Thorough Presentation of Plastic Cornet and Flugelhorn!

Plastic wind instruments that have become a hot topic for their playability and durability.
I’m going to present a thorough comparison including the spec differences between the plastic and metal instruments, focusing on cornets, piccolo trumpets, and flugelhorns from the private Sound House brand, PLAYTECH, which focuses on price and quality!

Check out this blog post for new plastic trumpet models!
→[Review] The PTTR100 plastic trumpet series has been renewed

Plastic trumpets are available from various brands such as ZO, pTrumpet, Tromba, Zeff, and CoolWinds.
Each company’s products differ in the structure of the piston and the direction of the slide tube, and overall the action and sound quality are nearing normal performance levels, rather than just being toys.
Sound House launched plastic musical instruments hoping that our customers will find it easier to play trumpets and enjoy the performances such as the brass band club.
Now, I’m going to introduce the features of the products!

■Affordable, Rich Lineup

Piccolo trumpet 17,800 yen, cornet 13,800 yen, flugelhorn 16,800 yen
Aren’t you surprised by the shocking prices and the variety!?
■PLAYTECH Piccolo Trumpet
■PLAYTECH Cornet
■PLAYTECH Flugelhorn

■Rich Color Variations

7 colors in total. Gold and silver are also available, and at first glance, they’ll make you think, “Are you playing a metal instrument?” lol
For pop and outdoor performances, just picking up the instruments in different colors makes such a gorgeous impression.

■Light & Easy to play, Size & Tone Just Like Metal Instruments

The weight of the instrument itself, which weighs about 500g, is not much different from the metal ones (a metal trumpet is 1-1.2kg). I was worried that the sound would be muddy and dull with the plastic instrument, but once I played it, it sounded well together with the lightness of the instrument. Just changing the mouthpiece to metal or a Brand name will make the sound similar to the stretchy and gorgeous tone of the metal trumpet, and you will see the difference between the characters.

■The Piston Made of Metal, Good Response

The body is plastic. The piston body (5th picture) and the casing (1st-3rd pictures) are metal.

It uses the upper spring type and there is no discomfort.
The clearance between the piston and the casing is wide, so applying a small amount of slide grease or pouring high-viscosity valve oil will reduce the noise.

■Plastic Heavy-Weighted Mouthpiece

It comes with a mouthpiece, which looks like a shallow-cupped Bach Mega Tone.
It might be a device to make the resistance closer to metal one.
Various color options for the instruments are available, but the mouthpiece is black for all colors.

For trumpet and piccolo trumpet

For cornet and flugelhorn

■With Case

The Piccolo trumpet comes with a plastic case

Other instruments come with a semi-hard case.

■Summary

How was it? I think easy-to-play plastic instruments will allow more people start playing trumpet.
PLAYTECH plastic trombones, euphoniums, tubas and French horns are also available.
Next time I will introduce trombone!

（Updated on 2018-10-03　Revised on 2020-03-05）