What makes a 6/4 tuba 6/4?

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CooperBayliff
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What makes a 6/4 tuba 6/4?

Post by CooperBayliff »

What makes a 6/4 tuba 6/4? Everyone seems to have their own opinion. Ive been told bell diameter and bore mostly but the 4/4 Meinl Weston 3225 and the Meinl Weston 6450 (6/4) have the exact same bore. Also my 4/4 tuba at home has a larger bell than a lot of 6/4 tubas at 20" in diameter
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Re: What makes a 6/4 tuba 6/4?

Post by windshieldbug »

CooperBayliff wrote: Fri Aug 05, 2022 5:17 pm What makes a 6/4 tuba 6/4?

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Re: What makes a 6/4 tuba 6/4?

Post by Z-Tuba Dude »

The designation of size is a bit mysterious, but Rick Denny offered a great objective idea for measuring.

His thought was that horns are best measured by their interior VOLUME, which could be measured by (theoretically) filling the horn with water, and then measuring how much water the horn holds. That takes into account all of the factors…bore size, bell size and diameter of the branches.

That concept gives a pretty clear idea of the ?/4-ness of a horn.
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Re: What makes a 6/4 tuba 6/4?

Post by CooperBayliff »

Z-Tuba Dude wrote: Wed Aug 10, 2022 8:55 am The designation of size is a bit mysterious, but Rick Denny offered a great objective idea for measuring.

His thought was that horns are best measured by their interior VOLUME, which could be measured by (theoretically) filling the horn with water, and then measuring how much water the horn holds. That takes into account all of the factors…bore size, bell size and diameter of the branches.

That concept gives a pretty clear idea of the ?/4-ness of a horn.
This helps
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Re: What makes a 6/4 tuba 6/4?

Post by tubeast »

While that measuring method is certainly valid,
(instead of filling the horn and measuring the volume of the water it contains, You might simply set it on a scale and measure the weight difference between full and empty tuba)
it still offers no absolute guidelines as to what will be a n/4 tuba.
Simply because there is none.

Take Rudolf Meinl, for instance. Their 6/4 is off the scale for pretty much any other brand.
If you consider Meinl horns all by themselves, their n/4-designation makes perfect sense.

You´ll indeed have to trust the numbers offered in the manufacturer´s brochure and leave it at that.
At best, it will offer a scale of relative sizes within the brand´s portfolio.

But even within ONE brand, there is no guarantee for consistency:
Why the MW 46 with 38cm bell as well as the MW 46S with 42 cm bell and wider overall body both are considered 6/4 in MW brochures is beyond me.
Especially when considering just by how much both are dwarfed by the Kodiak 6450, which features valve bores larger than my 5-6/4 BBb.
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Re: What makes a 6/4 tuba 6/4?

Post by dasanchezr »

I would say the bottom bow, in my experience. I remember the difference between my Thor a very large 5/4 compared to the 2165 I had at my job and the Neptune I owed latter the bottom bow was significantly larger.
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Re: What makes a 6/4 tuba 6/4?

Post by MKTuba »

tubeast wrote: Wed Aug 17, 2022 2:50 am Take Rudolf Meinl, for instance. Their 6/4 is off the scale for pretty much any other brand.
All of the Rudy Meinl horns for that matter seem to be "One size up" then their rating would suggest. From what I understand, the Rudy 3/4 is Miraphone 186 sized (4/4 through and through), the Rudy 4/4 seems to be about on track with something like a Miraphone Bruckner, which Miraphone considers to be a 5/4 horn (though I don't really buy it), and the Rudy 5/4 is roughly the size of a pt6, which while still a "5/4" is considered to be one of, if not THE largest tuba to hold the 5/4 designation.

What I am trying to say is that the n/4 sizing "standard" is anything but. There is such a large disparity between different manufacturers sizing standards, and honestly there even exists some discrepancy within individual manufacturers! I wish we had a better system for measuring this, but honestly, rather than using an arbitrary sizing system I prefer to play the horn and make decisions based on resonance. After all, that really is the difference in sound between different sizes of horns. There is no difference in range between a 4/4 and 6/4 tuba (assuming they have the same number of valves), they just vibrate differently, which is what causes the difference in sound.
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