helpful. One I think is another TB thread, the other is a fairly technical article on the physics of it all.

I was at Marco Coppobiardi's shop in Boston last summer to try out a German bow by Giovanni Lucchi. I said, you know, I have a lot of problems with my spiccato.

Marco grinned, shrugged and said, "EVERYBODY has problems with their spiccato!"

Louis

[LouisF]

It seems the second pdf file is too big for the server to upload. If some one has an idea of how to post it I'll be happy to do so later.

LF