Nartiss alto sackbut

[heinzgries]

Nartiss alto sackbut.
Any experience ?

[Neo Bri]

Never heard of them. I'm curious, too.

[harrisonreed]

Supposedly pretty bad.

[BGuttman]

LeTromboniste gave a nice evaluation of the Nartiss. Don't remember if it was on TTF, here before the reorg, or current. Net was that it was better than a "hackbut" and the Wessex, and not the worst sackbut he ever played, but not very competent. Certainly not good enough to try to play in a serious early music ensemble. But a lot cheaper than a decent Egger.

[LeTromboniste]

LeTromboniste gave a nice evaluation of the Nartiss. Don't remember if it was on TTF, here before the reorg, or current. Net was that it was better than a "hackbut" and the Wessex, and not the worst sackbut he ever played, but not very competent. Certainly not good enough to try to play in a serious early music ensemble. But a lot cheaper than a decent Egger.

I think that was on TTF but it should show up in the archives. Anyway, I'll repeat my impressions :

I tried several Nartiss tenors and inspected an alto (despite being brand new it was not in playing condition so I couldn't test it, more on that lower). My impression was that it was a better sackbut than I expected, in that contrary to the Wessex and most hackbuts, with a proper mouthpiece (the mouthpiece that comes with it can go straight to the junkyard) and with some effort, an experienced sackbut player can actually make it sound good. I doubt a beginner sackbut player will get anywhere with it, as getting it to sound good requires already knowing what a sackbut should sound like and having a very clear concept of sound and style. If you're experienced then you might succeed, but it'll drain all your focus and energy just to make it sound somewhat good, away from focusing on making good music. For a beginner it would limit them in their learning already after just a few months. The feedback you get from the instrument is very important in learning historical instruments : the instrument should tell you how it wants to be played an define your playing almost as much (or more) as you should tell it how to sound.

On the other hand the craftsmanship and general quality was much, much worse than I expected. All the ones I tried were brand new (most were literally still in the plastic wrap inside the case), and all but one presented severe issues. One had deep, wide, long groves/scratches on the inner which made the slide very rough. One slide was so badly assembled that it wouldn't fall off the horn when held vertically. The alto as I said was unplayable : the maker had put the wrong water key on it (too long, the lever overshot the hole so it wouldn't close). That tells a lot about the care (or lack thereof) of the build quality and the total absence of quality control and testing. Looking down the mouthpiece receiver of the alto, one could see that the entrance to the top inner slide tube was completely deformed and was closer to being square than being round.

I would advice to stay as far away from them as you can. If you're an experienced player, could test them first to choose a "good" one AND could get a major discount, then maybe it's worth it, otherwise it really isn't. They aren't even that cheap to start with. I don't know about you, but I don't really care if it's good at being a sackbut - if it's that badly built, it's not worth 1000$ of my money anyway!