alanbach

Just wanted to let everyone know that I am now the very proud owner of an Eclipse Special Edition trumpet. I treated myself to this for my 66th birthday and collected it from Leigh yesterday. Many thanks Leigh for your kind attention and hospitality whilst Sheila and I were at your premises. It was also nice to speak to Noel Langley as well and of course the rest of your team. Good luck for the future ...I'm sure you will go from strength to strength

Tootsall

Alan, sure hope you post a review of that there Eclipse c/w bell/finish details pretty soon and again after you've lived with it a month or so.

wardsd

Alan,
Please give more details. Which number did you get? I have #4 on order right now, and am anxiously awaiting my first pictures of it being built. Which bell did you get? How does it play?

Steve

lonelyangel

What a pleasure it was to meet you Alan and your charming wife Sheila. I hope you had a safe journey back to Wales (it has been very wild and wooly lately in the UK) and that you are enjoying the new horn - what a beauty.

I just happened to be there yesterday showing the Eclipse range to one Toby Coles (1st trumpet in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang at the Palladium). He was particularly taken with the C trumpets, in fact he was utterly amazed - but more of that at a later date.

I had a good chat with Alan and we found that we had something in common. Namely that we both started on cornet in a Salvation Army brass band. That is a heritage we share with Maurice Murphy, Derek Watkins, Henry Lowther, Paul Archibald, Ray Simmons to name but a few. In fact I heard a rumour that Phil Smith started playing this way too - does anybody know? Sounds like the basis for a new thread to me.

Oh sorry, whats that? You want to know about the horn? Well I'll leave the review of his horn to Alan but I will post some notes I made in answer to a private question. I had intended that they might be posted on the Eclipse website at some point - so heres a preview.

The special edition Eclipse has all the qualities shared by the entire range
of horns. Stunning intonation, great stability to the core of the note, very
accurate slotting, free blowing, great projection, even tone across the
range, quick response, wide spectrum of fimbres, great balance and feel in
the hands, matchless craftsmanship in its construction, the best valves in
the business, etc.....

The sound is rich, silky and vibrant (hard to describe sounds using words)
and above all the horn looks absolutely drop dead gorgeous. It adds a really classic twist, harking back to the golden age of trumpets, to the clean, modern and elegant lines of the standard Eclipse range.

The effect of the tone ring is basically to add more stability, warmth and
projection to the sound making the large special edition more of a classical
soloists horn - closer in timbre to the red bells but with some of the agile response of the yellow range.

Just my opinion - hope its of interest. Noel.

Tootsall

You are absolutely correct: Phil Smith started with the Salvation Army and still apparently gets together with them from time to time.

Don't believe me? HA!

Check this out.. http://edition.cnn.com/2001/CAREER/t...yphil.trumpet/

alanbach

I cannot add anything to Noel's comments except say that the members of the big band I play in were absolutely stunned at the beauty of the horn when I played it in rehearsal on Thursday night. If anyone would like a photo of it please let me know. I'm sure it's going to sound even better after a month of "blowing it in"

wardsd

Here is a picture of Alan's Special Edition. It looks gorgeous. His is number 2, mine is on order and is number 4.





Steve[/img]

alanbach

Nice one Steve....how did you do that? The trumpet is great and is drawing admirers wherever I play.....took it to brass band last night and many of them, veteran players like myself, couldn't get over it's beauty and playing characteristics. Thanks again.

wardsd

Well, Alan, I cheated. I was trying to get my personal web space such that I could put it on there and then link it here. I couldn't figure that out, so I used a picture hosting site which allows three free images. The bad news is the image will only be there for 14 days. Maybe I will figure out my personal web space by then... :?

Steve