La Tulipe Noire brings romance back into the world of didgeridoos.

It is gentle but powerful, big but elegant. Standing 239cm tall, thin with curves and knots it now seems impossible to drill. But it once was. It is a thin walled didgeridoo chiseled for resonance. The power of this didgeridoo overwhelms a small room. But power comes at some cost. Beyond first toot it becomes a little bit more demanding lady. But let’s hear what its sound has to say.

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LTN is in idea a bigger sister of the didgeridoo B Fantastique. Made to have more bass and volume. This was accomplished by shape. LTN has a lot of bass and low mids, giving it an extreme “fat” sound. It was quite a big log in the beginning and LTN was made from the center. It seemed to me that this was somewhat harder bloodwood eucalytpus than it is usual. And this fact gave its contribution in 4,5 kHz frequencies. This didgeridoo has a slight bend around 250Hz which is not heard by most, but this is soundwise the last bit of balance I was not able to accomplish at the time.

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LTN payed its sound and size in somewhat less playability than its younger and smaller sibling B Fantastique. Drone is very easy to play. In fact many people were astonished how easy for the didgeridoo of this size. First toot is easy, then 2nd and 3rd toot are a bit more tricky. Impedances are a bit lower, and toots are a bit higher than you would expect, so it takes a bit of a time to get used to it… Beyond this I believe it is mostly up to one’s personal skill. Generally I learned that songs that LTN resonates with mostly are the kinds of “Mandala” or “Koridoro del Sono” or “Misao iz daleka”. Even though I feel it could fit songs like “The Spatialist” also. Very nice sound of first toot with voice.

In appearance LTN is very strong. It is much bigger than usual instruments, it has carvings of black tulips which are sometimes painted black and sometimes inlayed with Fuchsite or Agate. Wood is very very red. Due to some unusual defects it has very nice colour transitions at the bell, going from violet to yellow and dark brown/red.

I would recommend the didgeridoo of the kind of LTN to an accomplished player who wishes to perform acoustically and who is still in love with the sheer beauty of the basic drone.