I took a couple days off to visit Tom Aebi’s workshop in Basel to try out his flutes. Man, are they magnificent. He was nice enough to let me hang out in his workshop disrupting his work for two days. He also fixed some issues he saw with my flute.
He has a bewildering array of models available but here’s my (incompetent) impression of some of them:
Pratten: HUGE tone holes and sound. I had to really focus to get a good seal otherwise my fingers wanted to disappear down the black holes that pass for tone holes. You can seriously lean into this flute. It would probably blow a set of pipes out of the water. Still sounds nice and warm though.
Rudall and Rose 2010 model: Much narrower bore, slightly smaller tone holes. First octave does not have too much room for experimentation, once you’re blowing it, you get a fairly set tone out of it. (A very nice, full tone, brightish). Second octave is spectacular. Lively and chirpy.
Rudall and Rose 2011: Wider bore, first octave has more drive to it, with a slightly dirtier tone. More room for experimentation. Second octave still lively, though not quite as chirpy as on 2010 model.
I also played one of his Bb’s. Stretch was pretty manageable. Lovely tone, I’d never even seen a Bb before, but I was able to play tunes on it right off the bat.
On the basis of several hours of playing them, I changed my order from a boxwood 2010 model to a boxwood 2011 model.
Also, if anyone has one of his earlier flutes, go buy another one. They’re completely different. Anyway, Tom was very nice and helpful and all around seems like a good guy. Now if only 2012 would get here so I could have my flute…