I was reading the description of the Miraphone 181 over at http://www.hornguys.com" target="_blank and it makes mention of later versions of the horn having improvements in tuning and response with adjustments to the first slide bore and a custom tuning slide.
Can anybody go into more detail about this? Is this something that can be done to older 181's?
New and old Mira 181's
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chronolith
- 4 valves
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Ferguson
- 3 valves
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Re: New and old Mira 181's
Yes, it's cheap to do.
Find tubing that fits snugly inside the first valve slide's straight tubes. Put one piece as long as you can in each side. You can practice with plastic.
This may help raise the first valve G. This hasn't been as important to me as the following:
Then find a piece of tubing that fits inside the tuning slide small side straight tube, maybe 1.5" long. slip it up there, play lots of notes and find the sweet spot for it.
You can tune an old one this way. I haven't yet played the newest version, but I bet a sleeve in its tuning slide could help a bit too, since it's got similar dimensions of most rotary F tubas with some funkiness in the low range. The new one is supposed to be very good.
But so is the MW 4460, and it was much improved for me with a sleeve in the tuning slide as well.
One player had success doing this on the large tuning slide sleeve. I haven't gone there yet.
Ferguson
Find tubing that fits snugly inside the first valve slide's straight tubes. Put one piece as long as you can in each side. You can practice with plastic.
This may help raise the first valve G. This hasn't been as important to me as the following:
Then find a piece of tubing that fits inside the tuning slide small side straight tube, maybe 1.5" long. slip it up there, play lots of notes and find the sweet spot for it.
You can tune an old one this way. I haven't yet played the newest version, but I bet a sleeve in its tuning slide could help a bit too, since it's got similar dimensions of most rotary F tubas with some funkiness in the low range. The new one is supposed to be very good.
But so is the MW 4460, and it was much improved for me with a sleeve in the tuning slide as well.
One player had success doing this on the large tuning slide sleeve. I haven't gone there yet.
Ferguson