American vs European Tuba Sound

[sloan]

No, unless you have a tuba built with an ascending valve, the fourth valve on a typical BBb tuba will lower the pitch of your tuba a perfect fourth, effectively making it an "FF" tuba, one octave below the bass tuba in F. Yes, C exists in the overtone series of an "FF" tuba.

Let the record show that I made no comment on the answer to my question. Some things speak for themselves.

[saktoons]

Welcome back!

DO NOT get a cheap Asian copy! When I was looking for my first tuba after a 21-year layoff, I played a few and realized they were not worth it even at their low prices. Noisy valves, out-of-tune, bad QC on the solders, etc. told me to steer clear (and I didn't even know what I was doing!). A local music shop owner had a used one for sale and, when I came in to play it, after talking to me about what I was looking for, he wouldn't even let me play the horn because he said "You want a better horn than this."

As for the American vs European sound, I cannot comment. I have seen posts saying European horns are brighter, but my German horn has a nice dark sound and I can also get it to sound very brassy with the right MP. Perhaps the difference is not so much where the horn comes from, but the player and the MP.

I ended up with a new VMI 2103 that I play for all my indoor brass band and wind ensemble gigs, a 20J that I use for almost all of my outdoor gigs, and a Bohm-Meinl sousaphone that I use for my stand up gigs. If I had it to do all over again, I would stick with a German horn, but I would go for piston valves instead of rotary. I prefer the crispness of the pistons over the rotary.

[eutubabone]

The type of horn you play, BB or CC, size, 4/4, 5/4, 6/4, mouthpiece, etc. is important of course in production of sound. However I think that the size and shape of your oral cavity and sinuses gives each person a distinctive sound, similar to the differences in the tone quality in singers. Everyone's voice is uniquely "theirs". Your core sound is more influenced by your physical makeup rather than the equipment or manufacture, whether European or American. I believe this why some players hear their sound darker on European v.s. American or the other way around. The size and shape of your oral cavity determines what your "voice" will be. The type of equipment that you use will not, in my opinion, change the way your oral cavity operates, or resonates, when your lips are buzzing or when you are singing. I can play on a BB or CC of similar size with the same mouthpiece and I will still sound like "me" but with a slight variance in tone quality.

[Steve Inman]

"European sound" -- has sometimes been associated with Alexander and some Miraphone tubas, with such instruments being used as examples of said sound.
"American sound" -- has sometimes been associated with a tuba like a King 2341 or Conn 56J, with these instruments being used as example of this sound.

Rather than using this distinction, I have used horns with a broader, fluffier sound (i.e. my Conn 56J), and I have tried other horns with more "core" or "density" to the sound (I particularly like the Miraphone 1292 CC). Different horns will have differences in sound -- both to the player and to the tubists in the audience. For everyone else, like my wife, "it sounds like a tuba".

Happy hunting,

[Wyvern]

For everyone else, like my wife, "it sounds like a tuba".

I am not sure that non-tubists do not notice the difference. Non-musician friends I have played my various tubas to can always tell the difference in tone and I have frequently received comments on the special tone of my Neptune from audience members, or others in the orchestra at concerts - so very different from a Besson EEb usually heard in the UK.

[peter birch]

bearing in mind Rick Denneys comment that such a discussion is purely for our own amusement, I heard an interview on the radio this week with the next beautiful, blond trumpet player to come along, Tine Thing Helseth from Norway. She spoke of the difference between German and American trumpets, (the Germans, in general, play rotary valves and americans piston valves).
Anyway she described the german trumpet sound as "oval" and the american as "round", not that one was better than the other, just different, and that the difference came from the valves.
Now whether that is the perception of the player, or of a listener who is also a player I don't know. But I suspect that we each have our own paradigm players that we want to sound like, and if he's American, than that's what we want or if he's European then that's the sound we want to emulate.
I discussed this with iiipopes elswhere recently, but I am a British player, with a tuba made in Germany with a French label on the bell and an American model mouthpiece, so the sort of sound I make is anyones guess.

[Wyvern]

I am a British player, with a tuba made in Germany with a French label on the bell and an American model mouthpiece, so the sort of sound I make is anyones guess.

I am sure you make your own sound Peter with a lots of brass band influence to your concept.

I have been told I still have a distinctly British brass band sound, although I am playing German rotary valve tubas.

[peter birch]

the aspects of the "british" sound that I worked hard to eliminate is the thumpy, punchy production of the note so often heard in the brass band, and to make my fortissimo sound as lovely as my mezzo-piano, only louder.
As a boy I didn't want to play the tuba, mainly because I wanted to play euphonium, and the instrument I was given was beaten up and not nice to play. And then, I heard John Fletcher playing, and realised what this thing could sound like, and have been trying to make that sort of sound ever since.
It has, I fear, become fashionable to disparage the brass band, but there are some great players with fantastic sounds, for instance Joe Cook, Les Niesh and Steve Sykes to pick out 3. So there are role models out there to help improve things.

[djwesp]

Actually, I can (with my back turned) usually detect whether a rotary or piston trumpet is being played...with my back turned there are more missed pitches (in America) when rotary trumpets are played...

Not to mention the bubble on them seems to be so large during slurs... almost sounds like an articulation. Blech.

[Tuba Guy]

People seem to be able to tell the difference between my CB50 and the 701. Of course, the massive size difference couldn't have anything to do with that (the Martin and the Kaiser are about the same size though, and each has a completely different character...most people could tell you something is very different)