This is the pinnacle of a long long search. When Sumo was developed, it was an answer to so many questions, but with a compact didgeridoo in mind. So what happens when you remove this limitation to the size? Though Sumo in A and G  still remain in reasonable dimensions with regards to the key and having the first toot in a mighty octave. The size matters and Sumo gets more mass, easier toots, fantastic harmonic structure while retaining a very good backpressure and overall response.

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Sumo in A is still particularly manouverable in both sound and dimensions. It measures 227cm and around 10cm at the bell. It is still a golden middle between the depth of bass that you feel in your stomach/chest  and the agility that everyone wants. It doesn’t take too much adjusting if you’ve never played a longish/deepish didgeridoo. Sumo in A taught me how beautifully I can play a version of Stinkyroom by changing stomach powered pushes by pushes that have back of the tongue precompression that creates a “front” of the impulse beat.  Marvelous thickness of articulations, brings “takawaka” to a completely new level. It bears all the qualities of Sumo in D, except that it has lower backpressure and is less agile for articulations. However, its resume is very impressive.

• very comfortable for playing with fantastic backpressure

• incredible percussive power, especially for tongue shaped percussion

• very well tuned, round toots, 5 that are nice to play A//A, G, C, E, G#

• compact size for A an with first toot in octave

• formidable aircode with very long sustain

• strong grip on articulations with fantastic thickness

• very seductive drone, harmonics and wobble

• great for singing

• ability to perform underkicks

• beautiful for soft playing

• precise!

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Sumo in G is hard to describe in words. The amount of satisfaction it gives to the player and how palpable the vibration is, is something to be experienced rather than imagined. However, imagine your body turning into a river of honey, cream and molten chocolate. The amount and quality of bass is just ridiculous. Articulations become so dense,  that they go beyond of what we knew about articualtions into some kind of a Ministry type of heavy riff. Aircode is probably the biggest of any Duende ever created. Toots are so thick  and well tuned and the whole instrument is just inviting you to play more and more. I’ve never had to restrain myself as much when I was recording a sound sample. I wanted to do 3 minutes and I did 30. After experiencing all the didgeridoos imaginable I found myself completely taken away by the Sumo in G. It does take a bit of time to adjust though. The bass does take a toll on manouverability and you will feel it. However, nothing that good training (at the masterclass) couldn’t take care of.  At the end of the sound sample you can hear me play fast, furious and complex part from pi.14 which is normally performed at Eb. Sumo in G has blown my mind away.

The resume:

All of our walnuts are impregnated with a special resin, based on natural resins, that penetrates deeply into the wood and makes it harder and more durable. If there are bark inclusions, they are impregnated until being hard like the rest of the wood. All the cracks are filled to our best knowledge, usually with a mixture of epoxy and ebony dust and in the places of burls serve also as highlighting of the wood and its flow..

In this video we have two Sumo in A from Ancient Walnut. It was a ultra gigantic walnut, possibly even 200 years old, from which we were lucky to get the trunk of. Part of the log at the butt was rotten, so some parts were lost there, some were lost due to wrong milling and some were lost due to wrong drilling. To drill ancient walnut is a very hard task. Its peculiarities are very special grain with strong markings between sapwood and heartwood in black hamon line, large open pores, burls and swirls like no other walnut has ever had. All in all, between hundreds of walnut we’ve seen, Ancient One is the most distinct. There will be (very) limited amount of didgeridoos made from it, so the prices are higher than for a regular walnut.

• 4242 euros SOLD
  

- has bark inclusion and more sapwood than the A#1, but also belongs to the Ancient One

- A//A, G, C, E, G#

• 3737 euros SOLD
  

- colossal didgeridoo made from a Colossal Walnut with a colossal burl growing up the bell

- G//G, F, Bb, D, F#

Length 259cm, bell outer 126mm, inner 105mm, MP outer 37mm, inner 31mm, 5.4kg

- ebony bell and mouthpiece trim

•  4950 euros SOLD
  

There are also some didgeridoos still available from our Autumn collection 2022.
If you are interested in any of the didgeridoos, please contact us at: duendedidgeridoo@gmail.com Send Email