Natural Black Horse Hair Carbon Fiber Violin Bow (4/4)

Itz nice and gentle

Il et super. N'hésitez pas à mettre le colophane au début.

For a budget bow, this ticks all the boxes. Wonderful weight and balance, and all hairs intact, well made and looks great. A big upgrade from the brazilwood bow the violin came with.

I have just started to learn the violin, but bow I had didn't feel right... I can't explain what I mean by that... but anyway, I looked around and saw this, it looked striking and matched perfectly with the violin I have. I figured spending a bit on a good bow would be worth it in the long run, so I decided to get it. It. Is. BEAUTIFUL. The finish on it is simply stunning, it feels amazing to hold, nice and lightweight, and the black hair really sets it off. Considering the only bow I have to compare it to felt decidedly low quality, I would find it difficult to give a fair comparison as to how it would compare to other quality bows, but for my personal experience, it gives a wonderful, consistent tone and travels smoothly over the strings. It is a beautiful piece of craftsmanship, feels outstanding to hold and sounds great. Should I ever need to purchase another bow, I would most definitely get myself another one of these.

Es un buen producto, se me ve muy bonito pero sobre todo es muy ligero a la hora de tocar o de realizar algún ejercicio con el arco, el agarre que tiene la crin del arco con la cuerda del violín es un poco más rígido con la crin de otro tipo de arco, sin embargo no cuesta mucho acostumbrarse, además de que el sonido que emite es bueno

UPDATE: 10/22/2025: Yep, I am STILL using this bow, and I've only had to pluck, I want to say, 15 or 20 hairs. It's still thick and full where much newer bows I use with my e-violin are going severely bald. I don't know if that's because I tend to play harder on the e-violin whereas I tend to prefer more folksy fiddle playing on my violin? But I don't normally do these review updates unless a product is really bad or really, really good, and, you can guess which one this is. When I get a new bow for my e-violin (because it's cheaper than rehairng them honestly) I'll most likely pick up a second one of these 💜 0UPDATE: 2/21/2024: I am still enamered with this bow. The quality of tone I get out of my violin using it with Magic clear rosin is just incredible, and what's more, it looks as good as the day I got it, not a single hair out of place yet. I'd also swear I don't need to rosin my bow nearly as often, though again that may be a combination of bow and rosin. As I've said previously, this bow loves a dark rosin, and I love it! EDIT: 12/25/2023 (Yes, really :D Merry Christmas!) This bow loves a dark rosin. See the end of my review for more details, but TL:DR: if you're not getting good tone, switch to a stickier dark rosin like D'iadario Kaplain Dark or Magic 3G. Yes, I am a Vine Voice. No, this is not a Vine Voice review. I am happy to have paid full price for this bow, and it was worth every penny. Okay, just a really fast warning for those of you in an organized orchestra setting. Ask your director first, if it's okay for you to use a black haired bow. Some of them are ferociously strict about uniformity of appearance. If you only plan to use it for practice or non traditional settings, then ignore this and read on! So off the top, quality is really impressive. The carbon fiber stick is flexible like any good bow should be, but not *too* flexible. It's a tiny bit lighter than my old bow, but it's got better balance. I don't find myself fighting with it nearly as much to get a clean note at either tip or frog. Whether that's due to balance or weight, I can't say. I'll have to ask my mentor later, but it feels natural playing fast or slow, and I am in love with it. I can't speak to this bow's quality for an intermediate or advanced player. I've only been playing the violin for 2 years, and of those two years, I had to stop for six months because of an old, unrelated shoulder injury flaring up. So my sound is not going to be on par with someone who's been playing since they were 2 years old, but as an adult student with 30 years of musicianship under her belt, I like to think I know a good violin sound from the tortured screeching I was making when I first started, and this bow, for me, performs on par with my $100 student brazilwood bow. As for the black vs white hair debate, I've been told by teachers and advanced students that black hair has a drastic effect on the tone. I don't know a single one of them that's told me that, that have actually tried p laying with one. It's always "I know cellists who use a black bow because xyz which is bad for violin" so your mileage may vary. For me, as a student? I can't hear that drastic of a difference. Some caveats though: I play with dark rosin. I love the feel of a good, sticky rosin on my bow, and the sound that I get out of my violin. And to me, I can't hear a noticable difference between this and my white hair bows when using Magic 3G or Kaplain Dark in general playing. I can really make it bite and growl if I want to, but I can also make it sing. On fast pieces (Irish jigs in particular), it's as sweet and warm as my Hoffmann bow, again, to my ear, and I've gotten no complaints yet from the neighbors either. If you've got $50, maybe give this one or the Viotti a chance. I was going to try the Viotti next, but now I'm going to keep this one for awhile and see if I still love it in a year, as much as I do now. UPDATE: So after spending some time, and several hours of practice with this bow, I've found that it REALLY likes a dark rosin. I'm actually using Magic 3G, which is a clear rosin, but it's sticky like dark rosin. I tried out my light D'iadario Kaplain, and it was gliding over the strings instead of really biting down. This may just be because I'm playing indoors, in winter, which means super low humidity, but like I said in the TLDR at the top, if you're having problems even after rosining your bow, get a darker rosin, or Magic 3G (I love this stuff!). I stand by my original review, the bow is easily on par with, or better than, my gen 1 Fiddlerman carbon fiber bow I bought 3 years ago, which honestly didn't impress me nearly as much as this one has. :)