Stuffy Horn

[hald]

What causes a horn to be "stuffy" and feel restricted when played? Last year I bought a compensating euphonium, new, that is afflicted with stuffiness. Over the past few months I also played various 3/4 tubas that felt stuffy. One afternoon a couple months ago I played 4 different tubas, 3 of which felt stuffy. The design of the instruments were fairly standard for a 3/4 tuba, so I wonder why the differences?

Last night I was playing the euphonium and wondered again about the stuffiness. I've tried various mouthpieces with little change to the feel of the horn. I wondered if checking valve alignment (how the holes in the valves line up with the holes in the valve set) would help, and how this can be checked. Any information would be appreciated.
Thanks in advance - hald

[tubaguy9]

valve alignment could be a problem. It wouldn't hurt to check. Sometimes the amount of bends have something to do with it too...
sometimes you never know...

[windshieldbug]

My own belief is that the taper of a stuffy horn doesn't accommodate all the harmonic nodes properly.

Mine, too. But don't ask me to explain it, either. All I can say is that the air doesn't move so quickly through a horn that I can believe that it [the feeling] has anything to do with the volume.

[Dan Schultz]

You mentioned that MOST of the horns you've played lately felt 'stuffy'... with the exception of maybe one. Which one was it that didn't feel 'stuffy'?

[tubaguy9]

My own belief is that the taper of a stuffy horn doesn't accommodate all the harmonic nodes properly.

I think nodes are the "peaks" of the sound waves...

[TUbajohn20J]

I played 2 brand new King 2341 tubas recently. One was really open and free blowing, the other was VERY stuffy like there was a pillow in the bell or something. I checked the horn out and there didn't seem to be any problem. WIERD!!

[hald]

"Which one was it that didn't feel 'stuffy'?".......The afternoon I played 3/4 tubas included a Weril, a Yamaha, an Eastman, and a cheap stencil called a Los Angeles. I also played some used horns that day at the Hut in Yorba Linda (now closed). At the time I was looking for a 3/4 or 1/2 size tuba I could take with me on motorcycle trips. Besides the stuffiness issue I found a great difference in intonation and tuning between the horns. I ended up buying the cheap Chinese Los Angeles stencil because it was the one with the best tuning\intonation and the only one that didn't feel stuffy.

On a stuffy horn is there anything that will open it up?
-hald

[kegmcnabb]

On a stuffy horn is there anything that will open it up?
-hald

[Dan Schultz]

...... I ended up buying the cheap Chinese Los Angeles stencil because it was the one with the best tuning\intonation and the only one that didn't feel stuffy. On a stuffy horn is there anything that will open it up? -hald

I don't know the playing characteristics of the horns you mentioned but I notice that you are trying to 'zero in' on a horn that is perhaps smaller than what you are used to. I can understand the perceived 'stuffiness' if you are trying to get a big sound out of those smaller horns, though.

Horns that are indeed 'stuffy' usually have mechanical problems like worn valves, bad water keys, leaks, or are simply very dirty.

[Lee Stofer]

OOOH - (shiver, shiver) - there's that word I hate again!

I have played instruments of just about every bore size, over all size, bell diameter, wrap configuration, etc., etc., and none of that is at the root of the problem.

The problem that bugs so many instruments, and the people that play them, are that unless you unsolder an instrument, you cannot know how well it was soldered together. Over the last 10 years, I cannot tell you how many instruments I have performed surgery on that had entire ferrule joints that were not soldered AT ALL at the factory, and many more in a lot of instruments that had very little sealing them up. We now do water-pressure-testing on all the brass instruments we work on. From cheap little tubas to the largest orchestral behemoths, none of them play to their potential unless all the solder joints are done right.

In fact, my colleague Tom Treece disassembled and re-soldered a Holton 345 CC main tuning slide recently, and said that one joint was poor. There was enough solder to seal the joint, but that there was a bit of "dead area" inside the joint that was not soldered. He told me that cleaning, tinning and properly soldering that one joint made more difference in how that instrument played than anything else he did to the entire tuba.

There are very few inherently bad instrument designs out there, but there have been many thousands of examples of poor assembly. Once the magnetic dent removal system came out, I thought I would want to avoid unsoldering a much as possible, thinking that it was best to be as non-invasive in my repairs as possible. After finding what I have so many times in the flawed assembly of instruments, I'm much more likely to do a partial disassembly, as it is rare that it cannot be improved upon.

To the guy that tried two King 2341's and one played "open" and the other one didn't, the one that didn't resonate was leaking like a sieve, and that is a shame, because the King tubas have a wonderful design.

[Mcordon1]

The posts above me are great. Explain a lot.
But if your horn has some natural stuffiness (as in all of that model have the problem), I would just play in the stuffiest register a lot while practicing as find where it "breaks", really learn to control it. See how far you can push it volume-wise.

I get around some of the natural stuffiness in the low end of my Miraphone 188 by using a G&W Bayamo. Very big piece.
The low G on it is stuffy, especially if approached from an open fingering. So one day I practiced octave jumps from middle G to low G for maybe 2 hours, and now I can control the low G much better.

So many compensating instruments are stuffy, I think its not work it. Every comp. euph I've ever played(really only a few) was annoyingly stuffy. Just get a 4 valve non-comp. Or a Kaiser Baritone!!!

[windshieldbug]

Every comp. euph I've ever played(really only a few) was annoyingly stuffy.

Consider all the extra joints and valve ports...

[jamsav]

sometimes the horn is literally stuffed !!! Purchased a used horn from a local school district and inside of it was the remnants of a mechanical clock movement...my local repair guy tells a story of a horn left in a case in a garage . Mice ate thru the case and built a nest down about ( or is that up ) the third bend !!! Remnants of the old " nest " remained as did remants of the non surviving members of the litter of mice that were born inside the horn...