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I am pleased to announce that we will be making an improved breath pipe available for Alpha owners at some point in the next few months. We worked on this last year, developing and testing, and are now midway through the production process. The reason for this upgrade is to improve the responsiveness of the Alpha breath pipe - the Mk 1 version is slower to respond than we like and is not as nice to play as a Pico. The new version improves this substantially.

For the technically minded, we are changing the inner coating material on the tube from an epoxy (of the kind used to line drinks cans) to a coating of nickel. The coating is there to prevent the aluminium tube from corroding. This new coating is harder to do but results in a much thinner coat and leaves more room for the static pressure path to reach the breath sensor, resulting in a noticeably improved responsiveness, particularly to transients like toungeing.

The new style pipe was tested by Geert Bevin, who used it for some months. It was then sectioned to evaluate the corrosion resistance of the nickel by comparison to the epoxy (corrosion was the big issue in that system, one we had a lot of problems with in early instruments), which was good.

The reason for this post, which is well in advance of you being able to actually purchase one, is to canvass you all as to how many people will want one, and more importantly in which finish. We will not be doing any rhodium pipes (this metal has simply become way too expensive), so players with rhodium instruments will have to use silver (which does actually look fine with rhodium if you keep it polished), but I need to have some idea of how many gold and silver pipes to have made before they go off for exterior plating. Gold will be more expensive than silver by around thirty pounds, and the overall cost will be not much more (within 30%) than the current breath pipe price as a base.

If you are likely to want one of these, please post here to let us know, including your preferred finish) as soon as possible as I really don't want to make too few of either and disappoint anyone.

John

Put me down for a gold finish too. Ever since I had to send back the test version, I've been yearning for the production to start of the final version. This new design finally made the breath pipe as expressive as the keys for me.

Hi John,
I may be interested in a silver one, but the thing that would really sell it to me is if there was the possibility to tweak the shape. If I could get one that was the same shape in the top portion, but the lower end was about 2-3 inches shorter (essentially removing the straight bit directly behind where the mouthpiece attaches currently) then I'd be turning cartwheels down the street when it was delivered. Is there any likelihood of this, or is it 'one size fits all'?

Best wishes,
Mark.

I have a maple alpha. I'd be up for whichever version looks best with it.

Hi Antonio, Mark

I'm afraid the existing pipe cannot be reused - the new plating process is both very corrosive (which would destroy the existing external plating) and at the same time needs a clean inside to the tube, which is currently coated with a very tough epoxy which would be very hard to remove. We need to start the process with a clean, new aluminium pipe, sadly.

Regarding shortening the pipe, that is possible if it just involves chopping a bit off. The pipes have already been formed so the shape cannot be modified (and the jig to make that shape is specific and as a consequence expensive to change) but lopping a section off is probably doable as they are not assembled until after plating, which has not happened yet. What exactly do you have in mind?

John

I'm in for silver.

Hi Mark

Changing the length of the pipe will have no effect on turbulence as the whole design (which samples the pressure in your mouth cavity directly, before any turbulent flow can occur) prevents that. Making the pipe shorter can only make it more sensitive, though an inch or two won't make that much difference either way.

I'll try and get the final price sorted out in the next week or so and we'll make it available on the website for pre-order. You will have to buy one well before they'll be ready for shipping if you'd like us to try and shorten it for you, and the usual caveats apply - you will have to live with what is made as it'll only be made for yourself and if you end up not liking it then this will be an expensive venture for you as I'm afraid refunds won't be possible. So please be sure of what you want. Bear in mind that we can only fit the spigots on straight sections of pipe, so you cannot shorten it into a bend.

Prices should be below £150.

John

Put me down for a gold. And I'm with MarkPowell in strongly wishing for a shorter horizontal dimension (total horizontal offset) between the socket and the mouthpiece, as this would allow me to hold the instrument more vertically, which would definitely improve ease of left-hand fingering.

Thanks for continuing to make improvements.

Justin Dune

Having now got my Alpha, Im up for one in Silver.

Would it be possible to wait for some feedback from others re shortening of pipe?
It would also allow me to have a bit of time getting used to the Alpha and pipe as it is now, so I can work out if these is a change that would benefit me or not.

Thanks
Mark