CC/BBb contrabass "double tuba" by using 5th valve

[Wyvern]

Ever see the 5th slide on a Rudy Meinl CC tuba?

Yes, I know what you mean. However there does not look room to add more than about 8-10 inches that way and I believe about 15 inches (?) would be necessary to get an F into Eb. Have to see if anyone contacts with Eb slide available, or at least posts a picture.

The Neptune CC/BBb set-up with ascending 5th valve seems better way, but I guess I would need to get new 5th valve slide specially fabricated if I wanted such and doubtful if worth the expense

[Sam Gnagey]

Maybe it's just me, but what practical purpose would a CC/BBb horn serve? I really can't think of a situation where that would be useful.

We built one of our 4/4 CC tubas for a player who wanted it to play in BBb when he played in brass band. That made playing the treble clef Bb parts a lot easier for him. I wasn't optimistic about it playing well in BBb, but the results proved me wrong. It is a great playing BBb too!
The process involved making the CC 5th outer slide tubes short enough to use as a whole step valve putting the instrument in BBb with the 5th depressed. I built a slide crook for it that lengthened it by a 1/4 step which made it work for the CC 5th valve long whole-step. When the player wanted to play the horn in BBb he exchanged the short 3rd valve slide with the long 5th valve slide and pulled out all the valve tuning slides accordingly playing the instrument with the 5th valve depressed all the time.
I think this is a pretty valid, practical purpose for the BBb/CC option, and one that I'm willing to offer on any of my 4/4 CCs.

[kingconn]

My thought was to try to use the 5th valve as an ascending valve so that low "C" and"B" on a BBb could be played as pedal tones rather than using 2-3-4-5 and 1-2-3-4-5 respectively.

[Bob Kolada]

My thought was to try to use the 5th valve as an ascending valve so that low "C" and"B" on a BBb could be played as pedal tones rather than using 2-3-4-5 and 1-2-3-4-5 respectively.

Also for C and B below the staff (and in and above, also G,...). A lot of Bb tubas seem to be a bit off on those notes (it's like what, 40 feet of tubing?!) while most C tubas seem to be ok on their D and Db.
There's a guy who plays jazz/rock stuff on cello and one of those ascending Yamaha tenor trombones and there are some ascending bass trombones out there. There's a lot of potential for that that on tuba ad a super friggin lot on trombone.