S42L "Faddis" model trumpet
- Schilke S42 (M bore, ML bell)
- Tunable bell
- Heavyweight caps
- Custom rounded tuning slide with brace and
- No water keys on the tuning or the third valve slide.
Would you recommend the horn? Yes |
Price you paid?: $2,500.00
| Rating: 10
Pros:
great slots, easy to play, great fit & finish
Cons:
probably not an orchestral horn
after 33 years of playing bachs (ml37 & L25) and olds, I found a truly great niche horn. I play this in R&B groups, big bands and jazz combos. the tone can go from peel the paint screaming lead to commercial jazz easily.
Fit & finish is a dream, valves are smooth. I would not reccommend this as an all around horn -- for classical Bb I'd probably stick with my bachs, but that's just my opinion.
bcpietsch Junior Member
Registered: February 2009 Location: Boston, MA Posts: 8
Review Date: 4/22/2009
Would you recommend the horn? Yes |
Price you paid?: $2,329.97
| Rating: 10
Pros:
Aweseome responsveness and a SOUND as pure as the driven snow w or w/o condenser microphone.-A GREAT LEAD HORN--would not have expected less from FADDIS OR SCHILKE
Cons:
WATER KEYS are Non-existent to slide that tuning slide out and pour your "water" into a polishing rag I guess?
THIS IS THE HORN THAT COULD CHANGE YOUR LIFE. Well maybe not "you" as I have practiced a solid 3 years to get my chops back and my improv up to high F on a regular basis 10 minutes into play and 3 hous later after playing songs and improvising for a while.
I use both the Faddis XL Schilke mouth piece and a great dual mouth peice from "Parduba". No delusions of grandeur here- I will never play like Faddis. but I can DO WHAT I DO with this horn better than I can on almost any other horn I have tried--this one just is a cut above most horns i have seen and felt and played- as a non career older returning musician playing as a come back player where one is doing it PURELY for the fun of playing itself....
changes the ENTIRE EQUATION---the Faddis horn is just the icing on the cake of having worked out for a couple years....like a runner gets a great pair of ASICS before a 10k or something.
I could play well on several horns but this horn is the magic one....just is....it is speced out to make a mechanical engineer really salivate---the irony being there are NO WATER KEYS!! Maddening litttle thing that makes you know Faddis is an eccentric...ashamed to empty that spit valve? Air flow interference is a laughable justification to not have an easy way to blow out the horn...alas...
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The medium lead pipe at first worried me as I like "Free blowing'" horns normally....but I can blow myself out on my Flugel --i mean free blowing in some cases is an excuse for lack of disciplined playing,,,the medium pipe saves a lot of air and so the horn gives you some long distance stamina--i like having both a medium and a ML horn--BTW the spec says this has a .460 BORE-WRONG its a M bore and a .451 which saves a lot of air on high notes and adds to your stamina quite q bit -i had only played ML bore horns before but quickly liked it actually..it makes sense to me to have both a big and a medium horn to turn to in different situation but make no mistake, I would choose this as my all around horn as well. I can not speak for blending into a section as the only time I sit in a section is for 2 days a year in marching band
You can not find this projection and tone and speed on any horn that i have tried at least in this price range..so i bought it anyway..
Its been a great addition and it made me realize there were newer better horns being made out there--but that there was still may be a "holy grail" horn out there...Monettes will have to wait til my next inheritance which will need to be considerably larger.
...I know I can never play near as well as Jon but as soon as I got this horn and the killer Schilke Faddis mouth piece ZAMMO...I never heard an attack on my horn like this before--soars like an eagle. I never bought a mouth piece based on another player as size would seem silly as an issue= XL one size fits all?---what odds it would fit my embouchure? well it FIT perfectly and was better than my Jet Tone Studio Model A or C- a long legacy story. I have actually found some success mixing a Parduba 5 dual cup mouthpiece, which seems to give a leg up on the higher notes....tried many Schilkes but they require pure muscle..
The Schilke horn is slots tight and perfect as can be-it does NOT slot as easily as the Yamaha but its way clearer and superior in responsiveness, projection, tone (give myself credit hear but the horn takes at least 1/2) it is a class above anything i have ever played including my old favorite horn a Bach 72 (it is a way different horn than that open blower though.
I like having this horn as its tighter for classical or jazz "attacks" on lead, Seems weird to keep 2 horns but it works for me (if I ever touch the Yamah again--now I know how polygamist number one wife feels!) ..Its bit harder to play than the Yamaha, not as free blowing, but its like a Beemer is to sports cars, you can not put it down, YOU NEED TO LISTEN TO THE ROAD SO TO SPEAK and the back pressure tells you when you are wasting dissplaced air trying ot FORCE a high note---some times if I was more tired that might annoy me but not on this horn....its what I had hoped I would find the newer Bach Strads to play like but that was not my experience,
Its a really interesting piece of engineering and it seems to me that Schilke may be the best engineered horns out there right nowin the price range of the average pro..still grinning like the Chesire cat-surprised so few reviews on this horn man....
maybe the water keys are a turn off for many..this is a good company...and a solid horn..
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