HISTORY"Connecticut's Finest Resource for the Aspiring & Professional Musician"
HISTORYBase flute: Muramatsu MF2 Serial # 22224 (late 70’s Vintage) C foot, heavy wall, In-line G, Stock Headjoint
This old Muramatsu is my prototype experimental flute. When manufacturers of various products want me to test new products or new ideas, this is the flute that gets retrofitted with the new stuff.
“Frankenflute” was my first professional flute that was
butchered at the hands of at least two repair people. After that, it never
played nearly as well as it should. It
was replaced out of necessity with a gold bonded muramatsu that I still play to
this day. After it’s retirement,
it sat in storage until I resurrected it as my guinea pig flute for the time I
spent learning with Jon Landell.
1997-1998
The JWB headjoint
The flute underwent it first initial transformation. To compensate for the high resistance in this flute, I constructed a new headjoint with .014” tubing, a Landell taper with a lip plate and riser cut copied from my gold bonded muramatsu. I recut the original headjoint to improve the response and lighten the sound. The JWB headjoint is currently topped with a solid brass crown. This was a result of an inquiry and experimentation into the affect of crown mass on tone and performance. There is a traditional cork assembly stopper in the headjoint.
1998
The mechanism was completely rebuilt. Worn out pins were replaced with oversized where necessary. Damage to the exterior key cups has not been repaired. It was not cost effective to replace the worn out key cups. They are acceptable however.
The instrument was re-padded with traditional pads and materials
1998-2005
This instrument served as my back-up flute and was a loaner flute for pro flutists when their personal instruments were here in the shop. The only experiments at this time where those concerning the headjoints. Various performances enhancers such as acoustical chokes, synthetic stoppers of various materials and designs, and the experimentation with crown weights occurred during this period. I was presenting many headjoint classes for Napbirt and my test flute was once again the material for these headjoint experiments.
2005-present
The flute in its current form has been re-padded with a variety of synthetic materials and includes 3 versions of prototype pads developed by Ed Kraus. (Ed is the person responsible for the moniker “Frankenflute”. ) It is from this time on, that the flute has served a special purpose.
With all the talk of synthetic pads out there and the choices people had to make in choosing these or many types or traditional felt pads, it was necessary to provide an experimental model for customers. I decided that I should pad a flute with all the different choices out there and materials available so that people could see what they looked like on a flute and side by side. There was much debate as to whether any various pad changed the feel, tone, or response of a flute.
It turned out that I was beta testing installation of the new Kraus’ Omnipads (skinless and waterproof) for flute in preparation for a Napbirt regional clinic on installation of synthetic pads. I decided to test that notion to the extreme by including not just the pad types, but include grommet materials, and bumper, regulating and silencing materials as well. The purpose of frankenflute became to demonstrate that pad or grommet/washer material is not a factor compared to proper installation.
The one other concern was addressing how well new synthetic pads would work next to felt pads. Could these pads be used as acceptable replacements for play condition work, where only select pads are replaced?
When work began on this project I made the decision to keep some of the old felt pads in the flute for comparison. This would be a great test to see how the feel difference compared. I choose to use the G keys since on either side I placed different colored synthetic pads for visual color comparison.
The flute made it’s way to the 2006 Napbirt Minneapolis repair convention for its first large showing. The results were unanimous. Not one person could tell the difference between any pad in the flute whether they knew or didn’t know exactly what they were playing. Those who didn’t know were completely surprised. Those who knew or saw the differences tried very hard to perceive differences, but it was near impossible to do.
Headjoints:
2 choices custom thin, or stock heavy wall (recut). Three crown weights, traditional cork stopper assemblies.
Trills and vent:
Traditional felt pad, cork bumpers
Thumb key:
OmniPad .095” thickness un-backed flexible pad.
Felt lever regulation, Cork on key tail and kicker
A/Bb keys:
Schmidt yellow crystal pads, delrin pad washer and grommet
Cork key tail, cork on Bb regulating clutch
G Keys:
Felt pads, original washer and grommet
Cork
key tail
G# key:
Omnipad, .065” with floating stabilizer
Felt on lever
RH Stack Pads:
Schmidt gold pads
F#key magnetic pad retainer system
Delrin grommets
Craft Foam key tails
Footjoint:
Rigid backed Omnipads no stabilizers
C/C# Cork regulation
D# key cork bumper
Scot foam key tails
Other:
Shims: Paper and plastic (even in the same key cup)
Plugs: LH neoprene, RH Cork
NO Straubingers were used in this flute at all! If you want to ask me why I left them out and get my opinion on Straubinger pads, click the Email link below and ask me...
If you have any questions and/or comments, send an e--mail.
Copyright 2006 © Michael Lange Music Company