Miraphone Tubas question

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CooperBayliff
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Miraphone Tubas question

Post by CooperBayliff »

I was looking on reverb.com for tubas - used or new - and i saw a "longer american slide" for the miraphone 1291. Does this mean that all miraphones need a longer slide to be in tune? We had an issue like that at my highschool on st petersberg tubas where they could not get in tune and were always sharp because of the short tuning slide.
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Re: Miraphone Tubas question

Post by arpthark »

Roger Lewis wrote: Sun Mar 18, 2012 9:37 am In Europe the standard pitch can be as high as A=445 or possibly even higher, depending on the country and the music director. In America many of the orchestras tune to A=442 as their standard. Often with imported instruments it is specified that the pitch is to A=440 so that the instruments can be played with a piano tuned to A=440.

Some of the earlier 1291 BBb and 191 BBb Miraphones came with the shorter European slides. Miraphone made up longer slides for these instruments and sent them out to their dealers. If someone has one of these instruments with the slide almost all the way out, let me know as I have a few of these slides on hand.

You can tell the difference easily. If the ferrules on your slide are about 3/4" long, then it is likely a European slide. The ones for the American models should be about 1 1/2" long.

All the best to you.

Roger
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iiipopes
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Re: Miraphone Tubas question

Post by iiipopes »

This ^ Even though the post is ten years old, it still applies. If you cannot find the longer A=440 main tuning sides, you can do what I had to do when I had a bell change on a tuba that essentially caused the same issue: have a tech make longer slides. I'm sure you can get them from Miraphone, but depending on the age and condition of the tubas in question, it may or may not be economically feasible compared to simply soldering and aligning longer tubing onto the existing bows and ferrules.
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Re: Miraphone Tubas question

Post by CooperBayliff »

The miraphone 1293 is listed as having an intonation of 443. Does that mean i would need to get a different slide or is that just the base intonation with the slide pushed all the was in?
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Re: Miraphone Tubas question

Post by arpthark »

I had a friend who bought a new 1293 from a reputable dealer and it played well in tune with the slide about an inch or two out. He bought it from Dillon Music in NJ. If in doubt, check with a tuner.
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Re: Miraphone Tubas question

Post by iiipopes »

CooperBayliff wrote: Thu Aug 18, 2022 12:04 pm The miraphone 1293 is listed as having an intonation of 443. Does that mean i would need to get a different slide or is that just the base intonation with the slide pushed all the was in?
That means with the slide pulled to compensate for temperature. As the post above, sometimes the tuning slide is now long enough, but that doesn't mean yours is. You need at least 3/4 inch of the inner slide in the outer tubes to be stable; so if you have to pull it more than that on a warm day to get it in tune, you need an extension, whether by ferrules in the first reply quoted post, or longer tubes, or a new slide altogether.
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Re: Miraphone Tubas question

Post by royjohn »

I don't know how much length on a 186 slide equates to the difference between A440 and A443, but it ought to be pretty easy to establish by pulling your tuba slide and looking at your tuner. The tuba gets sharper the warmer it gets, so it is possible that in a warm room or outdoors in summer, you could run out of room on the tuning slide. If you don't need much extra length, you could get away with using a sousaphone bit or two...more than that, you'd have to have longer slides. You might want to have the longer slides because it's neater and more convenient, I guess.
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Re: Miraphone Tubas question

Post by iiipopes »

royjohn wrote: Tue Sep 06, 2022 12:48 pm I don't know how much length on a 186 slide equates to the difference between A440 and A443, but it ought to be pretty easy to establish by pulling your tuba slide and looking at your tuner. The tuba gets sharper the warmer it gets, so it is possible that in a warm room or outdoors in summer, you could run out of room on the tuning slide. If you don't need much extra length, you could get away with using a sousaphone bit or two...more than that, you'd have to have longer slides. You might want to have the longer slides because it's neater and more convenient, I guess.
Most tubas (and most other brass instruments, for that matter), whatever the pitch, are made so that temperature variances can be compensated for by the amount of pull. At "normal" room temperature, most tubas are made to have @ 5/8 inch or @ 15 mm pull to be in tune, give or take. So...if you have a sharp "European" tuba, then pull it to tune and see how much more length is needed to get the tuba down to A=440 on a hot day. If you need to pull so much that, say, less than an inch of each leg of the inner tubes remains in the outer tubes, then for stability the player should consider getting a longer main tuning slide.
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Re: Miraphone Tubas question

Post by DouglasJB »

How far the slide is pulled out also depends on the player. For some reason when I was doubling (or rather in this case tripling) on Cimbasso and CC tuba in orchestra (and F tuba for chamber music) i started to play very low in the pitch on tubas the more I played cimbasso, to the point I was only pulled out about 1/8 inch at one point.
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