[barissimosaxe]

i have just started putting on jim schmidts gold flute pads on my haynes. i have only installed the three on the foot joint, the thumb key and the three glue in trill pads. WOW! what a difference already! the flute rings and dances on my fingertips. its ballsy and gutsy. plays easily right up thru the third octave. my family noticed the difference right away and commented on it, altho i didnt tell them what i was doing. this mod is worth it already.
jon

 

[Gordon (NZ)]

I hate to say it, but that either says little for the state of the pads and/or their adjustment prior to your changing them, or says a lot about the power of your mind over the way you play.

The brand or style of firm, good-quality pads is almost totally irrelevant to how a well adjusted flute plays.

Well I guess that is based on my fairly extensive experience, and I believe, backed up by acoustic science.

 

[Stephen Howard]

I agree - even if there were some advantage in using a certain type of pad it's not going to show when only half a dozen have been replaced.
But curing a single leak will result in a huge payoff.

Regards,

 

[dzve]

yes thats true but I love these pads & to me they do sound different.

 

[Gordon (NZ)]

Perhaps you'd love Star LP pads just as much.
Perhaps you'd love Kraus ultra-thin but conventional pad replacments for Straubingers just as much.
Perhaps you'd love better sealing pads of any sort, just as much.

I suspect you are in a bubble of placing far too much credit on the pads themselves. (That sort of bubble tends to happen with humans when they have paid a lot for something.)

 

[kymarto]

Really, on a flute there is so little exposed pad surface, that I find it hard to imagine it making much difference. It would be interesting to run some blind tests and see the result.

 

[dzve]

Well I do love the pisoni star pads, I do like the kraus thin pads, & I do love the straubinger pads & I do love the gold schmidt pads as well..........I did a sankyo with the star pads & it played differently, did a powell with the straubinger pads & it played much better( had lucien delux in it!!) & I have to believe what my ears are telling me......

 

[dzve]

The older pads were sealing but the amount of time spent installing & preparing the flute is considerable, still once they were in I couldn't believe how good the flutes responded.......

 

[JButky]

The older pads were sealing but the amount of time spent installing & preparing the flute is considerable, still once they were in I couldn't believe how good the flutes responded.......

So you did all that work to the flute and somehow you think the pad is the factor for how the flute responds now?????

Joe B

 

[dzve]

No thats not what I am trying to say, so please lighten up on me here. I feel you & gordon often are putting down what I contribute & it ends up not being a discussion but a form of bullying........

 

[JButky]

No thats not what I am trying to say, so please lighten up on me here. I feel you & gordon often are putting down what I contribute & it ends up not being a discussion but a form of bullying........

Hardly Dirk,

You are not giving yourself enough credit. You do all this work to make a flute play better and then tell us that the pads sounds great??? We're pointing out that you should give yourself some credit for all the prep work you do to make the flute play better rather than giving credit to the pad. That is hardly bullying..

Joe B

 

[Gordon (NZ)]

My sentiments too.

 

[dzve]

I'm sorry gents, I would like retract myt staement as I have respect for your work & have listended to your posts over the years.I was being ultra defensive.Apologies....

 

[kymarto]

You have to ask yourself what physical mechanism is responsible for what you are experiencing. What has changed to make you comment on the improved response?

There are two aspects to consider: attack and steady state. The attack is basically about how the note develops and the steady state is what happens after the note is sounding.

In the steady state, the pressure wave is pulsing against the walls, and a huge amount of energy is being lost at that interface as the air molecules transfer energy to the walls themselves. There are basically two types of losses: one is when the molecules are slowed down by viscous losses at the boundary layer. Here smoothness is the main determinant: the rougher the surface, the greater the losses.

Then there is energy transferred as the walls flex. The more rigid the material, the less energy is lost flexing the walls.

With pads, both these factors are important, but there really is not so much difference between good pads in this regard. Leather and bladder are quite different in terms of smoothness, but the smoothness of flute pads is similar. And there is actually not much pad surface exposed in a flute with washers or perforated keys. Even with a bore made of wood as compared to a smooth metal bore, the extra losses are only about 2dB, just on the edge of perception.

Pad flexibility is a dance: you want the pad as stiff as possible, but it also has to seal properly on the chimney. To soft and you increase losses (although to what extent and whether it is really significant I don't know). Further the finger feel will be compromised. Too hard and it will take too much pressure to seal properly.

This is a point not to be taken lightly, if you'll excuse the pun, and it concerns the attack and its relation to the perception of response. I'm pretty sure that if you simply measure the steady-state sound, you will find little difference between pads in terms of timbre, dynamic range possibilities, etc. instead, so much depends on how the note pops out when the key is depressed, how many milliseconds and how much pressure it takes to seat properly. This is, I think, what really defines "response". A light touch leading to clean "articulation" is what really makes a flute feel alive, regardless of the final steady-state sound of the note sounding.

So while the quality of the pad matters in terms of flatness and springiness, the most important thing is that it seal quickly and cleanly, and you should give yourself the credit for seating those pads properly. And of course even micro leaks add up quickly to kill both the attack and the steady-state sound, and eliminating those will make a dramatic difference, no matter which pads you are using.

 

[adamk]

That does it. I'm taking my flute in for a check-up. It's only been 13 years (since I bought it new). I do lubricate the key mechanism though.

 

[daigle65]

Yeah, you need to bring it in for a check up every decade or so :bluewink:

A flute is just as susceptible to leaks as a sax, you just don't notice it as much because of the low resistance.

 

[barissimosaxe]

just a little update for you, and some clarification. my computer crashed and i lost all my data - or i cant access it anyway, so i couldnt post. for some reason i couldnt get the administration of sotw to send me my password, on m y new computer, so i reregistered under a similar name - i used to be BARISSIMOSAX - now im barissimosaxe.

i know that many of you think that the reason my flute sounds better is because of the sealing of the new pads. you might be right, and im sure that you are convinced that you are, but this entails accepting the following propositions:

you see, im a self-trained sax repairman, and i only work on my own saxophones. i have never worked on another persons saxophones, i have never studied repairing with anyone else, and i have never been to repair school. thus you are ascribing an amazing ability to me to do what many of you have been doing for much longer and in more detail. secondly i have NEVER worked on a flute. as such, this is my first flute repad job. so for this assumption to work, you have to assume that a person that has limited saxophone repair experience, has never overhauled a saxophone, and is now attempting to repad a flute for the first time can achieve a better result than that which was present.

in addition you have to deal with the fact that my leak light (a rope christmas tree string) showed leaks on several pads that i replaced - AND STILL DOES. i can see that my repad job is far from ideal - every pad (almost) that i repadded has a leak. thus you have to assume that i did an awesome job repadding in spite of the evidence to the contrary.

OR you can assume that this is a case of cognitive dissonance reduction, which it might very well be, however i have received MANY comments since my partial repadding on how good my flute sounds. before repadding, i only occasionally received such comments. those doing the commenting on my flute tone didnt know that i had partially repadded it - they were just other musicians that were impressed with how i sounded - not technicians that would understand the minutia of flute technology.

now altho it might very well be the case that i am from suffering cognitive dissonance reduction, i dont believe it to be because i spent massive amounts of money on my pads. you see, while it might seem to you that $175 is a lot for a pad set, from my way of thinking it is quite cheap. i have spent a lot of money for technicians to play around with my soprano and not fix a thing (and then some of them had the audacity to blame my playing technique),when in reality the fix was very simple and i figured it out laying in bed pondering the problem. now, if i can fix the problem, i who have never had any training, then what is their excuse? so anyway, as i see it, $175 is cheap for a repad.

then it is argued that only a few pads could not have had such an effect on the sound, but remember that these were mostly the upper pads, and everyone assumed that the headjoint of a flute or the neck of a saxophone is so VERY important to the sound, but somehow the upper pads are not more important for the sound than the lower pads? oh well.

now, finally, i find it quite amusing that just about anywhere you go on this forum, you will find voluminous discussions about the differences between one sax and another, one flute or another, one mouthpiece or another, even the differences between one era of mark VI and another, and i have NEVER found a post in which anyone disputed these differences. a micro difference between one brass tube and another is assumed and never disputed to have a MAJOR difference in the sound of the saxophone, but when we discuss MAJOR differences between a metallic pad and a bladder pad (or MAJOR differences between a leather pad with a small resonator and a leather pad with a giant oversized resonator) we find voluminous posters armed with "scientific" evidence coming out and attacking any and all that report their own experiences to the contrary.

in summary major material differences are reputed to have no difference in sound, but minute differences in shape are assumed to have major differences in sound. it could be that this is true, but it has not been my experience.

since Christmas is now over, i can resume repadding my flute, because i didnt want to repad it and mess it up as i had gigs over Christmas. i will report back to you all if i find any other differences when my flute is completely repadded.
jon

 

[Harri Rautiainen]

just a little update for you, and some clarification. my computer crashed and i lost all my data - or i cant access it anyway, so i couldnt post. for some reason i couldnt get the administration of sotw to send me my password, on m y new computer, so i reregistered under a similar name - i used to be BARISSIMOSAX - now im barissimosaxe.
[.....]
jon

Your old account merged to 'barissimosaxe'. Happy New Year,

 

[Gordon (NZ)]

...in addition you have to deal with the fact that my leak light (a rope christmas tree string) showed leaks on several pads that i replaced - AND STILL DOES. i can see that my repad job is far from ideal - every pad (almost) that i repadded has a leak. thus you have to assume that i did an awesome job repadding in spite of the evidence to the contrary....

If it leaked before and it leaks now, then IMO it would be really silly to attribute any improvement to a surface coating on the membrane of the pads. What has improved the flute is reduction of some significant leaks. If the coating on the pads contributes to the sound then that would be so slight that it would be noticeable only if all other important factors such as leaks were eliminated. By comparison, leaks make a massive difference to a flute.

"in summary major material differences are reputed to have no difference in sound, but minute differences in shape are assumed to have major differences in sound. it could be that this is true, but it has not been my experience."

We have enough scientific knowledge to be able to claim that the earth is not flat. Likewise, there is a heap of scientific knowledge about what is true and what is not regarding the acoustics of a musical instrument. It seems you are suggesting that we should ignore that, in preference to accepting that a leaking flute which now has different and presumably fewer leaks, plays better on account of the pad membrane coating? That is like saying that lacquering a leaking saxophone is responsible for making it sound better, even though you have altered but not removed the leaks.

You will always get a bite from me if you promote voodoo in this forum.

 

[barissimosaxe]

You will always get a bite from me if you promote voodoo in this forum.

what am i promoting? i have no financial or personal interest in mr schmidts flute pads. i have just shared my personal observations. are my observations voodoo? what would i have to gain from sharing my personal experience? i have found that reducing complex phenomenon to simplistic formulas results in distortion of reality - altho sticking things in neat boxes appeals to the sensibilities of many. there are many instances where "scientific" dogma is later to be shown to be just that - dogma not science. perhaps a little humility is in order when we discuss perceptions of musical reality.
jon