Othannen said;
I’m sure Ormiston makes great flutes, but are his prattens “pratten sounding”, like Olwells or Hammys?
You’ll not know what any flute sounds like or how it will handle until you play it, irrespective of what anyone else thinks they sound like. I don’t mean that in a disparaging way, you will get lots of helpful pointers as to the sound of any particular flute, but nothing is going to beat the sound of it in ones own hands.
So what to do? Buy and be damned? 
Good luck with making a very difficult selection decision. 
you won’t KNOW what a flute sounds like until you play it, if then. However you can get a much better idea if you hear from people you know and trust who have actually played the thing. That is what we haven’t got yet about Ormiston Prattens in this thread. There is a middle ground tween playing it oneself and a leap in the dark. It isn’t all or nothing.
Probabilities matter. But one really has to be careful about believing any old people.
Some folks said on this board that the Seth Gallagher is a ‘balls to the wall’ Pratten.
I owned one. It ain’t.
This is no reflection on Ormiston. hammy Hamilton makes a great Pratten. he also makes a rudall.
I know nothing about the rudall. I’ve never heard anything about it from anyone I know, or anyone I don’t know for that matter. It is no reflection on Hamilton that I really haven’t much idea what
his rudall sounds like or whether it sounds like a rudall. The argument:
this guy makes great Prattens, so he makes great Rudalls, is pretty weak.
Lots of positive reports from people I trust about Ormiston Rudalls,
none at all from anybody about Prattens. It would probably help if
we got some.
I went to George’s last month as I am going to order a new 8 keyed flute from him to replace my current 6 key. I tried all the flutes he had around, including a flute in C which is lovely.
His prattens do sound like prattens. Nice loud sound that really booms out and just as easy to play as his R&Rs. I think Hamish Napier went for one as well as the flute player in the Paul McKenna band. I liked them but I’m going for an R&R as I feel there is a more complex sound and you can do a bit more with it, rather than just blasting other musicians away and constantly playing fog horn low Ds.
David
I am not saying this is the case but it is possible for other makers to own an original Pratten also and then the question arises,
“who makes the better copy?”
see?
