EBow PlusEBow Electronic Bow for Guitar 

Comments about PlusEBow Electronic Bow for Guitar:

This this is awesome! Just hold it over your string, close to the pick up, and that string won't stop ringing until you take the ebow off of it. The ebow sounds really cool with swells and for filler guitar parts. I think that once I get more creative with it the ebow will become a very common part of my music.

Comments about PlusEBow Electronic Bow for Guitar:

The ebow is a great tool that I am having a lot of fun experimenting with. After reading the directions that come in the box, it's easy to get the lead guitar sound found on many Smashing Pumpkins tracks. Using the ebow to arpeggiate chords and get a cello/violin sound is the trickiest technique and will require some practice to achieve.

Comments about PlusEBow Electronic Bow for Guitar:

It takes a little fumbling around and some dexderity to use it but the sound is incredible and I picked the technique pretty fast. It's actually pretty good at approximatng the sound of bagpipes. I think that 80's band called "The Church" might have used one of these.
The only thing that I thought was a bit of a bummer is that it only excites one string at a time. For some reason I thought it would excite multiple strings but I guess I didn't understand how an eBow worked exactly?
Otherwise no complaints here. I busted out the eBow at a band practice. The other guitar player (who also plays violin) thought it was the coolest thing she's even seen because, like a violin bow, you are now able to sustain a single guitar note or vary the sustain on multiple notes.

Comments about PlusEBow Electronic Bow for Guitar:

The Ebow gets weekly use at my church and occasional use in my metal band. It can make amazing leads, but the atmospheric sounds are gorgeous. It's renowned by friends and people who I've played with for its sound capabilities. One friend of mine borrowed it a couple of times and now he has one (if that tells you anything).

Battery use is exceptional. I'm typing this two days before Christmas. I got it for Christmas last year and it uses the same 9 volt battery from day 1.

It can be noisy while moving about the strings, but all it takes is practice and you'll get the hang of it. The same goes for making good use of this. I strongly recommend it.

Comments about PlusEBow Electronic Bow for Guitar:

I wrote that bad review. 1 star. YOU "CAN" CONTACT THEM! I thought I would try and look again. I don't see a "contact us". You go to "COMMENTS"! I started a dialog with them and they responded in a few minutes! I just wanted to know what goes wrong and how to fix it since I have had it awhile and just wasn't using it much. They are going to replace it. I may have just gotten a bad one. It happens. I looked at the some other reviews and haven't seen any complaints about the batteries like I did. My main gripe was not being able to get a hold of them. That's the door to the answers.

Comments about PlusEBow Electronic Bow for Guitar:

It quit for what ever reason sitting on the shelf in the original packaging. Had it for a couple of years but didn't use it much. I couldn't see a lot of songs that I would actually use it on. I suppose it could be a main thing for someone like the slide is for others. Tried it once in practice before going on and it was too noisy going from string to string when amplified in a live setting so I needed more practice. It does sound good and it does what it says. It needs fresh batteries. I noticed it's effect getting weaker and found the batteries could still be used in a CD player for quite awhile.I couldn't find any way at all to ask the company why it would do what it did. For $95-$99 each I wanted to try to fix it. On line all I found is that others have the same problem. At Ebow's web site is a lot of hype about their product but it appears they don't want to be contacted.

Comments about PlusEBow Electronic Bow for Guitar:

The Ebow is a great gadget that allows you to generate some interesting sounds from your guitar and is able to produce infinite sustain when placing it over a string (as long as you have battery life of course)... My biggest recommendation before even trying to use the Ebow is to read the manual that comes with it and it also help to check out some videos online on how to use the Ebow and how other musicians use the Ebow to produce flavors of their own. The plastic casing feels like it can easily be damaged if dropped from a certain height or if just enough pressure is applied to it, but I have yet to break it. Overall, the Ebow is fun to use and I believe it is a good tool that allows you think outside of the box when playing instruments like the guitar, bass, or any other stringed instruments. If you have some spare cash to spend and you're curious about it, I recommend hearing others use it first and then buying it yourself if the sounds and options it opens are enough to convince you.

Comments about PlusEBow Electronic Bow for Guitar:

Strat, SG, Ovation, Martin, Airline Folkstar - Works great on all of them. Try it because you will like it.....

Comments about PlusEBow Electronic Bow for Guitar:

This is a tool for someone who wants to explore the different sounds you can get from an guitar. As the name suggests, you can get articulartions that very close to the ones that a bow gives, sweet sustaining notes, and you can also use it as tool to get controllable howling feedback at any volume level
It's a roughly matchbox sized device with a single switch you hold over a string and drive it to infinite sustain. Works on any stringed instrument with metal strings. It's a monophonic device, you can skip to string to string, but you can only drive one string at a time.

The switch has three positions, regular drive (the note you're fretting), off, and harmonic mode which emphasizes the higher partials in your note.

Folks associate it with electric guitar playing, but it'll work on acoustic as well.
I had an original generation ebow back in the 80s and the newer one I have recently purchased seems flimsier the original I had, and the switch in particular seems like it might be prone to failure. So far, so good, but if I gigged with this I'd start to think about carrying a spare.

Another thing I don't like about the current design is that "off" is the middle positon. Hard to be sure while playing what position you are in. The small LED is a help, but you can't always see it it and it doesn't change color otherwise indicate if you are in "normal" or "harmonic" mode.
This is a hard one to just with a single rating. This does one thing, but it the thing is does is unique, musical, and impossible to fully replicate with anything else.

High gain settings and a compressor can get you the infinite sustain, but the way the Ebow can voice the envelope of the note by moving it into the string and then moving away and toward the pickup isn't available with just gain alone. One sound available is dancing right on the edge of squealing feedback and then pulling back and forth between that edge and a mellower sound--or over the edge to total howling mayhem. Sweet sounds take some practice with the device. You won't be able to tame it until you put in some time playing with it.

I have a Fenandez Sustainer guitar. Musically it's similar, but not the same. The Sustainer can do multiple strings at once, but it means you need to pay attention to muting strings you don't want to sustain. And you can't "bow" the note's attack voice like you can with the Ebow.

Having used an original Ebow with out the harmonic mode, I'm more drawn to the normal setting which I feel is the classic Ebow sound. Interestingly, on the Fernandez Sustainer, I usually use the harmonic mode.
The Ebow works at any volume level. You can get "guitar pressed up against a speaker stack with the amps at 11" sustain and howls at acoustic guitar volume levels.

I wish it was a more robust design, particularly the switch. I'd pay more for one that felt like it was solid and bullet proof. But if you want to make the sounds that only an Ebow can make, it's the only device that can do exactly that, and the price isn't any different from a stomp box.

Comments about PlusEBow Electronic Bow for Guitar:

It took me a while to get used to playing with this. At first, I was sure the battery was dead. And then after a while, I got it to work most of the time, and now I can pick it up and be making beautiful music in a split second. It's very easy to work it for the tone you want... distance from string, or distance from pickups. I pile on the delay and some reverb, and it sings. You can not sound band with this thing, once you've gotten used to how to hold it just right.
The two modes are great. I like to work with the normal setting for most of the song, then switch to harmonics for lead or bridge - to change things up.
Seems a little cheaply made. I'm treating it like a baby, as a result of reading warnings about how easily they break.
I really think they could charge a lot more for these... it's "the" ebow sound... no other way to get it.