Posted by Jay Bertolet on July 13, 1999 at 21:58:40:
In Reply to: Which gigbag? posted by Sean Chisham on July 13, 1999 at 13:05:05:
Well, I have 4 Altieri bags currently and I have owned a total of 7 of them. Donna is an absolute joy to work with. She will do anything (within reason) you want to the bag to make it work for you. Her bags are made of Nylon parts and are pretty much indestructable. The only part of her bags that I've ever had wear out was the part near the bottom bow were you rest the tuba after you take it out of the car. When I do this, I typically rest the tuba on the bottom bow while I reach with my other hand and close the car door. She repaired the 1 bag I have with this problem and it hasn't recurred since I'm more careful now.
The one concern I have about her bags is that they don't offer much protection from serious impacts. But no gig bag does as that is the trade-off for the convenience. The padding she's using on the newer bags (made in the last 2 years or so) is much more substantial. Still, I never use a hard case and I've had maybe 2 or 3 instances of damage to my tubas while in an Altieri bag in the last 15 years. That is a very low percentage of problems for the amount of use my bags get. I highly recommend Donna's product as maybe the best available.