Double Bass Can a bad bow also make a good player sound bad?

[Andy Mopley]

I am not sure I have this correctly, but that's what I think I've read. I can understand that it can improve the sound however doesn't it also come down to a lot of other factors such as type and age of strings, rosin, bridge, contact point, soundpost etc. and importanly the player's experience and skills? Sometimes I wonder if merely implying that a better (=more expensive) bow will make a person a better player may be setting up unrealistic expectations?

Note - NOT an ad for cheap bows. Mantra: Always buy what you can afford and works for you.

Regards to all

 

[CaseyVancouver]

Ok, I’ll play
All just my opinion of course

Can a bad bow make a good player sound bad?
No

Can a good bow make a bad player sound good?
No

A good player will always sound good. The gear does not matter. A good player will also play and sound beautiful and inspiring under the worst circumstances. It may take a few thousand hours of work to get to this point. A poor bow, bad strings or inferior bass will not stop this person from playing and sounding beautiful. Talent trumps all.

A master bow with a fine old Italian bass will not make great music, played by a novice.

 

[TK1820]

Ok, I’ll play
All just my opinion of course

Can a bad bow make a good player sound bad?
No

Can a good bow make a bad player sound good?
No

A good player will always sound good. The gear does not matter. A good player will also play and sound beautiful and inspiring under the worst circumstances. It may take a few thousand hours of work to get to this point. A poor bow, bad strings or inferior bass will not stop this person from playing and sounding beautiful. Talent trumps all.

A master bow with a fine old Italian bass will not make great music, played by a novice.

I have very nice equipment and nothing peeves me more than someone saying "your bass sounds amazing" as if I have nothing to do with it. So I reply "I'll be sure to tell it you like how it sounds!"

Ok. I feel better now. Good equipment helps, but the tone is in the hands of the player. It takes many years to truly feel what a string is doing under a bow.

 

[KUNGfuSHERIFF]

I recently gave away a cheap bow to someone who had broken their old one. It was a Bellafina with brittle old white hair. In profile, it very much resembled my Prochownik but the materials left a lot to be desired. The thing still punched above its’ weight. I hope it rehairs easily.

 

[jj.833]

I think that when learning, good bow is really important, because it lets you grasp the bowing concepts faster/easier. When you are able to play, say, spicato, then you can do it even with a worse bow. But when you're learning spicato and can't yet do it right, you will spend much more time till you get there with a bad bow. And many things are developing so slowly that you won't learn them at all with a bad bow.

 

[PaulCannon]

A good player will always sound good. The gear does not matter. A good player will also play and sound beautiful and inspiring under the worst circumstances.

I've had to borrow enough gear in my life that I can disagree with you here, at least to some degree. You're much too casual with the word "always".

My worst circumstances: borrowing a bass full of large cracks and open seams, with no sound post and 50+ year old strings. Playing that, I definitely didn't sound beautiful and inspiring. It was more of a stage prop than a musical instrument. True story.

That's obviously beyond extreme, but if we accept the premise that a completely ruined instrument will completely ruin a player's sound, then you must also accept that you lose something when the gear isn't functioning properly. It's a matter of degrees.

To answer OP's question: let's compare a $50 fiberglass bow with my favorite Boris Fritsch bow, which costs about 100x more money. Let's even say they both have fresh, high quality hair, and everything else is working correctly. Do I sound 100x better with my Fritsch? No, of course not. Money and value is an abstract concept and these things don't scale like that.

So why did I spent 100x more money on a bow? Because it feels 100x better. The problem I have with cheap bows is they require so much finesse and effort just to get a decent sound and articulation out of them. Some strokes simply don't work. There's a limit on how far you can push them, dynamically. One constantly feels like they're fighting with the bow. It's annoying, and after some time it becomes depressing.

A great bow has the opposite effect. It will feel like it's doing all the work for you. It responds perfectly to everything you do, and gives you complete control over your own sound. It's a positive and empowering experience. That extra money certainly buys a higher quality sound, but the real payoff is in confidence. When I know my equipment is working optimally, I play that way.

I just don't have any fun playing instruments that don't feel right. And if I'm not having fun, what's the point?

 

[Andy Mopley]

Txs all - the specific point I wanted to make (perhaps poorly) is that I get the sense that a bow is close to "king" in the hierarchy of what constitutes a good sound whereas to my mind it is just one of the many, many things that help a player BE a better player. Sure, a good bow helps technique, but if you don't have the technique ingrained to begin with, I am not sure a bow can fix it. Like Casey, I've seen a lot of players make poor instruments sound great - in my opinion, of course.
Interesting debate, thanks again everyone.

 

[PaulCannon]

Txs all - the specific point I wanted to make (perhaps poorly) is that I get the sense that a bow is close to "king" in the hierarchy of what constitutes a good sound whereas to my mind it is just one of the many, many things that help a player BE a better player.

A "good sound" is in the eye (ear?) of the beholder. Edgar Meyer's favorite bow is cheap and broken, and he sounds great. If I tried to play with his bow the way I usually like to play, I think it would not sound particularly great.

What I find interesting is how deeply our technique is affected by the equipment we use. Different basses and bows like to be played differently. Even small changes in set-up can have a dramatic impact on us.

Sure, a good bow helps technique, but if you don't have the technique ingrained to begin with, I am not sure a bow can fix it..

I don't agree. A properly balanced bow can help fix broken techniques and bad habits. It doesn't necessarily happen instantly, and usually requires lessons and a lot of practice. But there is, in my opinion, a hard limit on how far one can go with a semi-functional bow.

I'm not sure if the same is true for basses. If the set-up is optimized, a cheap plywood bass is already a lot to work with. It won't offer you the same range of volume or tone, but it's not as if the technique is completely different.

Trying to learn arco technique on a warped, fiberglass bow would be like trying to learn bass when the fingerboard twists and wobbles side-to-side. It's no fun.

 

[JBarz]

just don't have any fun playing instruments that don't feel right. And if I'm not having fun, what's the point?

+1

I agree to a certain extent, but…. That’s the cost of eating the fruit! The more experience you have, the more discerning your tastes.

Setup and gear are important to a certain degree, but its imperative to tread lightly and evolve your tastes with your skill set, IMHO.

You’ll be happy with crappy drip coffee and milk until you get familiar with the taste of a high quality latte, you know what I mean?

I am a proponent of slowly outgrowing the gear you have and not jumping to the absolute “best” GAS carrot on the stick.

When you reach the limitations, then the nicer gear will feel like a breath of fresh air. If you upgrade before you’re ready, you won’t know why!

Full disclosure: Since I learned how to actually play arco, the nicest bow I’ve played is my (relatively) cheap Gollihur Pernambuco French and a carbon fiber $100 eBay Vingo 4/4 bow in close second. And I’m happy to practice (for now!). My limitations are clear enough to where I’m not blaming my gear.

Then again, there’s my ignorance, so take what I say as a grain of salt accordingly.

I haven’t seen my bass teacher in person since pre-Covid, but he’s got a nice Marco Raposo bow for sale with my name on it that I know I’m going to “need to have” as soon as I get it under my fingers — but until then, I remain blissfully ignorant.

 

[PaulCannon]

That’s the cost of eating the fruit! The more experience you have, the more discerning your tastes.

That's true.

I really don't recommend spending thousands on a bow unless you know you need it. It's completely possible to find much cheaper bows which are well balanced and pull a decent sound. If you can't tell the difference between a $500 bow and a $5000 bow, then there's no reason to spend the money.

It's also possible to blow your money on a less than ideal bow. I made that mistake as a teenager, spending a lot of cash on the first "professional" bow I tried. It was an enormous upgrade for me at the time, but if I'd taken the search more seriously I would have found something better for the same price. It took me a few years to realize the error.

 

[damonsmith]

To go further: It depends on what you are doing or trying to do.
There are a lot of wood (of any kind) bows out there that are fine for legato and long tones but because they have no bounce, even staccto is going to be rough and spiccato isn't going to be there at all.
If you have a great bow with a bad rehair, it also can cause a lot of trouble!
There are a lot more options for bows that perform better now that 20 years ago.

 

[Anne Millington]

...The problem I have with cheap bows is they require so much finesse and effort just to get a decent sound and articulation out of them. Some strokes simply don't work. There's a limit on how far you can push them, dynamically. One constantly feels like they're fighting with the bow...

Exactly. It becomes decidedly not fun.

 

[David Potts]

As an orchestral player/teacher I would always recommend upgrading the French bow from the choice of student bows here. Very simply it has a job to do and 9/10 of cheap Chinese bows can't do it. If your dealer gave you the chance to try out all the bows in the box of ten a few might surprise you for a very reasonable cost. The others would impede your progress as a student. I have access to an importer/distibutor and try to help my students avoid buying "lemons". I am happy to point them towards a Finale bow from String Emporium as their first upgrade unless I can recommend a second hand one. If they become keen on progressing then upgrading becomes a form of leap frogging. Bow - bass - bow.......

 

[damonsmith]

I think it is fair to say that it is MUCH more difficult to compensate for slight balance issues with a German bow than with a French. Glaring balance issues are a problem for either, obviously.

As an orchestral player/teacher I would always recommend upgrading the French bow from the choice of student bows here. Very simply it has a job to do and 9/10 of cheap Chinese bows can't do it. If your dealer gave you the chance to try out all the bows in the box of ten a few might surprise you for a very reasonable cost. The others would impede your progress as a student. I have access to an importer/distibutor and try to help my students avoid buying "lemons". I am happy to point them towards a Finale bow from String Emporium as their first upgrade unless I can recommend a second hand one. If they become keen on progressing then upgrading becomes a form of leap frogging. Bow - bass - bow.......

 

[Don Kasper]

The gear does not matter.

Yes. Agreed.
Here ya go - IMFO.

 

[Leif Dering]

I mean, if you go from a $300 bow to a $1500+ bow, you're going to notice a pretty big difference, regardless of the player's ability.

That said, whenever you feel like your gear's holding you back, ask your teacher (if you have one) to play your bass and bow for you for a bit. I find people are quite surprised how good of a sound you can get out of "lower end" instruments. My $5,000 Christopher paired with my $1200 no name 1930s shop bow have been nothing short of AWESOME. I find it competes with quite a few basses in the $10-15k range in volume and tone; for all I know it could be luck of the draw and I got a great instrument by chance, or maybe I've just figured out how to make it sound good, but it's probably some combination of both.

Generally, I think for orchestral playing, the quality of the bow is more important than the quality of your bass- not just for the improved sound, some strokes are borderline impossible with a cheap bow. Thankfully you can get a Finale for around $3-400 which are quite good for the money, but I know many folks who use school bows and they're awful. I actually think some of the best bows you can get right now are the Arcus carbon fiber bows. My teacher plays one and they're incredible, and look to be at a really good price point for what you get. I didn't notice any lesser sound quality due to the bow not being wood at all, but my ears might just be bad.

 

[damonsmith]

actually think some of the best bows you can get right now are the Arcus carbon fiber bows. My teacher plays one and they're incredible, and look to be at a really good price point for what you get. I didn't notice any lesser sound quality due to the bow not being wood at all, but my ears might just be bad.

I think your ears are right on. I don't think carbon bows as they exist now have the tone of wood bows. Though, as you say and has been said, carbon bows can perform all the strokes and they tend to give a nice clean sound, though not as complex. The complexity can be made up for in the player and the bass, of course. Once you see what the carbon bows can do, you can really see where all the money goes in terms of getting a stick of wood to perform at that level!

 

[koricancowboy]

I am not sure I have this correctly, but that's what I think I've read. I can understand that it can improve the sound however doesn't it also come down to a lot of other factors such as type and age of strings, rosin, bridge, contact point, soundpost etc. and importanly the player's experience and skills? Sometimes I wonder if merely implying that a better (=more expensive) bow will make a person a better player may be setting up unrealistic expectations?

Note - NOT an ad for cheap bows. Mantra: Always buy what you can afford and works for you.

Regards to all

Though technique plays a large part in your tone of, the biggest improvement in my sound was upgrading to a nice Bernd and Dolling bow. My tone is more full, I draw a bigger sound, and I struggle far less with techniques such as spiccato, jeté, louré , and sautillé. Though you may achieve high levels of success on lesser equipment for sure, there are reasons folks tend to get better equipment as they evolve. Aside from the ability to discern the nuance between cheap and professional bows, it simply makes the job of tone easier. With the bow being half the instrument, why not play the best you can afford? I so often see folks with the thought of cheaping out on a bow because it's perceived as less of a factor on tone. It's more important than your strings and at least as important as your bass.

 

[koricancowboy]

A great bow has the opposite effect. It will feel like it's doing all the work for you. It responds perfectly to everything you do, and gives you complete control over your own sound. It's a positive and empowering experience. That extra money certainly buys a higher quality sound, but the real payoff is in confidence. When I know my equipment is working optimally, I play that way.

I should have read through this in the first place as this is the crux of my sentiment in a much more succinct manner

 

[rickwolff]

Yes. Agreed.
Here ya go - IMFO.

View attachment 4595329

Aww, Don, you killjoy. And I was just getting psyched up to but a new $269 bow.

Please don't tell me I need to just practice. I was hoping a new bow would cause that to happen.