very good new flutes for very low prices

[muzejazz]

The company known as CE Winds has recently arrived into the flute market with a very nicely made concert flute, Series I, which is now being sold at clearance prices on ebay, and directly through their web site. They're very well made student and professional flutes being sold at clearance prices. The response and playability of their flutes is remarkably good, especially considering the cost, since the reliability and customer satisfaction record of this company is becoming more and more well-respected. Check them out and you'll be surprised!

[Phineas]

I have heard a lot of good things about Chris Elliott Saxes, and own a couple of his sax mouthpieces. I have heard mixed reviews on his flutes. One of these days I will have to check one out.

I know CE Winds is a reputable outfit, at least worth taking a chance on. However, the flute community is a hard nut to crack!

Good luck!

Phineas

[muzejazz]

Phineas,

Thanks for your positive spin. I'm not interested in "cracking any nuts", nor convincing anyone of anything. I just know how well these play for an inexpensive flute. As I mentioned before, there is one listed on ebay, and the purchaser will make that decision for themselves. I am just here to let those who may be interested know about it. As the C.E. Winds Flute Rep., and private technician, I'll make sure these go out playing as well as possible. The proof's in the pudding, so if it plays and sounds good, that's good enough for me.

best regards,

Daniel

[pied_piper]

Daniel,

To expound on what Phineas has written, flutists (particularly classical flutists) tend to be very sceptical of flute brands that are unknown to them. They also tend toward a "herd" mentality. By that, I mean that many flutists want to play what everyone else is playing. For some, there is a certain amount of elitism: "I play a XXXXXXX flute! You play WHAT? I've never heard of that. You must not be very good."

If you really have a good product, the best advise I can offer is to get several unbiased reviews/testimonials from university professors or well known flute artists. I don't mean that to disrespect you; I looked at the CE website and read your very impressive credentials. It's just that a jazz or non-classical background, regardless of how impressive, won't be very influential with the classical crowd.

The other thing I see is that on the CE website, you have a good variety of saxophones and it would help to offer more than a single flute model. At this point, I assume that CE is probably trying to be cautious and get a foot in the door, so to speak. I see that CE offers a lot of different sax necks and mouthpieces. To impress the flute community, you should consider offering several different flute headjoints with different cuts and allow a choice of cut to be selected with a flute purchase (or exchanged for a different one within a week or two of purchase). At the very least, a solid sterling silver headjoint should be an option (at extra cost of course). Headjoints are like shoes (and sax mouthpieces) - one size (cut, material) does not fit all.

My last suggestion is for CE to have a booth at various flute events so that flutists can get a hands-on trial. The most obvious place would be the NFA convention. That would help to get the CE name out there for consideration. There are also a lot of regional events, flute fairs, music educators conferences, etc. CE's participation in those would further your goals.

Anyway, if I see a CE flute or sax around (I'm a doubler), I'll look forward to trying them.
Bob

[muzejazz]

Hi Bob,

Many thanks for your informative and excellent input about the CE Winds flutes, and the flute community. Yes, we are trying to establish a good reputation and the first batch of flutes made for them should help to develop that awareness. I, myself, am trained as a woodwind player for many years, won the faculty award at Berklee, where I studied with the best woodwind teachers, Joseph Viola (sax and oboe), Andre Lizotte (clarinet), and Ellie Preble (flutist in the Boston Symphony and the Pops for many years), and also Joe Allard in his last semesters teaching at N.E.C. in Boston, as I was earning my Master's Degree in Jazz Studies, 1988.

I know what I'm doing as an accomplished woodwind performer (chose not to use the term doubler a long time ago, if I'm playing it, it's my own abilities and techniques on that instrument primarily, and I suggest you adopt the same attitude, for your own benefit). I am in the Lincoln Center Archives playing flute, piccolo, oboe, English horn, and clarinet for an original show called The Game, which was recorded for the archives in 2002. So, I feel I've arrived and don't need to prove anything to anybody, since I have already proven it to myself. And, I can recognize good value when I see (or play) one.

Thanks for letting me toot my own horn(s)!

AND, hats off to the fluteland forum! BRAVO!!!

Daniel
www.klimoski-music.com

[Phineas]

Daniel

Well, I just placed a bid on one of your flutes on Ebay. If I win it, I will post my results.

Also, my response to you was not meant to put you or CE Winds on the spot. Quite the contrary. I ran into a discussion on another flute board bashing CE Wind's flutes without even trying them. I was just trying to give you a heads up, as well as expose the good reputation of CE Winds as a company.

Welcome to the board!

Phineas

[CE Winds]

Thanks to everyone for the awesome feedback.

We have also learned that the flute playing community can be a tough crowd, which gave us even more reason to make sure we had a solid product and the right credentials before we ever marketed our first flute. (which it didn't stop the critics... lol) The same strategy applies to our saxophone line, where we see a 30% or higher repeat customer ratio. People buy one because of the price and reputation, and buy more or refer others because of the quality and service.

We have worked hard building our solid reputation in the saxophone world, and hope to continue to build our reputation amongst flute players. It is important that we gain the trust of both professionals and educators with a quality student/intermediate flute, and that is something that is earned and not given. We have other products available but we are being patient with their launch and careful to not move faster than we can manage. This is one reason we brought in Daniel to oversee the flute division, who was first a saxophone customer that we then asked his feedback on several products we wanted to launch, because of his credentials and abilities as a professional musician.

We plan to attend some trade shows and events around the country once we are fully ready and have a more extensive line. We have also sent products to some great players worldwide for demo purposes as well, so that way we could gain their feedback and apply it into the development. The bottom line is, we want to have the best product made at a cost that most could afford. The issue we always face is being associated with companies that don't care about the player, only the profit. We are not that company, I can assure you.

Thanks again for your feedback and suggestions. This is why we love the music community and are glad to be able to give back.

Peace,

Brian
CE Winds

[pied_piper]

Brian,

It's good to hear the CE is a company that cares about it's customers. Most of the companies that specialize in handmade pro flutes, seem to work hard to please their customers, so if you follow that model, you are in good company (pardon the poor pun). Some of the student and intermediate flute makers seem to have lost touch with the goal of customer service and providing good value.

If I may, I'll make one other suggestion that can win you a lot of friends...
Be sure that you introduce yourselves to the band instrument repair industry. A lot of independent repair techs carry a great deal of influence and often recommend instruments to their customers. If you want them in your corner, readily available repair parts will be an important consideration. I'm a part-time repair tech and I participate in a private repair tech forum. One of the most common complaints that I hear from other techs is that replacement parts are not readily available or are extraordinarily over-priced. I frequently experience and hear stories from others of having to wait for months to get parts from the manufacturers and often having to pay absurd prices for them. These comments are directed at not only the big instrument makers but also to many of the off-brand Asian instruments sold on eBay. Some techs refuse to work on the off-brands because there is no source for parts other than generic pads and corks. For example, if an off-brand flute comes in that lost a pivot screw, it's next to impossible to get replacements. For flutes, lost pivots and crowns are common occurrences. The cost to fabricate or adapt a replacement is often more than the value of the instrument, making them disposable instruments.

So, I hope that CE will do a better job of supplying repair parts than some of the other OEMs. If you deliver quality instruments, supply a parts catalog, and provide prompt parts order fulfillment at a fair price, you will find many friends and promoters within the instrument repair community. You should consider setting up a booth at the national or regional conferences of the National Association of Professional Band Instrument Repair Technicians (www.napbirt.org) and get to know these folks.

Regards,
Bob

[muzejazz]

Hey Bob,

Many thanks for your greatly appreciated input! We are doing our best to make sure that all of the various elements of the modern flute and flute repairs are understood by each other, and your post to Brian is a good example of how this may happen. The voice of community should never be ignored nor under-estimated.

f.y.i...
uh-oh somebody gave a flute player a screwdriver, so we'd better call in the reinforcements (shims)...

Happy Father's Day,
Daniel

[muzejazz]

Hey Phineas,

just to say the Hubert Laws album Wild Flower was always one on my favorites right from the 1st time I heard it...

best regards
Daniel

[Phineas]

Hey Phineas,

just to say the Hubert Laws album Wild Flower was always one on my favorites right from the 1st time I heard it...

best regards
Daniel

Dan

Flash back! Yoruba was my favorite tune on that album. Another favorite of my was "Summer of 75" Which encouraged me to play jazz piccolo!

Thanks for the memories!
Phineas

[Donald Morgan]

Daniel: I also just placed a bid on one of your flutes. In fact, I first learned about your new flutes on this board. So, like Phineas, if I win the bid, I will advise. By nature, I'm suspecious and one of the first thoughts that came into my mind was, "at those prices, they must be skimpping on something, I wonder what it is?" Your comments and dedication to your product was the deciding factor, even though I realize that in todays world people will say and do just about anything to sell their product. If I win I'll give a full report.
Cheers,
Don.

[CE Winds]

Hey Donald,

Hope you won a flute.

It's funny, RE you comment on "if they are so inexpensive, they can't be good".

We went to the Colorado Bandmasters event last month and met with 5 teachers at a private round table who pretty much were sceptics and said the same thing. 4 of the 5 were saxophone players, then woodwind players, one was a percussionist, all were teachers. 3 volunteered to come and try out our saxophones, flutes, and clarinets (knowing the prices) and said that it was unbelievable that a company would sell instruments like these at those low prices. They all agreed that they COULD be sold for more, but we as a company stand behind the principle that EVERYONE should be able to afford a great instrument without spending a great amount of money.

Our focus has been in customer service, product development, and finding ways to keep prices low and quality high. It has been a huge success.

We will be launching our clarinet and trumpet sometime this year. They are in the final stages of testing, and our flutes are beginning to catch on as an affordable, high quality option for musicians.

Please let us know your thoughts when you get it, we want to continue to develop our flute division and ALL feedback is greatly appreciated.

Regards,

Brian
CE Winds

[CE Winds]

Hey Bob (pied_piper),

I missed your reply... I thought that I would be emailed when a reply was given... I will now.

With our saxophone division, we do supply replacement parts, but rarely have needed any, other than a roller here and there, or thumbrest, etc... nothing major. Honestly though, people make this BIG deal about replacement parts, but honestly, for the most part, it is a very minor issue among saxophone players and techs. Selmer doesn't make replacement parts readily available (especially for vintage instruments), Yamaha is better about it, but they are very expensive... but for the most part, I feel techs very rarely see a need for replacement parts, and I hope the case is also that way on flutes. Here is our reason:

a) The flute (or any other instrument) should be built well enough that it should not have an issue where it needs new 'vital' parts (other than springs, pads, corks, etc) anytime during it's lifetime. A very small percentage of instruments need replacement parts in their lifetime.

b) if it happens to be built where an issue 'should' come up, hopefully it can be caught in the QC department.

c) If it is not caught in the QC department and the player notices they are having an issue, and a tech sees the issue and can clearly explain what needs to be done, we would almost rather replace the entire instrument (unless it is a simple repair) for the person because we don't want them to have an issue at a later point (especially after the warranty period is over)

I completely understand what you are saying, but the good thing is that we hope that techs ONLY see our instruments during pad replacements, spring replacements or adjustments, etc, etc.

Now if they instrument is damaged (by the owner or something else) and needs parts, then most likely it IS less expensive for them to just buy a new one, or a new body tube, or foot joint, or head joint, and that is easily done, probably much easier than repairing.

Hope this helps you understand our business a little more... and thank you for continued feedback.

Brian
CE Winds

[pied_piper]

Brian,

Thanks for the response. I hear what you are saying about QC catching defective parts and that you only had to supply occasional replacement parts. However, QC was not the point of my comments.

In the real world of school kids, they often manage to find ways to lose parts of instruments or damage them. Some repair techs even say that band instruments are the real victims of child abuse.

For example, with flutes, a lost pivot screw or a badly damaged head joint are common. For saxes, lost/damaged necks, lost pivots, and lost/damaged key guards/screws are common. If these and some other common replacement parts are available, then it makes sense to repair.

For major damage, it probably would be cheaper to replace the instrument. But also, a low cost flute or sax would never be repadded because in many cases, a quality repad job can cost as much or more than a cheap new instrument. Effectively, that makes the life of your instruments equal to the life of the pads. This is unfortunately a reflection of our "throwaway" mentality in today's society which is the result of cheap imports. As a private music teacher (and former band director), I would never recommend an instrument unless at least these basic repair parts are READILY AND EASILY available. It would be hard to explain to a parent that they have to discard their child's instrument (which cost several hundred dollars) and buy another one just because of a lost $2 pivot screw. I've been to your web site and I can find no links for support, warranty repair, or repair parts. If I've overlooked them, please point them out.

Regarding your message to Donald, here's a problem that you may encounter with school sales. With the recent economic and budget problems, school band directors are hurting for money. Frequently, they get some money for maintenance and repairs of existing instruments but get little or no funding for new instruments. This is because maintenance costs and capital expenditures often come from different "pots" of money. This could impact your business model at least until the economy turns around.

Bob