The Ebow

What is an Ebow?

An Ebow is an electronic device, created in 1969 by a man named Greg Heet, used for making unique sounds on a guitar. It is powered but a 9-volt battery that is used to created an electromagnetic field which vibrates the guitar string; giving you unlimited sustain.

While watching some live footage of Radiohead; I happen to see the guitarist using a peculiar little device with a bright blue LED and saying to myself "I want one of those!" So after a little searching on Google I was finally able to find out that the device he was using was an Ebow and I knew that I had to get one.

I quickly ordered from Amazon for $100. My Ebow arrived at my neighbors doorstep within a few days. I immediately opened it, pulled it out of it's velvet pouch, put a battery inside of it, and plugged my Epiphone Les Paul into my amplifier.

The Ebow has two settings: a normal mode, and a harmonic setting. The normal mode just makes the string ring but the harmonic settings makes it sound like each note you play is a pinch harmonic. After about 20 minutes of trying to get the placement of the Ebow just right, I finally got it. There is two grooves on both sides of the bottom of the Ebow, as you can see in the picture below. The string you want to ring goes in the middle of the Ebow and the grooves rest on top of the two parallel strings. The Ebow can not be pushed down to hard or it causes the string the vibrate against the device, and if not pushed down enough it will not give you enough sound. I also found out that you need to turn your guitar or amp down to about half of what you normally play at, as the Ebow will double the volume.

Once I got the hang of it, it was no problem for me to be able to move it from string to string while still keeping a constant sound. Another neat thing to do with it, is to sweep arpeggios. With a swift movement of the arm you can create a sweeping effect that sounds great on chords. At first I thought there was not much more to do than just these two things and the burden of boredom started to fall upon me. Just then, I remembered about my digital effects pedal! In combination with the effects pedal and the Ebow I was able to get a wide variety of amazing sounds that would be great for live shows and studio work. The delay, reverse, and swell effects were the ones that seemed to appeal to me the most. I even got the Ebow to work with my acoustic guitar, though it was very quiet on the bass strings.

The Ebow is a pretty cool toy. I recommend it to any guitarist who is looking for something new to try.

-Dylan