LP Castanet Machine

Comments:

I bought 3 sets of these to use on Sejourne's "Khamsin," which seemed like a no-brainer between the price, the mounting bracket for ease of setup, and the chips being made out of a "resonant and durable synthetic material" as touted in LP's demonstration video. When I first got them and began rehearsing the piece, one of the chips lost its tension and stability - there are these tabs on the bottom of the chip that fit into a divot on the machine to keep them stable, and those had broke. It eventually got to the point where most, if not all of them had their tabs break. This all came to a head yesterday when a chip snapped during the performance in a dress rehearsal. I think if these were made without the stability tab & with more tension around the end, there wouldn't need to be a tab that was prone to breaking and consequently weakening the rest of the chip once a piece had broken off. If any stability need to be provided, it may be better used on the outside of the machine - like a guard rail for the chip. Some of it can be attributed to me by not routinely tightening the bracket's wingbolt, which will obviously loosen if you hit these things with mallets repeatedly, but I thought having a small-footprint machine with a 3/8" bracket and "durable synthetic material" would have been durable enough for the piece. I bought 3 sets of these to use on Sejourne's "Khamsin," which seemed like a no-brainer between the price, the mounting bracket for ease of setup, and the chips being made out of a "resonant and durable synthetic material" as touted in LP's demonstration video. When I first got them and began rehearsing the piece, one of the chips lost its tension and stability - there are these tabs on the bottom of the chip that fit into a divot on the machine to keep them stable, and those had broke. It eventually got to the point where most, if not all of them had their tabs break. This all came to a head yesterday when a chip snapped during the performance in a dress rehearsal. I think if these were made without the stability tab & with more tension around the end, there wouldn't need to be a tab that was prone to breaking and consequently weakening the rest of the chip once a piece had broken off. If any stability need to be provided, it may be better used on the outside of the machine - like a guard rail for the chip. Some of it can be attributed to me by not routinely tightening the bracket's wingbolt, which will obviously loosen if you hit these things with mallets repeatedly, but I thought having a small-footprint machine with a 3/8" bracket and "durable synthetic material" would have been durable enough for the piece. This product is a great idea on paper, but needs some tweaking and higher endurance before I'd buy again or recommend.

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I bought these for playing in the pit for a musical that needed quick changes between drumset and castanets. They work great for that, I get a decent castinet sound that I can mount. I would not use these for a symphony orchestra, but in the pit these work very well. They sound much better than cheaper plastic castinets.

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This product seems to be a nice version of a castanet machine in picture form only. After receiving it and using for just one rehearsal, the elasticity in the rubber bands was immediately gone. Essentially, rendering the product useless the very next day. I purchased based on the LP reputation, but am very disappointed.

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