I was thinking of buying a 2 piece Dixon as a flute to keep in the car. How is it?
I’ve tried a few Dixon cylindrical flutes and have been underwhelmed. Seriously underwhelmed. The were difficult to play, had very little depth to the sound, and many notes had to be lipped into tune. I’ve never been a fan of his whistles, though; one who likes his whistles might have a different opinion.
Useless/unusable. I do not rubbish any maker’s products without careful consideration. Dixon’s whistles are mostly fair for what they are and his conoid bore 3-piece flute is pretty decent in its class… I’ve tried several of the basic conduit tube ones in shops and some time back got given one (for interest’s sake by an original owner who also found it unusable). It is useless save for maybe beginner’s embouchure practice - lives in a box of junk as I wouldn’t dream of inflicting it on anyone even as a gift. I have made far better simple poly-tube flutes myself. Main problem is tuning - they don’t use the wedge or any other way of correcting the intonation issues native to any all-cylinder-bore flute and despite Dixon’s best design efforts with tone-hole placement etc., he can’t defeat the laws of physics. The plain version with no lip-plate to deepen the embouchure chimney also has far too shallow an embouchure for good tone production. You’d do better spending the money (far less of it!) buying some conduit and having a go yourself (with a wedge) using Doug Tipple’s plans &/or Flutomat or adapting Guido Gonzato’s whistle plans…
Oh, and you can’t just make a wedge and stick it in a Dixon 2-piece because the effects of the wedge require modification of sounding length and tone-hole disposition…
I will disagree somewhat with Jem here. It is true that the presence of the wedge in the headjoint of the flute will change the pitch of a flute that was not tunable. However, with the tuning cork and a tuning slide, a simple 2-piece conduit flute with an added wedge could be adjusted into pitch without serious intonation issues, that is if the finger holes were laid out correctly in the first place. On the pvc cylindrical-bore flutes that I make I use the same finger hole layout whether or not the flute is played with or without a wedge in the headjoint. It is up to the player to adjust the flute into pitch.
I do agree with Jem that a serious problem with flutes made from thin-wall tubing is that there isn’t enough wall thickness to construct an embouchure hole with sufficient chimney depth unless you add a lip plate, as Jem does with his piccolo, also made from thin-wall pipe.
I have the one-piece version from Tony Dixon. My own guess is that both his one- and two-piece flutes were cast mold instead of made from prefab piping, although the latter could explain why they would stick to a cylindrical design.
I do feel that the rest of the flute was designed to gain an optimal result within these limitations, but that the embouchure hole is oversized even for those purposes – it competes in size with my Boehm’s. To me, the idea really seems to be that you automatically vary your intonation, because you already have to vary the amount of lip-covering in order to get any tone at all (low ones only seem to come out with a lot of coverage, and higher seem to require less). The final result, however, is that I have to support my lower lip with my tongue a lot, and cross fingerings like oxo ooo sound quite weak (too much wind is finding too little room to escape).
The good thing about the whole instrument of course is that it’s sturdy and cheap, so I won’t hesitate to stuff it into any suitcase, for instance. (Actually the most annoying thing is that the one-piece is too large for a regular wiper to reach, so it gets smelly pretty fast.)
I believe (am not certain - going on ones I have seen and his current website listings) the original 1 and 2 piece Dixons were entirely of conduit tube (certainly the case with the one I have), but that now he casts, injection-moulds or machines the heads from ABS while the body is still pre-extruded poly-tube.
Looking at Tony Dixon’s website, I am somewhat confused. Some of the low-cost 2-piece polymer flutes are said to have polymer (probably pvc) headjoints, whereas others have ABS headjoints. ABS is a hard, lower-density plastic that can be injection molded easily. Although whistles (Susato), recorders (Yamaha), and flutes made from ABS are not bad, their tone is not as good as the higher density polymer (pvc), in my opinion.
Tony’s latest flutes all seem to have a lip plate to increase the embouchure chimney depth, so my previous comments, which pertain to his earlier flutes, do not seem to relevant any longer.
Get the three-piece conical if you want a DIxon. Or get a TIpple, or a Hamilton practice flute. The two-piece Dixons are seriously dissappointing.
Doc
having both the Dixon two piece (the duo with both whistle and flute heads) and the Tipple… i would have to agree with Doc. go with the Tipple. you will absolutely not be disappointed.
be well,
jim