Cecilio CECO-1DW Ebony Electric Silent Metallic Mahagony Cello in Style 1, Size 4/4 (Full Size)

I read all the reviews about this cello and went ahead with my purchase to try it out myself. I've got 19 years playing cello and needed my own "rough/bumming around" cello for going to bars or practicing. Let me break this down.... --- The quality this has is actually insanely impressive, and I mean that different ways/reasons. The body is sturdy, the neck and pegs are strong wood [rosewood, spruce, standard] but to have the feel of a $1300 cello in a $300 purchase, great feat. The sound, holy heck the sound. Just what i had hoped for. Living from homes to apartments, neighbors to consider with the full bodied instruments. The sound in this thing is just superb. It does not carry the bass like a full body would, but do not take that as "there will be little to no sound" the sound is great for apartment living/small spaces. --- The bridge OF COURSE does NOT come pre-installed. I had read a comment or two about how mad the customer was that had to install the bridge... OK.... Take one look at any stringed instrument and ask "would you ship it that way?" No. No you wouldn't. On that note, the strings came already set and pegged for any beginner to have little to no struggle with. Keep the tuners {the silver twirlies near the bridge} loose and not the pegs; you'll unravel a string and have to feed it through again. This is a given at any time with the instrument so you'll want things tight after you've set. Slip the bridge under the strings and place on the rubber pad provided, then just suspend the loose strings on the bridge. The fatter space on the bridge is left for the G string, or the fattest string. Otherwise noted the logo, "Cecilio" should face AWAY from you. When you've placed the bridge, you'll have to switch between tightening the tuners and placing the pegs. You'll slip a string occasionally, it'll just happen. Wood and friction, humidity and temperature, things will happen, so just try and palm/push the wooden pegs [where the strings wrap around] to press the pegs into the cello a little harder/further. This will more/less help to keep the pegs in place and prevent slippage. Go to youtube, tune a cello and tighten it up by turning tuners or pressing pegs. It'll take tiiiimmmmeeeeee. Don't force the cello. Work it into tune. Do it right? You'll have strings that possibly last a decade and a cello that stays most often in tune. It'll jus sit there, set and ready to play. --- The Bow. Cheap and not cheap at all. Very impressed by the quality they've sent along. Shorter, heavier, though a great bow to work the form and muscles of the hands and wrist [for beginners]. Others will most likely have this bow as only a back up or maybe practice. --- If you have never rosined a bow before..... Here's some pointers: Do NOT touch the bow hair directly, do not let others or anyone touch the bow hair directly. Your oily greasy fingers will tarnish and deplete the sound and ability of the bow. Do NOT over tighten the bow. Here's a good way to avoid doing just that: If you have a moment of "Gee, I wonder if this is too tight" it probably is, so loosen it. You should be able to tap or bounce the wooden part of the bow on your palm and see *some* movement or "slack" in the bow hairs. Be sure to loosen after use. This is your chance to play around and after no time at all you'll feel/hear the difference with your playing of tight or loose bows. ----- To rosin, remove the entire bit of rosin from container, should have a hole underneath to help pop out and should be covered in cloth; again stressing the "do not touch the rosin or bow with your bare fingers" routine. ****TAKE A PAIR OF SCISSORS*** or say a screwdriver, anything sharpish and hatch the rosin. Just "#" sort of thing, just scrape right onto the rosin. Yes, the rosin is pretty as it is, Yes I mean it to just tear right into the pretty rosin. It is a type of activation and helps spread and cover the bow. Then just rosin the bow. Go all across the hairs, go by preference. Go multiple layers. Through my years I've done the sides and in between [the wood and the hairs] to rosin a new bow. Then thru time you'll just apply as needed or pending on your amount of play time, before each play. --My Overall, If I knew I could have gotten this instrument sooner in life I would have. If I had this as a kid I can't tell you where I would be now. I had auditioned for many spots and a lot of my practice was prohibited by apartment living. Impossible to play anything on a rented loud full body cello in an apartment. If you have kids, if you have someone interested at all, definitely if you have interested kids, find some way. If you're concerned, there are SO many more options for rentals than you can guess. Try that out for size, hear the loud bass and see if the kid actually gets into it. Then I would say, don't hesitate with this instrument. This is a phenomenal deal for any age or use.

After good results with their electric violin, I decided to add this cello to my instrument collection. I chose the red mahogany since it seemed to show the most wood grain through the color and style 1 since it seemed most likely to encourage proper bow placement through the C-boughs. I was surprised to see that the outer framing was so thin - their violin has the outer shape in the same thickness as the center column but the cello perimeter is only 1/2" thick whereas the center column is 2" thick. No biggie with this, just thought I'd mention it since I didn't notice this aspect from the photos. Overall construction seems solid with a few shortcuts taken in the finishing - exactly what I was expecting. I've built a few cheapies before so I picked up a wittner composite tailpiece and Bausch bridge blank right away - the stock ebony tailpiece just isn't worth screwing around with and stock bridge material is usually pretty soft. Overall setup out of the box is non-existant - the string spacing, string heights and curvature of the bridge were way off but that's pretty standard for these "wholesale" instruments. If you're handy, cleaning up the nut and making a new bridge are fun projects and, imo, add to the fun of a purchase like this. However, my cello came with a wacky fingerboard - 42mm radius at the nut tapered out to 50mm at the end. There was no flat spot under the C-string (romberg). 62mm is the standard curve so it needs some major reshaping. There's enough material to shape it properly but I wasn't planning on doing more than final smoothing and polishing. I'm halfway through the build now and it looks like it'll be a fine instrument when I'm done. I prefer to do the work myself so this was a great buy for me. Not so sure it's as good a deal for someone who has to pay for the work to be done. If you're not picky about having standard specs in the setup, it's pretty good out of the box once the string grooves in the nut are smoothed out.

Looked good, not terrible reviews. Bought it because I live in a small apartment and didn't want to bother my neighbors. (Experienced musician, first time playing the cello). It was nice and quiet, could be heard fine without headphones, and didn't make a huge racket. I practiced it about 3 - 4 days a week, about an hour a day, from mid May to mid August, owned it for not even 100 days. Picked it up one morning, and it had literally fallen to pieces in the gig bag. All the glued pieces had come undone. 5 stars to amazon for refunding my money. I really enjoyed it for the time that I had it, and wish I was still playing it, I really liked it. Good sound, good feel (like a normal cello, but thinner front to back, obviously), I was looking forward to playing this for a few years. But that kind of catastrophic failure... Maybe I'll try a different model next year, but probably I'll try a regular acoustic cello instead.

So.. usually I base purchases on the negative reviews, not the positive ones, but in this case I went ahead with the purchase solely because I already owned a Cecilio electric violin that was just dandy. For the Cello, I was quite shocked upon arrival in that it did -not- have any number of issues described by other reviews, starting with the fact that the bridge came absolutely, positively pre-installed in the upright position. Not only that, but it seemed very well packaged to clearly keep the bridge in that position. The only thing that would have dislodged it would have been a severe blow and that could just as well damage the whole instrument, let alone the bridge. So while some people say the unit should "never" be shipped with the installed bridge anyway, I say this one came out just fine. Next, the tuning. The horror stories of 'requiring' peg oil or having to rig up some rosin on the pegs... I prepared myself. I began turning the pegs, pushing them in only with the slightest of pressure really, entirely expecting them to recoil promptly and refuse to carry a tune. Yeah, it never actually happened. The pegs stayed exactly where I put them the first time with very little effort. First I tuned them a touch flat, let the cello sit and the strings stretch, then I put them in correct tune. I let the cello sit again and, upon returning, I expected to find a flat cello that needed re-tuning. To my surprise, it was still perfectly in-tune, and required nothing more than the slightest adjustments by micro-tuners. Then we have the bow.. oh how horrible will it be to get this terrible, awful bow with its equally-terrible rosin to play? Well it really wasn't -that- bad. In fact, it was really easy. Is the bow great? No, not really... but will it PLAY? Can you LEARN with it? Is it what you'd expect in an off-brand random instrument off Amazon that you feel has questionable origins? Oh absolutely! Look, if you're having trouble putting rosin on your bow, it's not the rosin, it's not the bow, it's probably just you. Scratch the surface of the rosin with the edge of just about anything hard, scoring it nicely, and you'll be just fine. So far this instrument performs exactly how I expect a $500 electric cello to perform. It plays, it holds a tune, it's structurally sound, and if you want to replace the headphones and bow, by all means go ahead, but don't just run out and buy hundreds of dollars in extra 'stuff' for this thing. You bought a -cheap Cello- for a reason, and I can honestly tell you that you will absolutely be able to use this instrument as-is out of the box, assuming there is nothing inherently wrong with your particular cello which happens to just about any instrument and electronic device on the market (sometimes, you get a lemon). For what it is, I give it 5 stars.

really bad quality of headphone, just throw it in the trash. Nice body and no early broken part after playing it. I live in Canada and the shipping was fast. Plan to buy some additional set of strings and a stand for the cello.

* Update at the bottom * I ordered this cello for myself, having only played cello once before, but I like it so far. It came 5 days after I ordered it, which was with the free super saver shipping. They assume that you know a thing about cellos, because it came in pieces, and without and instruction or owners manuals in the box or online. When I tried to tune the cello, the plastic tailgut stripped, so I am unable to play it until I get a replacement, preferably steel. However, being an electric cello, most tailgut replacements are far too long, so I read that nylon cord is a good replacement. I will but a better quality one on my own, but I do want record that I have had a problem. Going through their customer service was frustrating, as Cecilio has no record of my purchase, probably due to being through KKMusic store, through Amazon.ca. I emailed them proof of my purchase, and am waiting on them to get back. I was exited about finding an electric cello only being $500 CAD, as the one I was originally going to get was closer to $3,000, the Yamaha CVS 110 or whatever. Many cellists have multiple cellos, so maybe later. This cello seems like a good beginners cello, being cheaper than any used acoustic cello I could find, and I will certainly practice on it more than a acoustic cello, as I always want to practice in the middle of the night, when my family is asleep. It still makes some noise when you play it, but not nearly as loud as an acoustic. The case it came in won't protect it against anything, being so thin, and is awkward to carry the cello in as the cello is so top heavy, but it has a compartment for the rosin, bow, and some sheet music. The headphones it came with are lower quality than the free ones you get on airplanes, but I have good headphones I was planning to use with it anyway. It came with a nice cloth too. All that being said, I am eager to get to playing it. UPDATE: Cecilio sent me a replacement tailpiece for free, in an envelope a little too small, but I had already gone to a violin shop and bought a new one. The exert there recommended a lighter tailpiece altogether, so I bought one for $60, and also got it strung up and tuned as well. Pro tip, you can ask to watch them string it up if you're new, so you can learn how to for next time. The cello sounds great, though the sound outputs and input are a bit confusing. The "phone" jack is for headphones, the "mic" is for plugging in an auxiliary cable from your phone to play music through while hearing the cello, and the "line out" is for powered speakers or an amp. I use the Turtlebeach XP7 headset, it has a mixer, and has inline audio that works better, but the cello mixer works fine. The cello sounds good through headphones, and it is way quieter than acoustic cello from the outside. That means if you're self conscious about practising while anyone else can hear you like I am, you don't need to worry anymore.

Do. Not. Buy. Terrible sound. Cheap build. And hardly silent.

Absolutely fantastic electric cello for the money. No complaints at all here. It is a first cello for me, but not the first I have held or played. You simply cannot beat the value this package offers. Was shipped with no damage or missing parts, everything worked right out of the box.