I just wanted to see what you guys think about this brand. I am looking at an Altus 1007 flute and I wanted to know if you guys have any experiences with this specific flute or any Altus flute. I head that they are not to popular in the US, why is that?

I had listened to various players who were quite impressed, but a recent experience with servicing a model 1107 has suggested that I should recommend staying clear of them.

This flute was 2 years old, had an oval hole through one of the open-hole keys, had non-level, filed tone holes with heavy parallel file marks, with far too large a flat surface area contacting the particularly thin, hard pads, to seal reliably.

And the tone, and way it played did not much impress me much either.

It was a nightmare to work on - a rare thing for me to say, even for student flutes - and I regard it as an ongoing maintenance liability.

I was very surprised to be assured by Altus that it was indeed made in Japan.

Was that the only Altus flute that you have worked on Arak?

I tested out several Altus flutes, but just didn`t care for the sound or the way it handled. I thought the sound on the upper range Yamahas to be much better, if that is saying anything.

While I was searching for information on various brands of intermediate $1500-2500 flutes I found the Altus 807 to very highly recommended and that a few top professional UK flute players are playing Altus 807s, having switched from multi thousand pound flutes.

If you check out altusflute.com you can see which artists are playing Altus flutes. Notable flutist Trevor Wye plays on Altus flutes.

The ability of a flute to play well is the concern of the flutist. The ability to repair a flute is the concern of the repairman.

On another note... while rummaging through my old e-mails on Altus I came across John Rayworth, who also recommends Altus flutes, but his website has some pictures and comments on various flute design/mechanism. http://www.flute.toucansurf.com/flute/fluteidx.html

Altus flutes are very good. I know there is at least one professional flute player that play on one and his name is Willliam Bennet. These flutes aren`t my personal favorite though, the tone didn`t have that extra "umph" I guess you could say.

Piko wrote, "...The ability of a flute to play well is the concern of the flutist. The ability to repair a flute is the concern of the repairman...."

But when the bill for maintenance is high, or the maintenance is necessarily frequent because of manner of manufacture, or it is not even viable to correct certain aspects of manufacture to make the instrument play well AND reliably, then the concerns of the repairman most certainly become the concerns of the player!

Kara wrote, "Was that the only Altus flute that you have worked on Arak?"

Good question, with an interesting answer. When the first Altus flute arrived in NZ I believe they were made in Taiwan, related to Jupiter and Di Medici. My understanding is that the factory later moved to Japan. So I expected Altus to have rather soft metal, like all the other Taiwanese instruments of the time. Softness of metal is of considerable concern to the technician, but can be determined only by bending some body and key metal, which I was not going to do on a test instrument.

When I played this first instrument it played so well that I was determined to buy it immediately, but somebody else had contracted to buy it before me.

Al,though not so many recently, I have worked on a couple of dozen Altus flutes, and compared with that first reaction, I have felt reasonably to considerably disappointed.

My natural conclusion has been that that first flute got special attention from Altus`s best worker/player in order to sell the brand here and start with an excellent reputation. My guess is that these flutes are highly variable. Some locations/players (especially those paid to endorse the brand!) may be getting the best of them, while other locations/players get the `duds`.

This latest one I worked on, IMO, definitely should not have left the factory.

I consider such practices, should they exist, as foul. It seemed to be happening here also with a top brand of saxophone, but improved a lot after I reported the state of this brand when they arrived here, in a major sax forum, to the extent that the manufacturer really would have to take notice. Coincidence? Maybe; maybe not.

I tell you, the foul business practices associated with marketing musical instruments are as great, if not greater than, the foul practices associated with marketing motor vehicles, new and used.

While searching for information on Matit carbon fiber flutes (http://www.matitflutes.com) I stumbled upon this tidbit at topwind.

Altus Flutes
These instruments are designed by Mr Shuichi Tanaka and made at the custom built factory at Azumino in Japan. Mr Tanaka has vast experience of flute design and manufacture having spent many years with Muramatsu, Miyazawa, Takumi and K.H.S. Musix (where he was involved in the design of the Jupiter and Di Medici flutes). He was inspired by older instruments, such as the Louis Lot, and, in collaboration with William Bennett, has aimed to produce a modern Japanese flute with a complimentary range of tone, resonance, intonation and accuracy of mechanism.

Any instrument maker could have similar ideals.

What is important is whether he can get a band of workers in a factory to carry out those ideals.

Tanaka more than likely does not make the flutes himself (any more). So the big question is, does he manage to maintain these ideals in those who DO make them. From what I have recently seen, I can say with some certainly, that he may do some times, but definitely not always.

Piko: The Matit flute looks very interesting. Have you had a chance to play one? I could not get the price page to open (could be a flukey thing with my computer?), but I was wondering about the price range.

Is it correctly pronounced "mat it", or "mah tee", or what?

I`ve never played one, but I`ve seen a used one got for around $6500. So it`s priced around other professional flutes. Not sure how to pronounce it though. It`s a very interesting flute.

Don`t they still have one up for sale under the used flutes on the Flute World site? I haven`t checked lately, but I know there was one.

PS. I think those are about the most ugly flute that I have ever seen! They would be interesting to try, but I am not sure that I would ever play on one. It is kind of like one of those flutes with the square keys on them. Yuck!!!

A flute made by men... for men. lol.

It definitely has that "Danish Modern" sort of look to it (regionally close... sort of). It would fit well with the decor from an IKEA store! Angular and stark; moderne yet functional.