Double Bass Bows - $350 vs $3500 vs $6000 - what's the difference?!?

[@davidlane4159]

I appreciate this clip. I played Bass in College. I played in a Orchestra for six years and big band for two. Now at 64 I bought a bass and im starting to play again. Although I have experience playing when I was playing the College let me use their bass . I bought my bow from

[@doublebasshq]

Thanks for writing in!

[@bustabass9025]

Bought one on the internet for $69 bucks. My bass doesn't seem to mind, and audiences I play for can't tell the difference, or couldn't care less. Saving the $6 grand to invest in my Brescian custom build...soon as we can get back to gigging.😕

[@AroneusShaul]

Big props to the Finale bow. A colleague and I once sat down with a Finale Coda bow and compared them to our Reid Hudson and Robert Dow bows to record excerpts... Finale bow sounded more like a 1500$ bow for sure, great deal!

[@davidbteague]

Great Information! Best bow I have used was made by Hink te Hietbrink, Dutch bow maker, made from ironwood. Makes my basses sing as loud or soft as I ask.

[@doublebasshq]

Good stuff!

[@tdavs43]

I love my (cheap) Carbondix bow. Other players have informed me that carbon bows in general lose their sound as it travels. Would be cool to see a video with the spectrogram up close and another far away in a hall!

[@doublebasshq]

Good idea!!

[@stevebadachmusic]

i've had the Finale bow for over a decade as well. i have no real complaints.

[@stevebadachmusic]

also the flaming on your bass is so nice!

[@doublebasshq]

Thanks! I like the Finale bow also-good stick!

[@LLJVBass]

Recently got a Raposo for 2K and I am done. Ha... Love the bow to pieces though. My previous bow was a Tomassi and I just recently discovered that Joe Conyers uses the same one in some of his videos. Just proves that the majority of the output is dependent of the wielder. For reference, it was a brazilwood guesstimated to be worth around 800, but it came paired with my bass when I got it.

[@doublebasshq]

The wielder is key for sure!

[@chrisshaw4049]

The bow matters so much more than the bass! As you say, life becomes so much easier when you have a bow that suits you. I've been lucky enough to go through some great bows over the years but I got one from the extremely lovely Sue Lipkins a couple of years back and I think it's my bow for life. She not only makes wonderful bows, she's also a gorgeous lady and I can't recommend her highly enough.

[@doublebasshq]

Sue is great! I actually had her on my podcast several years ago. What a fabulous bow maker and cool person! contrabassconversations.com/2016/02/15/cbc-183-susan-lipkins-interview/

[@gregoryf4186]

I wouldn’t say it matters more than the bass, they are equal, it is just as important to have a good bow than a good bass.

[@SteveAbrahall]

I dig that Dolling - for me there is a warmth, colour about the Pernambuco that rocks and that you can't get with the other 2, but you know this is such a personal thing... Just had a crazy thought, be interesting to hear a whole bass section playing different bows !

[@doublebasshq]

It would be cool to hear bass sections with different bows for sure! Great idea-thinking about how to make that happen.... 😃

[@SteveAbrahall]

@@doublebasshq DO IT! :-) Think about it a Pernambuco section, a Fibreglass section, german french? Also be amazing to do frequency analysis !!! Then mix em all up!

[@davidbteague]

Interesting!! I really must listen to this on the [very good] sound system on my desk top computer. The phone doesn't do this video justice.

[@doublebasshq]

Let me know how it sounds!

[@mdspman000]

The price jumps between "entry level", medium and expensive are not really comparable. $350 to $3500 and then up to $6000. Is there anything in the say $1000 to $1500 category that would make it significantly different than the entry level and medium level?

[@thecolorblue1635]

You could probably get something wood that would be around the same quality as the finale, giving it a warmer tone, but with the better build quality. Or maybe a high-end carbon fiber one. I’m not really an expert on this though

[@davidcraig6590]

The Dolling doesn’t have the bottom end that the finale and Mohr have. Interesting. More high end information is sometimes appealing when playing bass but on playback I dig the finale and the mohr. Nice video Jason.

[@doublebasshq]

I’m digging the Mohr also-it’s a great bow!

[@doublebasshq]

Hope you’re doing well, David-good memories of us riding that puddle jumper plane to Ithaca a few years ago! 😀

[@davidcraig6590]

Yes! Good times!

[@forrestbrown4240]

David, Agree with your sentiment with Dolling. I bet on a pops or theatre gig , it would cut through quite well . All great sounding bows!

[@danday457]

What luthier made your bass? and what basses would you reccomend that sound similar in the 10k price range?

[@doublebasshq]

My bass is by a bass maker named Al Jakstadt. They usually go for 20-30k these days. 10k is a little tricky, because you’re at the top end of the commercially made Shen/Eastman type of basses, and you typically need to spend 25k + for a quality bass from an indie luthier. You might want to take a trip to a local bass shop to try out a few things. There might be an attractively priced used bass in their shop, and you could A/B test a bunch of basses. I hope some of that helps!

[@danday457]

@@doublebasshq Thanks for the info! I was maybe thinking of driving to robertsons and sons one of these days to try out their selection since i’m only a few hours away from there it seems like they have one of the biggest selections in the country if not the world

[@worldline7147]

I think your own long-time bow resides in the tone / dollar (or even just tone) Goldilocks Zone... FTW.

[@doublebasshq]

Thanks-I’m glad I picked it up back in the day!

[@simpslayer4204]

Which do you prefer, French Bow or German Bow?

[@doublebasshq]

I love them both, but I’ve played French my whole life, so that’s my bag. 😃 Both are great, though.

[@Rui1982]

Interesting video, I actually never thought that much about bows, never had the money to buy or the real need to upgrade the bow, never actually played a 6000$ bow, personal opinion I can ear difference between the different bows, but not better just different, I would definitely not buy a 6000$ , it just doesn't justify the difference, I think a 1000$ bow with good setup and hair can play as good

[@oliverspalter134]

I have a Bob Berg bow, might be a New Zealand thing but interested to know if you've heard of them :)

[@doublebasshq]

Haven’t heard of him, but I’d love to check out his bows!

[@benrose7346]

Thanks for the sound clip comparison at the end. The Finale bows seem like a great value. Do you have a sense of how they compare to CodaBows?

[@doublebasshq]

I think that Coda and Finale are pretty close. Coda bows are great also.

[@ShortFuseFighting]

what kind of horses do they harvest these from? pegasus himself?

[@TheBassdan]

Love my two David Forbes bows. The first one is a Sartori style, and light. It won First Prize with the Violin Society of America. the second is a copy of an 1842 bow with large frog and big, but light stick. Love it for period pieces.

[@doublebasshq]

Nice--I'l need to check out his bows!

[@Rui1982]

One quick question do old retain the price? Or they lose value over the years?

[@doublebasshq]

Bows tend to retain their price or even go up slightly in value for the more expensive bows. Cheaper bows typically don't really gain in value, though, I hope that helps!

[@ex_orpheus1166]

If I had the choice, I would go with the Mohr bow.

[@doublebasshq]

Yeah, I know! I should’ve bought it…. 😫

[@theehehron-1634]

It would be really interesting to try all three with the same hair

[@doublebasshq]

For sure-one of these days I’ll try an experiment like that!

[@sfacademyorchestra]

Just watched this! Cool vid!

[@doublebasshq]

Thanks, Andrei! That bow is awesome. It got auctioned off by the ISB-sad to see it go for sure!

[@badoreti]

Your Dolling should have a german frog on it! 🙂

[@doublebasshq]

His French bows are great also!

[@russcastioni9036]

Where are the Finale bows made?

[@avivaben]

6k for a bow??? that's insane!

[@tiagobaguinho27]

the best one for me was the second. It has more ge ntle sound

[@licuricicostel30]

Hi .... we should do a lot of exercises from 0 how to start playing with the bow. the practice is the best ,,, we are waiting for the lessons

[@joshua.merrill]

I’m surprised how much of a difference there was. The expensive bows seemed to have more in the high end, but the finale seemed to handle the low notes pretty well

[@doublebasshq]

Thanks for checking this out! Yeah, the Finale handles well, especially at that price.

[@2001abassodyssey]

The Mohr clearly sounds the best in this recording. Of course, he's won tons of competitions. Alternative woods have historically been very successful with bass bows. I have brazilwood bows by Lapierre (1963) and EF Ouchard (ca 1930) whose sound is superior to most pernambuco bows I've played. There are many fine Bazin and Morizots in brazilwood, too (1880s-1950s), that are cheaper than that Mohr. I have a Bazin shop bow in European Ash, and I played a Lupot (1830s) in ironwood. Peccatte and his school made quite a lot of bows in these non-pernambuco woods. In terms of modern makers, in undergrad, my teacher and other students all agreed that a snakewood Reid Hudson German bow was better than the teacher's H.R. Pfretzschner. And when I took bow making classes at University of New Hampshire, more advanced students had made some quite nice bows in bloodwood. So, two notes on what you said: When you talk about having "a hard time finding non-pernambuco tonewoods that [you] really like," you 1) are echoing a common superstition among string players that is rooted in the post-Voirin style but opposed to the practices of the hugely successful but out-of-fashion Peccatte school; or 2) are not looking at the right bows--my best brazilwood bows draw sound of a quality competitive with my pernambuco JA Vigneron, CC Husson, and Louis Bazin bows. Second, while Katalox itself may be a novelty, it is a close cousin to ironwood (same genus of swartzia), which Stephen Marvin claims to see in bows as early as 1780. Alternative woods are nothing new, and we as consumers should be asking good makers to return (for it would be no experiment) to alternatives that are both more sustainable and historically accepted. We should in all cases absolutely boycott Chinese and Brazilian bows made from pernambuco, because they enter the U.S. through an enforcement loophole, and there is a large amount of evidence supporting the inference that their source wood is illegal--in violation of CITES (international law) and the Lacey Act (U.S. domestic law).

[@kittyfulism]

Reading your comment taught me how little I know. Thank you for taking the time to share.

[@kevinellis8947]

I don't think the slight difference in sound, which there was, is worth the vast difference in price.

[@isaacmt9211]

subtitles in Spanish please! 🥺