Hi folks,
It´s a rosewood flute,probably made in Pakistan and luckily it plays pretty well in tune(-and i think ,it has quite a nice tone.)The thing that spoils it is that the low D is a bit flat ( and by the way lacks warmth compared to the rest of the instrument).The removeable foot has two vent holes,and i´m tempted to take my Dremel to the north edge of the upper vent hole and remove a millimetre or so,having successfully tweaked cheap Bansuris into tune several times,this way.I´m wondering firstly whether this will really solve the problem and secondly if it´ll then spoil the tuning of the next D above?Getting a builder to cure it is not really an option for me so i have to try and fix it myself.Any tips or advice is much appreciated.
Regards John
If it isn’t too badly out, the easiest fix is too simply roll the flute outward when you hit the D to make the note slightly sharper. You probably only need to do this for sustained tones if, as I say, it isn’t too flat.
I’ve never tried it on a flute, but on the uilleann pipes a bit of electrical tape applied to the southward side of a hole can sharpen a note - so in this case, you could try taping one or one or both of your vent holes to varying degrees. If it works you could use beeswax or silly putty or some such as a slightly less obvious way to make the holes smaller. Might be worth trying pre-Dremel since it’s non-permanent …
And as Cubitt says, making sure you’re not rolling in too much is a very good step. I think sometimes people trying to make their bottom Ds strong and edgy will actually wind up rolling in too far instead of aiming their airstreams down. Thus they end up squashing both the tone and pitch by accident – i.e., more is not always more.
Finally, make sure you haven’t got any leaks at the joints. Bottom D is, as you know, most sensitive to such things.
Also, if it’s a good enough flute, there are flutesmyths who can deal with this
and improve it generally. All else failing. I’ve done that with some
flutes.
well!!!
I’d go with the Dremel!
read this page first though
If ya bung it up you can use Cathy’s wax to put it back
Another thing you might try… I assume there is a joint between the last tone hole and the foot, right? Make sure it isn’t leaking. This won’t help the flatness too much but it will help the tone (a lot), assuming it’s leaking, that is.
Pat
If you want to physically alter the flute my vote for the best option to try is enlarging the bore of the foot a bit. This will raise the low D about twice as much as the 2nd D, doesn’t alter the outside appearance of the flute, and can be done with a bit of sandpaper and an electric drill, or even by hand if you’re keen.
Cheers
Graeme
Hi Folks,
Thanks for all the very useful feedback.Concerning widening the foot bore,it sounds an attractive option as being visually hidden and relatively easy to do(i hope!).I´m not really clear on all the physics of it,but is there a chance that doing that would also improve the tone and projection of the low D as well?Please excuse my ignorance, but could anyone explain the reason for this standard basic design of the removeable foot with it´s two vent holes-as opposed to, for instance my cheap Tony Dixon D flute that doesn´t have this.Does the increased overall length give the warmth to the tone?i´m trying to grasp a better understanding of the potential effects that my messing about with it might have before taking the plunge! Many thanks John
My opinion:
personally I wouldn’t do this myself (alter the flute) if I valued the flute. I would be concerned that I would
ruin my flute or get it out of tune in some other way. I’ve had makers fix an out of tune D
and they didn’t widen the foot bore. The charge for doing this came to under 100 dollars.
There is also the possibility that you can fix the problem simply by blowing the low D
like a rudall low D. Many Irish flutes had a flat low D. One has to learn to blow the
low D in tune. Unless yours is especially low, that’s a better solution than altering
the flute.
You might want to get this flute to somebody who is at least a skilled player to tell
you how bad it is.
FWIW.
sound advice----------- with the low D there is no more holes to mess with it is simply a length problem , , maybe just maybe the other holes are flat to --------- or the cork is too far from the sound hole------------------------let e skilled flute player check it out first----- i have ruined many a flutes by being impatient---------
If the flute is performing well otherwise (even though I’m in serious doubt about that - I never ever saw any good flute of pakistani origin), I would not enlarge the bore at the foot area as that can also have serious effects on the entire flute’s performance. Low D can be weakened a lot by doing this.
The best thing to do would be shortening the foot joint a bit (and-re-reaming if possible/necessary) from the socket side, which might be a bit difficult if the flute has an integral footjoint with venting holes like many flutes from pakistan have. You will also have to bore the socket a bit deeper. Enlarging the tone holes in the footjoint is also an option, but there usually isn’t much space for enlarging as the foot bore will be not larger than say 10.5mm dia. down there and you can’t make a 12mm hole there (you can, but it will look messy and can cause turbulence). Furthermore, the tonehole position is more important for 1st register tuning than tonehole size, so moving the hole(s) by shortening the foot joint should be the best option. At least that’s what I’ve found.
if you shorten the foot joint the rest of the notes “sharpen” up------- he said he Only had a problem with the low D
That is wrong. Shortening the foot joint might have a small effect on low E (sharpening it), but that can be adressed with a bit of wax, if necessary at all. Other than that there won’t be a noticeable effect on the internal tuning. We’re not talking about sawing 1cm off the footjoint - moving the bottom vent holes up a few mm will suffice. On a flute I had here I removed 2,5mm and enlarged the bottom vent holes a bit, which brought low D tuning from “40 cent off” to “spot-on in tune”. Low E got a bit brighter, the rest didn’t change.
it would/could all depend on the upper notes- if they had room to be sharpened------ sure you can widen the tone holes but it will affect the other notes- and using wax is not a solution-- and 20/30 cents can be blown in or adjusted in the cork------ he might just have to adjust the bottom D as best he can and and adjust his breath---------- he may only have one shot at this-once you cut away wood trying to replace it is a pain–
There is no acoustical reason why altering the distance between vent holes and RH3 should make the entire flute sharp. It just shortens the air column when playing low D, the other holes stay at their position, so their air columns are unchanged. There is a certain interaction between adjacent holes which depends on their size (thus low E, being very small and not ideally placed might get a wee bit sharper), but that’s it.
well my friend i have Made many bamboo and NAF flutes and sell them— and ANY movement of holes and length and alteration in most case AFFECTs the sound----------- but this is Ones decision to make if One does not know what he is doing , One could screw up a good thing---------- but he sounds like he is Knowledgeable in the DREMEL arena 
I have made and repaired quite a few wooden flutes with a tapered bore in various keys and feel confident enough to disagree respectfully. Again, there is no reason why shortening the distance from embouchure hole to low D vent hole(s) (or end of flute, respectively), which is the result of shortening the foot joint between low E hole and end/vent holes, should severely alter the tuning of holes not affected by this. Of course the alteration of hole sizes and/or positions has an effect on the SOUND, but that is not what you stated originally, and we’re not talking about sound here, but about tuning isses with low D. The shorter footjoint most certainly will have an effect on 3rd register tuning, but that holds true for almost every change one could make to a flute.
Easy experiment to prove what I’m talking about: take any simple system D flute (or any other key, really doesn’t matter) with a seperate footjoint. Play a G (assuming you’re using a D flute), i.e. XXX OOO. Then remove the footjoint (yes, remove, not shorten) and play a G again. The tuning change will be extremely minor, if there’s any. And now remember that we’re talking about removing a few millimeters and not the entire foot joint. You can also repeat the experiment with F#, where a change in tone will appear, but still only very very minor tuning changes (depending on flute of course, the smaller the holes, the bigger the interdependency). On the flutes I have here (both professionally made and from my own shop), even the effect on low E is very small.
Of course shortening a footjoint isn’t a job anyone can do with a scissors and some putty - but it certainly is the best solution here, if opening up the vent holes is not possible due to several reasons (already too big, not existent).
By the way - no offense meant here! I just felt that I should chime in. 
Thanks for all the great tips and advice-after due consideration i took the plunge and Dremelled off a touch from the bottom of the north edge of the first vent hole.I´m much happier with the tuning of it now.I also noticed that the vent hole bottom edge wasn´t 100% clean when they´d cut it,so now it is- which perhaps has helped a bit.The tone has stayed basically the same,i.e it´s not as rich as the rest of the flute, which i think i´ll just have to live with since i don´t feel i have the courage to mess about any more with it.Some of my D bansuris have big fat rich low D´s which i find always a pleasure to play- but then they have a larger diameter and are basically a different instrument entirely.
thanks once again John
Hey, thanks for letting us know what you did! Glad it worked out.