suckumentary

[windshieldbug]

the Eb octave was Eb-D

That was one of those high and low pitch horns - you just didn't have the water key set right!

[Kevin Hendrick]

"what do I know about tubas, I am just a paramedic?"

I'm sure you know something about intubation ...

http://www.rippenspreizer.com/4images/d ... age_id=270

[ZACH336]

Great thread, Bloke.

F - One of those six-valve jobs, maybe an Alexander... it was at the Army Band conference years ago. Sounded like a plastic stadium horn at a Wisconsin Badgers game.

Eb - A bucket of rust in my basement. No air makes it to the bell. It will be a lamp someday.

CC - ooh, toughie... There was a cut-up Holton that blew air back at me when I tried playing above pianissimo, took 'stuffy' to a whole new level... Those really little old Mirafone 184's, kind of like a musket--you ram the clams down the bell with a bag of powder, push the first valve, and BLAM... nope, the winner here is that crazy-oversized Kurath CC that Perantoni had for a few weeks back at ASU... it was the size of a small Volkswagen, and a bore size of around 1.015 or so... I would have got more sound out of it by kicking it than attempting to play it...

BBb - The sousaphone I just turned in today to our supply shop. It's tuned to A=494. The interval between C and D in the staff is a minor third. The main spit valve is designed to leak on my crotch every 10 minutes. You have to have lived in farm country near a poultry slaughterhouse to understand the tone concept behind this horn. It's best sound is produced by 'accidentally' slamming the bell into a metal door frame. Because of that horn, my ribs are perpetually bruised, and my back is in constant spasms.

I think Cameron is going to try to overhaul this horn. It needs to be filled with concrete and chucked into the Potomac River while a bugle plays "Taps."

I laughed so much while reading this thread I thought it needed to be brought back to life. lol, I really thought this post here was a good one made me .

"Sounded like a plastic stadium horn at a Wisconsin Badgers game."

tears coming down my face after reading this! to funny I can just imagine that sound of plastic stadium horn coming out of an old f tuba like this.

[dwaskew]

EEb - Worst: Tom Holtz's Buscher helicon played by me
Best: Tom Holtz's Buscher helicon played by Tom
Ugliest: Tom Holtz's Buscher helicon

Yeah, true, same for me with the helicon, but you gotta admit, the tricycle bell is a nice touch which dresses it up nicely!

dwa

[Dan Schultz]

Man... I feel REALLY bad now At least one person on this forum hates each horn I own

[LCTuba89]

- BBb tubas: An old King 2140 front bell horn. No matter how many slides you pushed in, it always played flatter than a pancake and to top it off it stuck out like a sore thumb. Another one was a fiberglass sousaphone that always leaked in the valve section so it sounded like a giant kazoo.

- CC tubas: I own and play one CC tuba and I enjoy it so no bad ones here.

- Eb tubas: I own and play one Eb tuba and I enjoy it.

- F tubas: Never played one.

- Euphoniums: I've only played one and I was fairly impressed, of course it was a Besson so it's no surprise.

- Mouthpieces: 24AW, I used that mouthpiece fairly often after high school because that's all I had for awhile and it sucked balls.

[Alex C]

How does one even find a thread six and a half years old?

[pierso20]

How does one even find a thread six and a half years old?

Someone needs a life, but it does look like a fun thread!

For fun. I should really dig up some other useless threads from the past.

[bort]

Some of us weren't around way back when to enjoy them!

Wow, you are WAY younger than you seem. Yuk yuk...

[Jesse Brook]

BB-flats: Amati 231s SUCK. So do Jupiter 378s and Yamaha 104s and 105s. An old Canadian tuba.

CCs: a Bohm & Meinl 4/4 I played while tuba-hunting. Only one note was out: G. But it was waaaaay out. I get bigger tone out of a Yamaha YBB-105.

E-flats: Academy 3-valve. I learned E-flat on this thing. Eva's, but it sucked in all ways possible. Boosey&Hawkes Imperial, with owner's additions to the leadpipe making it a sharp D tuba. Amati could take every prize, but especially here. With 3 valves that were tight, you could aim at any not in two octaves, and slur down or up almost a third. That's if you could get this thing playing at all. Eww.

F: I haven't played any yet.

Euphonium: the Besson 2-20 I started on was past several primes. It had mismatched valve buttons, an enviable dent collection, no case, and no intonation to speak of. I probably learned more about accurate note placement on that than from my teachers. Which brings me to my current euphonium, a Boosey & Co. It is a $65 horn, and has wickedly flat intonation in the second and third octaves, as well as a leadpipe leak I have yet to fix. But Amatis win in this category, even so. Their euphoniums are hopeless.

[Billy M.]

BBb - A community college in town still has a Miraphone 186 BBb that should be retired. It had a nice sound except it was so crushed up it had no decent scale whatsoever. A fellow player brought in an India tuba that was just pathetic: Horrible sound, partial series out of whack, and just unable to tune. An early model Jin-Bao Conn 5J copy: stuffy, horrible pistons, and anemic sound. A high school in town had several Yamaha 641s and every single one of them had a generic sound and an A3 and Ab3 so flat it was more in tune to play open than those valves down and lip them up or down (respectively.)

CC - Tuba Exchange was selling a Getzen G50 several years ago that had 3 tonal centers (G2 down to pedals, A2 up to F3, and G3 up....) Open partials were lip-able but slotting was way too loose for my tastes. (I have played much better ones since then.) Also at Tuba Exchange was a Kalison Darryl Smith Model that had poor construction, bad intonation, and a bland sound.

Eb - A former student's early 20th Century York. Beautiful sound but was high pitched (read: easier to tune to E than Eb) and had a very uneven scale, plus it only had 3 valves so it was useless below B (1,3 fingerings; like I said, easier to tune to E than Eb).

F - Very limited experience so I'll have to say a little 4v Miraphone F that my college owns was the "worst" I've ever played. Sound was pleasant but easy to overblow, typical low C problems, got almost unforgivably stuffy around and below that low C, and not fully chromatic because it only had 4 valves.

Euphonium - King marching baritone from high school: hadn't been well cared for and hadn't aged well. Needed a lot of patching and intonation was weak. An older compensating Besson euph that my college owns played very stuffy and no amount of lipping could get any 2nd valve note closer than 20 cents flat.

Mouthpiece - Bach 24AW. Cushion rim did nothing for me and its smaller inner rim diameter did not help my sound. Also, DEG's "idea" of a mouthpiece for their Dynasty 5/4 BBb marching tuba: it was practically an oil can with what felt like a straight metal tube shaft attached to the end. It had so little backbore and so wide a throat that the best sound that came out of the end of a horn with that thing on it was too hollow and would not project.

[Matt G]

Curious as to updates to this thread since the composition of the marketplace has changed a bit...

[jperry1466]

Well, it's a pretty cool old thread. The Chinese stuff being modified and marketed in this country seems to be pretty good for the price. I am very happy with my Mack 410 other than that pesky E4 that refuses to cooperate. Had a kid show up once with a $50 eBay Made in India trumpet that looked like a hardware store funnel with some valves on it. I bought it from him in self defense and told him to use that money on a used one from the pawn shop.
BBb
1) King fiberglass Sousaphones from the 70s. We called them Dixie Cup sousas because it sounded exactly like blowing through a dixie cup.
2) The early 3/4 Jupiter student models from the 90s. Couldn't get any combination of valves or no valves in tune with any other combination, and it was so flat that no amount of "lipping up" could get it up to pitch.
3) Anything "convertible" - sounds like a small bore bazooka.
CC
Never actually played one that I just hated.
Eb
Only had experience with one and it played ok even with a small leak.
F
Only played one, and it was a good one.
Euphonium
Not a true euphonium, but a British brass band small Bb Besson baritone with a cylindrical bore that I own. Tuning is all over the place, and upper register is sharp beyond my ability to lip it down. When I play it in an Octoberfest tuba ensemble surrounded by mountains of beer, no one seems concerned about the tuning.
Mouthpiece
Anything marked 24AW - hands down.

[MartyNeilan]

Curious as to updates to this thread since the composition of the marketplace has changed a bit...

Good to see you back, Matt!!!
Main changes since you left:
1. New European tuba prices have gotten stupid expensive.
2. New Chinese instrument quality has improved tenfold.
3. Used instrument prices have fallen (largely due to #2.)

[bone-a-phone]

Worst BBb: Cerveny Arion clone put the bell right next to one ear, and I just couldn't discern pitches or patials on that instrument.

Worst Euph: King HNWhite 1173 from the1940s I bought on eBay was supposed to be a compensator and wasn't. Also the scale was so uneven I suspected the valves or tuning slides had been mixed up. It looked nice, but you couldn't carry a tune on it.

[hup_d_dup]

Did a quick compilation of the replies.

Watch out for those Yamahas and Miraphones!

Yamaha 15
Miraphone 14
Meinl Weston & MW 11
Besson 10
Conn 7
King 7
Cervany 5
Bach 4
Hirsbrunner & HB 4
Amati 3
Holton 3
Olds 3
Alexander 2
Bohm & Meinl 2
Courtois 2
Jupiter 2
Kalison 2
Missenharter 2
York 2
Academy 1
Accent 1
Amati-Cervany 1
B&M 1
Bach Cousenon (sp?) 1
Cousnon (sp?) 1
Boosey & Hawkes 1
Buscher (sp?) 1
Carl Zeiss 1
DEG 1
Getzen 1
India tuba 1
Jin-Bao 1
Kurath 1
made in India 1
no-name F 1
Perantucci & PT 1
Reynolds 1
ripoff Yamaha 1
something from India 1
Soviet Army issue 1
St. Petersburg 1
Willson 1
King HN White 1

[Matt G]

Curious as to updates to this thread since the composition of the marketplace has changed a bit...

Good to see you back, Matt!!!
Main changes since you left:
1. New European tuba prices have gotten stupid expensive.
2. New Chinese instrument quality has improved tenfold.
3. Used instrument prices have fallen (largely due to #2.)

Thank you, Marty!

Yeah, it’s been a wake up call regarding the market. When I bought my first CC in 1994, it was a Yamaha YCB-822 and it was around $7,500. And it didn’t even have a decent scale. Now kids can get, 25 years later, a decent copy of a York (probably replete with its own questionable scale) for $10,000.

But the used market is now pretty awesome with respect to older horns. One can probably pick up a good 186 or 188 for cheap. That’s why I asked in the marketplace about 2Js and 3Js. Probably one of the best quintet/small ensemble CCs one can find and the price has been flat for 20 years.

Crazy.

[Matt G]

Did a quick compilation of the replies.

Watch out for those Yamahas and Miraphones!

Yamaha 15
Miraphone 14
Meinl Weston & MW 11
Besson 10
Conn 7
King 7
Cervany 5
Bach 4
Hirsbrunner & HB 4
Amati 3
Holton 3
Olds 3
Alexander 2
Bohm & Meinl 2
Courtois 2
Jupiter 2
Kalison 2
Missenharter 2
York 2
Academy 1
Accent 1
Amati-Cervany 1
B&M 1
Bach Cousenon (sp?) 1
Cousnon (sp?) 1
Boosey & Hawkes 1
Buscher (sp?) 1
Carl Zeiss 1
DEG 1
Getzen 1
India tuba 1
Jin-Bao 1
Kurath 1
made in India 1
no-name F 1
Perantucci & PT 1
Reynolds 1
ripoff Yamaha 1
something from India 1
Soviet Army issue 1
St. Petersburg 1
Willson 1
King HN White 1

While I don’t dismiss your summary, I do dismiss the sample. Way too many Yamaha and Mirafone tubas have been floating around for years. If someone stumbles upon a bad Mirafone, chances are it’s been poorly maintained or a horn that’s out of their wheelhouse. It’s really hard to find “bad” 184/185/186/187/188 tubas. They haven’t been “cool” for about 20 years now. Stigma is difficult to overcome.

[Matt G]

In the previous post, the mention of Yamaha - yet the lack of a defense of it - was noted.

Absolutely. Most folks have stumbled upon the old YBB321/201 tubas in their journey as players and I, like many, have found them to be, well, lacking. Really lacking.

The small frame front action horns seem to be pretty decently even the old YBB-103 or whatever the number was. I’ve owned a YFB-621 and liked it. The YCB-621 examples I’ve played are ok. The YFB/YCB-821 or whatever always seem to lack something, but are far from worst in class. The YCB-661 was an awesome little horn from the two examples I played in terms of wattage. I can’t recall intonation attributes, however.

With all of that being said, most encounters are with the YBB-321/201 and will heavily bias the response since they compose a large part of the population.

[Matt G]

Were someone to offer me a free Yamaha tuba (that I was forced to keep, not sell, and it would have to take up space in either my house or an outbuilding), I would accept one of these:

- YFB-621 (would need to play it first, to make certain)
- YEB-631
- YBB-103 (Actually, someone DID just ~give~ me one of these! )
- YCB-826S

I’ve never played a Yamaha Eb. I’d take your word (along with a bunch of others, iirc) that it’s a good horn.

I’m sure that “Monica”* is a good horn overall, but man is it expensive and relatively unnecessary for 99% of the tuba playing population.

*That reminds me of how long it took to even get that horn onto the market, as it being a (non-PC) joke at the time between Jim Self and others.