Chiff and Fipple Forums

Geoffrey Ellis wrote:
The question is, could you get away with bringing this to the local session?

Certainly, especially if you pass out psychedelics
to everyone 30 minutes or so before hand.

Geoffrey Ellis wrote:

PB+J wrote:I've done a lot of gigs with sax players, and you can get a professional quality sax in lots of finishes--matte or shiny, aged or brand new, black, copper colored, pink and purple and red--excellent saxes can be bought in all sorts of cool color combinations.

The Boehm flute? Except at the low end, you can have silver, and silver colored. And gold, if you're willing to drop over 10 large. Those people are so conservative!

I'm still not sure how popular they are, but Geoffrey Guo has his line of injection molded plastic flutes in all the colors of the rainbow I visited his booth at the National Flute Association convention in 2016 and talked with one of his helpers. They were marketing these flutes to college marching bands, making the flutes in the school colors! I didn't love the look of them, personally, because they were just primary colors in a matte finish, but I'm told that they are pretty good flutes. They sell a lot of pink flutes to Japanese girls--it seems to be a thing.

We have a white plastic Nuvo flute. (https://www.nuvoinstrumental.com/products/flute/) It's pretty brilliant, really. Designed for school kids. The pads are silicone, the "springs" are all plastic. You can put it int a tub of soapy water to clean it. It won't tarnish, chip or dent. I don't really play the Boehm flute, I haven't put any time into practicing it. but it's very very easy to play and makes a pleasing sound which no one would mistake for anything but a flute. You can find YouTune videos of people playing it and sounding good: for example

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_uND6Ptng7A

There's another video of him playing it in a swimming pool, to make the point that it's totally waterproof.

I think it's marvelous and it's so much easier to play than the Irish flute, although the tone is just not what I want without a lot of effort and the keys make me feel like I'm playing a typewriter. But as far as I know that's a Boehm flute thing

Geoffrey Ellis wrote:

cavefish wrote:nice how does an ebonite sound compared to delrin and wood

Subjective, of course, but I would say that all other things being equal I prefer the ebonite over both the delrin and wood. It has a very "lively" quality. Lots of warmth, for players who like that.

I could go on at length about why I like ebonite as a flute material, but if you are willing you can read this article by Tom Ridenour, clarinet maker. It was this article (link below) that turned me onto trying ebonite. He evaluates the qualities of natural hard rubber (ebonite) and I've found his analysis to be very accurate based on my experiences. I've posted this link in the past, but it is always worth sharing for anyone who has not seen it.

http://ridenourclarinetproducts.com/the ... -myth.html

i could see this i have a saxophone and HR mps,, warmth would saturate the sound it is a very vibrant material i think you might have a lead on the flute situation using this, i would think anyway would you consider Eb and F flutes

cavefish wrote:

Geoffrey Ellis wrote:

cavefish wrote:nice how does an ebonite sound compared to delrin and wood

Subjective, of course, but I would say that all other things being equal I prefer the ebonite over both the delrin and wood. It has a very "lively" quality. Lots of warmth, for players who like that.

I could go on at length about why I like ebonite as a flute material, but if you are willing you can read this article by Tom Ridenour, clarinet maker. It was this article (link below) that turned me onto trying ebonite. He evaluates the qualities of natural hard rubber (ebonite) and I've found his analysis to be very accurate based on my experiences. I've posted this link in the past, but it is always worth sharing for anyone who has not seen it.

http://ridenourclarinetproducts.com/the ... -myth.html

i could see this i have a saxophone and HR mps,, warmth would saturate the sound it is a very vibrant material i think you might have a lead on the flute situation using this, i would think anyway would you consider Eb and F flutes

My Essential Flute line (which I make out of ebonite quite frequently) offer the Eflat and F option. Also have a D, C and low Bflat (this last one is due to be released this month).

Nanohedron wrote:Does ebonite come in pearlescent? That might be striking in white or ivory hues.

I don't know about pearlescent, but, Roy McManus is making ebonite whistles in color.







There must be a color suitable for everyone. Be the first to have one in your local session.

Those bluey ones look like they've been through the washing machine & have got soap suds left on them - no, you guessed it, I'm not a fan of these.

fatmac wrote:Those bluey ones look like they've been through the washing machine & have got soap suds left on them - no, you guessed it, I'm not a fan of these.

Yeah, not all of the ebonite colors have the same appeal to me. I have their catalog and the colors range from incredibly cool looking to totally stomach-churning! But I think the art form of making the ebonite and figuring out how to formulate the colors is truly amazing. So hats off to SEM--they are amazing. But out of the dozens and dozens of color options, I've so far only found about ten of them that I like for flutes.

jemtheflute wrote:Well, although the raspberry sundae effect wouldn’t be my favourite blend of colours, I think it looks stunning. I can't imagine why it would be any sort of problem to fetch to a session, other than that its talking point attraction of attention might make getting any playing done tricky.

I want one of the green-and-black swirly ones myself, one day, though I agree the green-and-black does look very smart.

I'm thinking one of those greens in the last sentence should be grey? If the first was meant to be green, then we are very much in agreement -- I liked the black with green swirls so much I quickly fired off a text to my wife commenting that I loved it. (And thought the original flute looked fine, and the black/grey one smart.)

Wow! Certainly some wild stuff in this thread!

Geoff, are you pouring an ebonite rod stock to turn, or do you cast the bores these days?

MadmanWithaWhistle wrote:Wow! Certainly some wild stuff in this thread!

Geoff, are you pouring an ebonite rod stock to turn, or do you cast the bores these days?

Well, I don't make the ebonite if that is what you are asking!

I get the ebonite rod from Schonberger Ebonite Manufacturers in Germany (SEM). So the bores of these flutes are not cast, simply cut like wood.

However, I am doing some cast bore flutes funnily enough. I've done a fair bit of R&D on that over the last few years and I'm on the verge of releasing my first cast bore flutes. Casting the bore allows me to utilize some very interesting woods that are not otherwise suitable, such as burl woods. The cast gives strength where needed and allows some shaping of the bore where a reamer might not work very well.

awildman wrote:"Man walks down the street with that flute, people know he's not afraid of anything."

Or maybe he's colorblind and someone played a cruel trick on him.

I see this topic now....This is my flute.

first, Sorry...√he ×she

In fact, this ebonite color hard to photo a correct color.
the part of yellow actually is sand color( mix wine color and light clay color)
is like a ancient greek feel.
I saw some CITE wood like this color,
that is my target on this time:party:

I tune the color more really...

https://photos.app.goo.gl/VdBH2iGUupG7AdZg6

for I know SEM have one special limit color call "soft briar"
sand mix bit light clay color make the wood feel.
could be like pearl or ivory color.

I don't worry about the color, unfortunate Irish muisc is very uncommon in Hong Kong, when I search the web, only one English session (not for Native and speak cantonese).....

and I also have dyed maple ellis pratten and essential D(middle in the photo)

when the flutes is brown or black color, people will thought this is Chinese bamboo flute or wooden boehm flute(many people don't know keys, and some Chinese flute is black color......
I have situation, they think is dizi,shakuhachi or xiao(when I play NAsF or basketmaker/anasazi)


if I need to join session, I need improve my skill like professional first...

Good to hear about Bb essential...I thought C is the last...

Some of you expressed some liking for the less...over-the-top? ebonite colors, and we speculated as to how they might go down at a session. I got inspired and decided to break with my classic black Pratten and try a little color. This is the result! We've got the green and black and the "smokey" ebonite as seen in the earlier photo.

I like the smokey one!