Sorry,
Having been burned myself with my first flute buy, I thought it to be a fairly charitable thing to give you negavite feedback on a flute with 4-5 cm crack in the head joint. That should run you $50-100 to fix before it can play without leaking. It is certainly beyond the superglue fix.
On 2002-02-14 02:31, Jon C. wrote:
Yes, I am the same shmuck that bought that pakastan flute…Will he ever learn! (At least this one comes cracked already!)
My Pakistani flute set me back $200 to start with. Then I spent $50 plus shipping to get a bone embouchure set in it to cover the hairline crack I fixed with superglue. It was really tough to fill anyway. In the end the first octave could be made to be in tune but the second octave E and F# were almost equal in pitch. A complete waste of nearly $300 on my part.
I posted this review a while back
I have one.
The most expensive piece of fire wood I ever purchased. Even a Generation whistle of the worst quality control would be 100x better than that piece of … from Pakistan. They are not in tune with themselves. I even had Glenn Schultz work on it. He did his best. The first octive is in tune. The second octive us useless. I do not believe that anyone could blow it in tune.
Do yourself a favor. If you really want a musical instrument of that quality, make one yourself with this method. Drink a case of black label beer. Rip down a curtain rod. Use a hammer and a nail to place six holes in it (it doesn’t matter where). Then use a fire ax to cut an embouchrue. If you were careless enough, it will sound as bad.
The bottom line is not cost, it having a playable instrument. Most of the instruments in lower price ranges on e-bay are not real playable.
I’m not an expert. The most constructive thing I could suggest would be to send an e-mail to David Migoya and as for his opinion as to how much it would cost to fix something like that before you buy it. You’ll know what your getting into. I don’t think David would try to sneak in on you (he has a good business reputation to maintain). I’m personnally going to do that whenever a particular flute comes available on e-bay or private sale (its been about 18 months since I’ve seen one available).
On other useful tidbit. Old flutes could be designed to play anywhere from A=415 to A=455, whereas todays concert pitch is A=440. Yes, concert pitch has shifted all about over the centuries. When an instrument has a tuning slide, you can shift the slide around so to make A=440. That doesn’t mean that the rest of the notes are in tune. A honest and dishonest seller can both say “I can play A=444.” There is no other way if the other notes are in tune.
I have never seen anyone give the advice to buy old flutes. Specific flutes may be in good playable condition, but the seller usually is able to qualify the flute well (which they do for bad flutes, too). There is almost no way that an attic-kept flute can be any good if it has been in the rafters for 40 years.
There are so many duds on the market in old used flutes. You get what you pay for, or worse.
Sorry the news is not good. I don’t see how sugar coating bad news or not telling you the bad news is doing you any favor.
That being said, I hope you end up playing it like John McKenna and prove me wrong.
[ This Message was edited by: Mark_J on 2002-02-19 14:57 ]
Jon
