Posted by Klaus on August 02, 2001 at 18:01:45:
In Reply to: Question for BBSers from Germany posted by DS on August 02, 2001 at 16:26:50:
Let us be honest! I actually have been to a German factory to fetch instruments for myself. I am within a very close circle of VIP customers at one or two music stores in my own country. In one of these shops I have had that status since about 30 years.
This shop could not tend to my very customized needs (partially regarding guarantee repairs of an extraordinairy instrument), so I was sent off to the German factory.
The lesson learned was this:
Instrument factories are into the game for profit. You will only be allowed to talk to instrument techs, if you either are:
a: a designer of that instrument,
b: a world class soloist,
c: and as in my case: a music teacher who bought dozens of instruments from that factory for my musicschool students. And who had been treated with a so bad guarantee repair (at the factory) of my own new solo instrument, that I thought of getting another supplier.
If you are only a very talented guy, or if you can not show a copy of a very persuasive letter of introduction from your national dealer. Which letter has to be sent in advance to the factory. Then you can forget about being allowed to use the time of the factory staff. Unless the factory has an outlet close to the factory. Like Amati/Cerveny. And even that shop does not carry the full production line in stock. Especially not in tubas and helicons. Yes, I have researched that!
When I went to the German factory mentioned first, their top instrument builder used an hour to try to correct a crucial octave-turned-into-a minor-ninth-by-the-guarantee-repair. He then ordered a new instrument to be given to me for free. I got a dozen to choose from. Got a good one, which I nonetheless did not start to use for solos until 2 years later. It could not dim the memory of the original instrument. Hard luck for me. The good side of the story is, that I still, decades later, have that replacement instrument. I might eventually get used to it.
Back to my original point: because the factory was not exactly proud of the treatment they had given me regarding the guarantee repair, I was allowed to buy yet another instrument of a larger size. And to choose it from the full factory stock, I think out of 3 specimens. And to use the factory tech lab with all its array of stroboscopic tuning meters. I even got a crash course in how to modify the default tuning of their instruments. They had biases different from mine.
When I left the factory, I wanted to pay the new instrument in cash DM’s. No way! They did not want to cut the legs off their importers’ businesses.
Due to the letter of introduction they handed out that instrument without actual payment and asked me to pay it when I came back to the dealership in my own country. Of course I did so.
Times might have been a-changing. But I have more updated knowledge, that they have not. Only I would have to give away persons active in businesses of to day. But in turn I might endanger my selected-VIP status within parts of the local brass/WW business. And as a retiree I am no longer that much of a player, that I can reclaim such a status if it is lost.
As even as the Joe-well-above-average you will not allowed to cut a deal by visiting any serious factory.
Have I been swashbuckling? Of course, and I will go on for a short while:
As a collector I wanted, only a few years ago, to buy an instrument close to the first band instrument I ever played. I wrote the factory and asked, whether they would change the wrap of the instrument in question (to obtain slide pulling opptions). They would, but they demanded me to come and stay with them for a week, while they made a custom instrument for me. A very close friend, even more VIP than me, wanted to go with me. The scheme collapsed, because I am dependent on a very strict diet and dependent of the proximity of doctors, that are well aquainted with my medical history.
"Ingen træer vokser ind i himlen" (No trees will grow into the skies) as a national saying goes over here.
This posting probably will have had to effects:
a: to set me back 54 years according to Zen!
b (hopefully): to tell a bit of the business behind the stage, as it works for us mere mortals.
Klaus