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CodaBow Luma Violin Bow 4/4
LUMA
With a nod to the great French bowmakers Lamy and Voirin, the CodaBow LUMA has a high, shimmering timbre as silky as its handling. The Aero frog design off-loads the hand while the lightness of the shaft allows a facile and nimble response for flashy, technical passages. The bow's silvery tone and graceful agility is well-suited to intimate settings, blends well in ensembles, and is sought by players of all styles. The CodaBow LUMA appeals especially to players desiring lightness in weight and character.
Specifications
• Tone Colour: Shimmery, Warm
• Touch: Light, Nimble
• Dynamic Balance: Center-Frog
• Weight: Medium-Light
• Action: Moderate
• Stiffness: Medium-Soft
With a nod to the great French bowmakers Lamy and Voirin, the CodaBow LUMA has a high, shimmering timbre as silky as its handling. The Aero frog design off-loads the hand while the lightness of the shaft allows a facile and nimble response for flashy, technical passages. The bow's silvery tone and graceful agility is well-suited to intimate settings, blends well in ensembles, and is sought by players of all styles. The CodaBow LUMA appeals especially to players desiring lightness in weight and character.
Specifications
• Tone Colour: Shimmery, Warm
• Touch: Light, Nimble
• Dynamic Balance: Center-Frog
• Weight: Medium-Light
• Action: Moderate
• Stiffness: Medium-Soft
Q & A
There are currently no questions for this product.
Reviews
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Worth it! 0 of 0 customers found this review helpful
Features
Quality
Value
Overall
Product Experience I own it
Closest Store Winnipeg (Pembina), Manitoba
Sound wise: sounds exactly like my expensive Pernambuco bow. Exactly the same!
Play wise: better than my expensive pernambuco bow. Better tracking, more responsive, great balance, fast and easier to separate notes … excellent! I can also get it slightly tighter to get more bounce.
Construction and look: beautifully well made bow. Looks similar to wood but you can see the braiding up close which still looks very nice.
If you’re worried about it sounding not as good as your expensive wood bow, don’t because it’s fantastic and it doesn’t warp or get affected by humidity or weather. Win win.
Play wise: better than my expensive pernambuco bow. Better tracking, more responsive, great balance, fast and easier to separate notes … excellent! I can also get it slightly tighter to get more bounce.
Construction and look: beautifully well made bow. Looks similar to wood but you can see the braiding up close which still looks very nice.
If you’re worried about it sounding not as good as your expensive wood bow, don’t because it’s fantastic and it doesn’t warp or get affected by humidity or weather. Win win.
Posted by Jason on Mar 5, 2023
Luma - Agile, Emotive, Smooth 9 of 9 customers found this review helpful
Features
Quality
Value
Overall
Product Experience I own it
Closest Store Edmonton South, Alberta
WHY REVIEW: I'm writing this review because there's a paucity of information on the net comparing the CodaBows other than completely ambiguous buzzwords and telling us how much like pernambuco every bow is. It's a long one, so get a cup of tea.
ABOUT ME / MOTIVE: I did a bow trial comparing the Codabows GX, SX, and Luma. I have previously been playing using my first wooden bow (~$350.) My goal was to find a bow that would help me advance into an intermediate level. I am a beginner and have diligently been playing violin for just over 1 year now. I wanted to spend less than $1000 and get a carbon fibre bow that would travel well to different climates (and be ok to take on planes / cross borders, which all CodaBows are.) Sounding good on my acoustic violin (with synthetic core strings) was the most important, however I did try the bows on my Electric Yamaha SV (with steel core strings.) I tried both dark and light rosins and it did not affect my ranking. My violin's name is Jade (insta: Jade.violin) and I am Canadian!
BOWS: The SX was stable, comparatively sluggish to control, and did not sound much better than my cheaper wooden bow (the sound was slightly fuller, but it felt like an aerodynamic tree trunk. I?d have loved it when I just started because I hadn't started to appreciate the tonal and kinetic nuances.) Currently $695.
It was a very hard decision between the GX ($970) and the Luma ($699.) GX was certainly more versatile; it sounded great on both my acoustic and electric violin - I never knew my electric could sound so good! It sounded much warmer; it was with very heavy pressure (and thus compromised stability) that the Luma just barely reached similar the tonal richness on electric (I think the greater vibration worked better with the pickup.) Overall, I would describe the GX as powerful, loud, certainly heavier, and more stable. It's like it applied the pressure for me and I did not have to push into the strings much at all to get them to resonate. The sound was very bold and rich. It handled both fast fiddling as well as slower passages easily, but it did excel in the more fiddle style of playing over Luma. Martele and marcato were slightly easier on GX. It didn't take much to create a professional sound with GX.
Luma surprised me. It was much harder to play at first, because there was such a range of tone that it could produce, and it took time to learn to be consistent. It is a much lighter bow and it felt easier to maneuver. I suddenly had access to more emotive range whilst playing; it gave me intonation that I could not access with GX (of course, I'm sure a more skilled violinist could pull this out of the GX - I'm strictly speaking from my personal experience.) Spiccato was much easier on the Luma - it was so easy to control the bounce at any part of the bow! The two bows do have a different balance point; sautille was markedly easier on the Luma. It is agile! Legato was equally easy (read: difficult!) on both bows. The Luma sound quality is sweet and smooth. It made my violin sing. If you press hard, you can get significant attack on fiddle passages and with the electric, but the Luma sounds better with a more classical style of playing and on my acoustic.
??CONCLUSION: In the end, I decided on the Luma and am VERY HAPPY with this bow. It will allow me to work on techniques and bow strokes, using my acoustic, with more control and conscientious effort. I felt like I could almost play the GX on autopilot because it sounded so solid, but this would sacrifice the nuances on the softer side of the tonal spectrum that I want to master. Full disclosure - in the future, I do plan to continue looking for a bow specifically for my Electric Violin (I want to try the Joule.) If I could have gotten only one bow, I would have chosen the GX as the best all-rounder. ??
Hope that helps :) Cheers!
Posted by anonymous on Jun 16, 2018