I was just wondering, is Amati a good brand of bassoon. I am interested in getting their best one, and it looked like a good price

The current Amati is certainly not the bottom of the pile - every Chinese bassoon I've seen has been far worse. They have improved over recent years - tonally & quality of manufacture

But personally I would still go for a Fox/Renard or one of the German makes - Moosmann, Adler, Monnig, Schreiber - if finances permit. If you are in UK I've heard good reports of Howarth's Academy bassoons (German made). Also the various Takeda (Japanese) models are worth a look - sound good & reasonably priced from what I hear. Hope to try some of these in Frankfurt in a couple of months - will let you know what I think.

Ian

This would be great if you could do it.

In many places it is hard to even try a couple of bassoons.

Try as many as you can and give us a bit of a report

Cheers
JAmes

i'm on a really tight budget, and since the amati is by far the cheapest, i would like to go with that. i just want to know if its okay for a h.s. student

We can't really tell how good the instrument is from here, even if some of us have played on that model. Try it out, see what YOU think, about how well it suits YOU. You don't want to take our word that it's an excellent model, only to buy it and then find out every other note is way out of tune or something.
It sounds good to me, but my advice is to forget what we think and try it yourself.

Just to note: the only time you should reeeally take someone's advice seriously enough to actually buy the instrument is when you see a very experienced professional bassoonist (your teacher perhaps) because they know exactly what to look for in a bassoon. The bassoon i have is an excellent instrument, i like it and sounds lovely, but supposedly it's not really a solo instrument, and is more suited to someone playing 2nd in an orchestra. But if you're only a HS student, then that doesn't really matter.

Just out of interest Ruth88 what do you play on?

I started off on a piece of plastic that didn't really qualify as a bassoon, then went onto a schreiber (can't remember the model, sorry, was a student model though) but when I left school I had to give it back.
Currently I'm borrowing a mollenhauer from my teacher at college until I buy my own. They're not in make anymore, mollenhauer have moved onto making excellent contrabassoons though.

Mollenhauers are good especially the contras! What bassoon do you hope to get, Ruth88

Yeh, I like Molly

I really have no idea, I haven't started looking yet because i don't even know what price range i'm looking for. I'm having second thoughts about the whole 'professional bassoonist' thing, and might drop out of college and go do something else. This makes things complicated, because I don't wanna go and spend 12 grand on a bassoon that i'm not gonna play full time.

Sorry to hear of your change of mind Ruth88.It is something you have to be 100% about. I've had a couple of music college bassoon students in the past change direction.Big decision!

Yeh it's a shame. Haven't completely given up yet though, I'm having problems with my jaw which could be making me feel lethargic about everything, so i'm gonna give it to the end of the year and see how i feel.

You might feel more sprightly in the spring and decide all those morose thoughts were just a figment of your winter blahs, you never know! I wouldn't make a decision quickly because you have moved to a new location just to study music, right?

I can certainly emphasize, tho. But I'm feeling great right now because I've just bought myself a new bassoon (!!). It's acclimating in the front room right now and I'm going to put the reed to the bocal soon and see what I've bought. Can't wait!

Yeh maybe. I'm not gonna be hasty about it, i'm gonna stick it out to the end of the year and see how i feel. It has been really hard - new city, new 'practice' regime, music full time - it's a big adjustment, and to have problems with my jaw is making it a lot harder. But I might feel better when that's all sorted out - my next consultation isn't until 28th of march, so I'm gonna reserve judgement until I 've seen those people.

Oooh, new bassoon! Must be exciting!

It is - I'm having a ball, except the corks are so new it took me half an hour the first night to get the bell joint off. I was so stressed and sweaty I nearly had to leave it on, but finally found an article on the internet about how to rock the joint back and forth (don't twist it, they said) and finally, millimeter by millimeter, it came off. I've been plastering it up but the bell is still way too hard to get off. Guess I'll just have to be patient.

If the corks are that tight, even if the bassoon is new, it ought to be eased as the cork is unlikely to ever compress enough. However careful you are tenons can be easily damaged. Better to take action now than risk an expensive tenon repair job. Either take it back to the store - they should adjust it for you free as it's new - or to a local repairer. Maybe your teacher is competent at this sort of thing.

Ian