Excuse my ignorance but what is the difference between an expensive flute and a cheap one? I would have thought that once you get the positioning of the holes and levers correct (which even a cheap one must do, otherwise it's not actually a flute), it's really just a metal pipe.

http://letosheils.tumblr.com

my audio scribbles. i'm happy with how they turn out. forcing oneself to record whatever on any given day is a nice thing to do. really wish i had an actual piano though.

There are many things to address with the quality of a flute.

1. Handmade?

Handmade flutes are superior to machine made ones. Machine made flutes will always have some sort of imperfection, and will have less 'character than handmade ones. The body of my flute is handmade, while the headjoint is professional quality and hand made. I'll probably just upgrade my flutes body next.

2. Headjoints

Headjoints make the largest difference in flutes. The shape, size and curve of the headjoint all make a huge difference. Machine made headjoints are horribly generic, while hand-cut ones are all unique. My headjoint will be slightly different to another one of the same model. Good headjoints are hard to cut.

3. Material (All dollar figures are in AUD, unless specified. All prices can vary largely; this is in my experience.)

Nickel silver (silver plated tin) flutes start at the very crappy $50 and go to $1000. As you add more silver to the flute, the price goes up.

Silver on only the lip-plate: +$50-$100 (depends on maker, largely)
Silver headjoint is reasonably more, at closer to $1500-$3000 (whole flute, depending on make, thickness and purity of silver)
Silver body, headjoind but not keywork is $1500-? (same as above)

Solid silver the whole way through, including keys, double the price of the Silver body and headjoint version.

Gold is A LOT (no pun intended :p) more, depending on the different carats. I've played a solid 18c flute worth $99,000, and a better different flute made from 14c gold worth $45,000-ish.

Platinum is worth more still, and I'd love to own a platinum headjoint one day. My headjoint in platinum is $7,500 USD without a flute.

4.Age

http://www.andrewsterman.com/teachin...enchflutes.asp

Explains everything somewhere in the middle

Leaving aside construction quality, do the more expensive metals actually sound better?

If they're better metals, they will sound better. A while back, I bought the same saxophone as my friend Bob had, only his was in black lacquer and mine had a "vintage" finish, and I have noticed that minehas a louder and slightly (only slightly) richer tone than Bob's, all because of the finish. I'm quite confident that if the finish makes a difference, the material used to construct it does.

It's not necessarily a matter of sounding better, but different metals/materials all sound slightly different. Is to do with their resonance and how they carry waveforms and sheyt. Did you not do bursary physics Nate?

It's the same for many instruments. Brass isntruments made from silver have a brighter sound (or 'harder' sound, much more piercing and brilliant) and horns made from darker metals have a darker sound (much softer and warmer in tone). As Phylum said, older instruments are probably hand-crafted, which is much better than manufactured ones. There's a whole world of little details and factors that I don't know enough about to talk about yet.

completely. don't even get me started on the tonal properties of the woods for the body/reverb chamber/soundhole/fretboard/neck of a guitar

Cellos made out of carbon fiber are becoming popular, and have quite a different sound from wooden cellos. Here's a couple of videos to show the difference. Read the descriptions and see the rest of the videos from this concert to get a better understanding.

I like her f hole

Flutes need to resonate as little as possible. Tin is the worst, then silver, gold and finally platinum, for common materials. My flute teachers flute is made from a strangely resonant material, and has a beautifully sweet sound. Not just for him, either. Other people achieve completely different sounds playing his flute.

Also, although wooden flutes barley resonate, they are a preference thing. They are crap at jazz, and have a slightly 'dead' sound.

llllllllllllllllol.

Yes, of course. I realised that different metals would sound different; I just wondered why anyone would pay so much money for silver or gold when it just sounds different and not better.

Gold flutes sound richer, and silver flutes sound more solid.

Gold=jazz and silver=classical, basically. Many people will try to tell you what's best, but it comes down to preference and what you're playing.

I'd preferably have 3 flutes. This, A Verne Q Powell with 0.43mm thick walls and <92% silver, and a gold flute for jazz.

This recording will demostrate the tone of all of my instruments. Some effects I try to put on the tenor sax sound fucking awful. This is due to the fact I was puffed out after clearing the road of snow. Sometimes, it's too quiet, due to the same reason.
No percussion, unfortunately. We sold our drum kit when we were strapped for cash.

I would have uploaded the file as an attachment, but unfortunately, no matter what I did to the bit-rate and other settings, it seems to be one step beyond the limit.

I'm not a good musician. I just enjoy it. Feel free to comment on my piss-poor playing, but don't be a dick about it. How ever, feel free to rip the piss out of my "one step beyond!" voice.

i love that song, and enjoyed that representation of it. bloody good work.

Thank you very much. I appreciate it.

...

What sort of dodgy shit are you attempting to inflict on us?

According to my reputable antivirus software, the website has no malicious content.

Viruses aren't the only thing that will cause a website to be blocked from an educational institution's network...

I managed to get onto it, sounds pretty good.

Thank you for your kindness. I have recently recorded a better sax part, and have improved the mix. The saxophone parts on my previous attempt are actually quite humiliating, so I may upload my newest at some point just to show that I'm not quite as bad as it sounds at the minute.

i've just released my SOLD OUT (i made 30... lol) debut album on bandcamp.

http://letosheils.bandcamp.com/album/leto-sheils

please enjoy it. 'Bromism' features a lead sax for you brasstards

I really really like this, I'm definitely downloading it when I get back to my good computer tomorrow.

I played euphonium for seven years, and picked up bass trombone for jazz during those last two. It was enjoyable, albeit a fairly strenuous commitment. Band culture is ridiculously cutthroat in Texas to the point it's borderline unhealthy, but the results are pretty damn impressive. That's why I had to quit come college, there was just no way I could actively stay involved with the whole band thing without being a dedicated music major. Too much competition, straight up.

Nowadays I'm applying my efforts in the electronic production/mixing direction, and it's a hoot. As much as I loved concert band back in the day, I find the creative control of being a one man musical force much more appealing than tedious ensemble rehearsal. Me and some buds have are working up a ghetto little dj collective at the moment, we've had some good success fronting ourselves with house parties so far (god bless college towns). A couple of my friends are investing themselves pretty heavily into dubstep, a couple do some more generic electro/breakbeat stuff, one does liquid drum and bass, and I'm focusing on psytrance and minimal. I'm hoping to make some decent headway into my musical pursuits over the next few months, since I'm taking this semester off from school. At this point I'm very optimistic and much excited :)

i luv dubstep + breakbeat + psytrance + minimal (like monolake especially). power to you, i'd love to hear yr shit if you upload it to a myspace or whatever in the future. i'm working on a dubstep/idm release myself atm, with room for small gigs in the nearish future. shaping up to be a good musical year.

I've read this thread and seen that many of you own very nice instruments.
Here's a list of what I have:

1. Ibanez AFS75 (6-String Jazz Guitar)
2. Ibanez V7212E (12-String Guitar)
3. A cheap Behringer electric guitar
4. A Spanish acoustic guitar
5. A Squier P-Bass
6. Yamaha RBX300-Series Bass
7. Sonor 505-Live Drumset
8. Harmonica
9. Accordion
10. Some Weird Small Bells
11. A Jew's Harp

Plus we have a piano and a violin at home, but they're really not mine. We also have mixers and equalizers etc placed in racks. The reason we have all this is because my dad used to play in a band. I also own a bunch of effect-pedals and amps.. I play all of the instruments listed above, except the accordion is still in the practice phase.

Give it back to him, don't sink down to their level!!

Cue Nate.

Well obviously I didn't steal it. :fuzwink:

I'm mainly a guitarist, but I LOVE playing the drums. It's like multitaskin on a totally different level! And you get to make noise..

For a dood of a guy who used to play in a band, man you've got some shit guitars/basses.