Cecilio CECO-4BK Ebony Electric Silent Metallic Black Cello in Style 4, Size 4/4 (Full Size)

I live in an apartment and got this piece to aid in practicing. I am an experienced cellist. I highly recommend this as a fabulous addition to your instrument collection. Here are some things I recommend to any buyers... first off, don't expect to play the same day it arrives. Be patient and your instrument will reward you. 1. Have someone handy carefully oil and maneuver the fine tuners with the strings off. 2. re-string the instrument. Mine came with the wrong strings on the corresponding pegs. Obviously it wasn't meant for ready play right out of the box. This is a manufactured item but you need to treat it like a crafted item to get the most out of it. I allowed mine to rest for almost two days, slowly tightening/tuning the strings. I debated purchasing new strings but I'm glad I didn't. See my explanation below. **Putting the bridge up was no problem. 3. oil and tighten all the movable parts (support pull outs). Eventually you will want to re-do the screws and washers. This is definitely the part of the instrument that will wear out over time and excessive use. Keep a little screwdriver in the case as they do need tightening from time to time. 4. ROSIN that bow! And use a GOOD rosin. It doesn't seem to matter much that the strings and bow hair are cheap, but decent rosin makes a huge difference. If you spend less than $10 online for your rosin you probably are not spending enough. It will be closer to $20 retail. I recommend JADE. And drown your bow in it. The test, run your nail across the base of the strings (by the frog) after applying rosin. You should see a sizeable white cloud float off your bow. Remember not to touch the hair of your bow or the playable area of your strings. The oil from your hands will deteriorate both over time. Use a soft dry cloth to remove rosin build up from strings between practice sessions. 5. Invest in headphones. Lets face it, you saved money by going with the Cecilio versus Yamaha models. You can afford to put a little extra into some phones. I spent as much on phones and a small amp as I did on my electric cello. What a joy to listen to though, it's worth making it happen. My experience is that the strings and bow don't have a huge impact on the sound as they would on an acoustic cello. That is actually great news. You get a lot more sound quality and freedom from settings on your amp. Additionally, bow pressure & technique is also not as important. Another nice benefit. The tonality is consistent all the way up the neck. Not always so and not always easy on an acoustic. I feel this is a GREAT option for an intermediate player for this reason. Or someone who wants to play and doesn't have the luxury of honing their skill with hours of practice. The electric is VERY forgiving. :) ** Not a great practice option for someone looking to improve on technique as it really will not have the same requirements. You will think you're much improved... and then go back to your acoustic and be disappointed. I used the electric in the studio recently for some scratch tracks and it was perfect! We did use a much more quality cord for recording and it extended further out the back due to the adapter. During that session I damaged the box on the back. (stepped on a cord and bent the inside... be careful you don't do the same when using adapters) I called cecilio and I was able to get a replacement box for only $25. I'm not sure how difficult it was to install as my husband is quite handy. I believe he had to solder in order to install the replacement. All in all, I'm very please with this item and because it's my secondary, very glad I chose it over higher priced cellos. It is definitely sufficient. I've used mine for practice, performance through a PA system, and in the studio.

For $400 I would think it would be medium standard quality that you can use for awhile. Good things about this cello. You can change the tone of the cello and also the volume pretty well depending on the quality of the amp you hook it up to. There are some bad qualities however. When you first get the cello the strings are already attached to the fine tuners not th pegs. It comes with no directions at all and also the pegs are mostly lose and some are off completely. This might be bad for beginners who don't have any experience with putting the bridge on the cello and tuning it correctly. Also the cello itself doesn't come with a tuner so you need to find one online or buy one yourself. Once you do get the cello assembled it's hard to get the pegs to stay where they are because of the tension from the strings. Also the place where you put the bridge allows the bridge to slide around a little which caused the bridge to pop out of the slot and fly out while I was assembling the cello. Since these are friction pegs the tension of the string is too much at first so it took me an hour just to tune the cello even close to standard tuning. Once all the pegs have gotten use to the strings it's a pretty good cello from the amp sound. The headphones are cheap so I recommend throwing them away once you get them. Also the 3rd time I used the cello the A string was grinding on the top part of the neck and it looked like the metal coating of the string was falling apart. When I tried tuning it back the string snapped. This is cosmetic but I don't understand why the back handle not fully painted. It looks like someone forgot to paint rest of the cello so it's one color. Also a lot of scratches. We really wanted to like this cello so it would be portable to use everywhere but will return this one because too many issues out of the box.

As a former violist from childhood, I always wanted to pivot to cello but it wasn't considered cost efficient... but I did yearn. After 15 years, I finally am settled as a person with time on my hands and am re-discovering latent passions... Well, Cecilio was the way to go for that one. I remember it being "student quality", but beautiful enough tone in the right hands and sufficient for the price. So cello it was. I was specifically looking for something compact but still did the job, and I liked the design of this one. It came simple. This can be... satisfying or unpleasant depending on your experience. Those unfamiliar with how to string up a cello or any of the other set up and maintenance of a cello will probably be baffled, as there are zero instructions. This was not a problem for me, but this is what I suggest to do and took me about 15 minutes in total: - take note of the lack of bridge, find in the back zipper of case - take note of grooves on top of fingerboard and bridge meant for strings - hold on top of the strings between your fingers like you're Wolverine, place the bridge under the strings with your other hand and gently rotate to prop the bridge up under the strings (there is a little rectangle you can put the bridge base in... make sure the Cecilio logo faces the ground!) - as you gently lift the bridge, make sure to use your eyes and swap between view of the top of the finger board and the bridge, ensuring the strings are staying on the grooves at the top of the finger board... you're making sure the strings don't fall off and under the bridge or fingerboard - if and when the bridge is perpendicular to to the cello and the strings aren't tight enough to hold it in places, gentle wrench the pegs to tighten on top (some of them may he "falling out", just wrench them in deeper as you tighten) - once the bridge is soundly perpendicular with the cello and the strings are tight enough to secure, download a tuning app - there should be a free cello tuning app on the Google Play store that works just great! bless the digital age! - tune large amounts with the pegs, and time smaller amounts with the fine tuners located lower on the cello - locate the bow of the cello, and tighten the end knob (metal with a black stripe around it) - a trick to tighten the bow to the right amount (imo) is if you open your mouth wide like for the dentist, take your finger and try to stretch the corner of your mouth... the corner of your mouth has the exact same tightness as bowstrings 🤣 the horsehair should be able to still somewhat comfortably come to the wood of the bow, any tighter and it snaps hairs! - locate the rosen and give it a VERY good and gentle scrubbing up and down the entire length of the bow... since it is fresh, it takes awhile - install battery in cello - open up all the lil extendable body things (don't forget the bottom one you adjust to your height sitting in a chair) So anyways, after I did all this in about 15 minutes, I gave it my best Jingle Bells... obviously the acoustic tone of this instrument is nothing hearty like a real full bodied instrument, but I can say it does the job for practice in an apartment. I successfully played Jingle Bells!! 🤣 The headset is absolutely crap, they're honestly nonsense for noise cancellation and the cello itself is loud enough to practice outright in a quiet room. All in all, I am very pleased I now have a cello. It feels good so far in my hands, it definitely is my first electric instrument and a student quality one, so I give it grace for the plastic-y vibe it has. It has good heft, could probably stop a home intruder with one good whack. It has spare strings, it was easy set up, comes with a carrying case and rosen... Very groovy. 😎

It's almost a year later and I kept meaning to come back and post a review but life kept getting in the way. I have to tell you all, I put this cello through its paces. First I restrung it, removing the C string. I added a high E and worked my way down. The string sequence became E, A, D, G. I bought the instrument because I had joined a Gaelic rock band that needed a fiddler, I was previously using my classical instrument and the volume output and range weren't cutting it. Also, lugging my symphony cello all over the place was becoming a real pain - this new electric is lighter then even I anticipated. Cecilio makes an instrument that sounds fine enough for me. I would say in the 2,500 dollar cello range, give or take a grand, keeping in mind that this is electric and will have a slightly different finish on the sound. It is sensitive enough to register vibrato, though you have to be aggressive with it. It does have better sound quality with different strings (as others have commented) and I should add that the lower ranged strings sound better than the higher ranged strings. However, for my purposes it was great, especially since I was playing mostly on the new E string that I had bought and was jamming with electric basses, drums, and guitars and such that blended well with the mix. I've played this instrument at paying out door venues for hours in freezing temperatures as well as in seedy cigarette smelling bars. The temperatures didn't seem to effect it much. It additionally held up under the typical 4 to 5 hours of practice sessions a week and it never once broke a string - even the "cheap" ones that came with it. You will get blackened fingers from playing because the paint will come off on your hands when you play it. This lessens with time and after 6 months of steady playing it won't be an issue. I did wear through two bows trying to keep up the fiddlers pace, though. Regarding the bow it comes with, I can't comment too much on its quality as I bought a black bow to match the instrument and to give a better stage look. I would assume that the provided bow could use a re-hair to keep the hairs glued and depressed down by the frog area. This is a common problem with cheaper bows - the hair pops out of the frog and loss of bow hair tension results. But as a back up bonus bow? Hell yes! And a most excellent freebie! Did I mention the other freebies? Free rosin (call it 3 bucks), cables and plugs (lets say 15 bucks) and a cheap but functional headset (five bucks)? That's around 25 dollars of free accessories before you even get to the cello, case and bow. The freebies alone sweeten this deal and make the gamble worth it. Additionally, if you are a parent out there, this lets your child practice without the whole household hearing their screw ups or "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" 5,000 times. Are you a professional musician and sometimes wake up at odd hours and want to practice? Live in a college dorm? No problem here. You can affix a harness and play standing or lengthen the in-pin and do the same. I've tried it and it works well. The freedom to play whenever and wherever I want is liberating for a cellist, who is normally shackled to their chair. I have to say, this 'little guy that could' really took the abuse and kept on marching. We both learned many things along our musical journeys together - mostly he teaching me about the world of playing an electronic instrument (feedback and popping sounds from switching things on/off out of sequence) and what it is to be a musician that plays a more portable instrument. I would highly recommend it. I haven't been disappointed. PS: I bought the A'addario E string and paid in the 325.00 range (total plus shipping) for the instrument.

Piece of junk! Arrived with a broken part. Cheap wood, paint all scratched! Looked like a kid made the thing. My son didn't even take the rest out of the box. I get it that it is cheap but this was definitely NOT worth what was paid for it. Save your money and time to send it back.

I haven't been lucky with this product, I needed it to practice at night. The 1st cello arrived with a crack near the tail piece/end pin. I was willing to keep it like that, since that crack would not affect the sound and I only use it to practice at night. But then a few days later, the battery box, started failing. I sent it back, but wanted another cello instead of a reimbursement. When the 2nd one arrived it had cracks at the peg box close to the scrool and on the neck. I'm giving it 2 stars because both cellos came damaged, and I wanted to get a 3rd one (because I need it), but Amazon didn't give me the option for an exchange this time. If there's no damages to the product, I'm sure it would serve it's purpose, for the price it costs compared to other brands.

With $20 headphones, it sounds a whole lot better than with the $1 headphones that come with. Pegs and strings are not that hard to deal with. If you are going to play an instrument, you need to be able to wield it and maintain it. This is a good one to learn on. Recommend you get a $56 carbon bow, that feels way better. Keep the original as a backup. Pretty quiet, externally. No it is not a $2,500 chelo, but it will be a while, before you can outplay this one. When you do upgrade, think about keeping this one as your travel kit. Good luck!

While I'm not new to playing music, I am new to the cello. So I decided to buy a cello to learn and decided on an electric for silent practice so as not to bug my family. Following some advice from several reviews on YouTube, I went to a luthier to have it set up with new strings and get the bridge adjusted as well as a new bow; the one provided is cheaply built and was shedding hairs with every draw. The luthier had to bore out the peg holes so they would fit and unfortunately caused the head scroll to snap in half. Luckily he was able to glue it back together nice and solid. He also trimmed the bridge down and the strings' action sit closer to the fretboard for easier playing. The pickup built into the cello worked very well even with the cheap headphones with no static or hissing and played through my guitar amp and computer's audio interface with no issues, either. So a proper setup and extra accessories for the cello are necessary to get yourself up and running. Quality is unfortunately hit or miss, but not impossible to work around. If you go in with eyes open and you budget for the set and extra gear you'll need, it is still a bargain for beginners if you get a solid one.