Stomvi
trumpets
Sento
Honorato showing Olaf and Rune the making of a two-piece bell.
The Honiba Company was founded in
1985 by Vicente Honorato. They are manufacturing and selling Stomvi
brass instruments. The Honiba factory is in the Xirivella suburb of Valencia, Spain. They moved into this
building a year ago.
We visited Honiba
on the 21th of November 2008 and were greeted by Sento Honorato, the
son
of Vicente Honorato. First
Sento took us on a very interesting tour through the whole factory. We
were allowed to take photos and he and other workers answered all our
questions. Honiba makes all parts themselves, including bags and
cases. The only thing they didn't make was valve springs, which came in
two weights, normal and light. For valve pistons they used both
stainless steel and monel - steel for student's models and monel for
the
pro lines (because the customers preferred it?)
The machinery was modern with lots of NC's and hydraulics. Assembly was
done manually by skilled craftsmen (actually most of their workers are
educated goldsmiths).
At a total they were 27 people, 5 in the administration and 22 in
production. Honiba produces around 1800 instruments per year.
Mouthpieces:
The mouthpiece set
As we said, Stomvi produces everything - including 3 lines of
mouthpieces. They have a standard line of one-piece mouthpieces, a line
of two-pieces (with a screw-rim) and a three-part line (see photo
above). The 3-part consists of 10 different parts, a trumpet and a
cornet or flugelhorn backbore, a screw rim and 7 different cups ranging
from a large flugel/cornet cup (conical in shape) and 6 trumpet cups,
numbered from A (the largest or deepest cup) to F (the shallowest cup).
The price for this set was very good (only about 160 Euros - factory
price).
They used their own numbering system, so you need a comparison chart.
Promoting instruments:
After the factory tour, Sento showed us a display room that also
was the rehearsal room for the famous brass quintet Spanish Brass Luur Metals.
The quintet is involved in the development of Stomvi instruments
(testing, etc.) and using and promoting them.
Until now it has only
been trumpets, but soon trombones and French horns will also be part
of the Stomvi instrument line (presented for the market
at the Musikmesse,
Frankfurt am Main, 1 - 4 April 2009).
Testing
trumpets:
The
instrument try out room.
We were also
allowed to try their different horns, and Sento collected a series of
trumpets, from the Forte model in the student line to the top line
Mahler Piccolo and the Master Titanium Bb trumpet.
Interesting for all of us was that the student line Forte was very
good. This means that the production quality is taken care of in a very
professional manner for all the instruments. All models we tried had
very good intonation and an excellent finish.
Their Mahler top line piccolo trumpet is made famous by Maurice André,
and is of course top class - great intonation, great sound.
(By the way, Stomvi makes piccolo trumpets for Bach these days!)
The whole Stomvi trumpet line is absolutely recommendable!
Website:
As of today - there is no local dealer in Norway. Hopefully
Honiba will do something about this soon - after all there
are a lot of brass players in Norway.
November
2008 - Olaf, Rune and O.J.
