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My Wife was very sweet and bought me this horn. Never having really played one...well its an experience.

Needless to say - love the sound, hate the intonation. Love the feel, hate the intonation. Love the way it sings (man does it!), hate the intonation. I haven't been able to discover many work-arounds. I am playing on a Wick 3 and have a reconditioned original York MP. With the Wick I am mostly 20 cents flat, with the York it's better (not great, but better) and still flat. Most pitches are too low for me to even lip up with out breaking.

So far we are in $1350 for the horn, getting it into playing condition and mouthpieces. It's kinda sad as I really enjoy playing it. What a 'buttery' tone!

What are my options here?

Thanks for your brilliance.

If it is always flat you could take it up north to Dan Oberloh and have him cut the main tuning slide alittle. Say 1/4 inch on all the main tuning slide(inner and outer) that should do it

If the horn plays flat thoughout the scale, why not have a repair tech trim a little off of the tuning slide to bring it up to pitch? Or is each note of the scale off by a different amount?

When I first got my Holton 345 the previous owner had an extra long tuning slide added to the horn. I couldn't get it up to pitch, so I cut the extra length off the slide and viola, it played up to pitch.

I have one just like it... except for your intonation problems. When I saw your post I dug the horn out, stuck my trusty Kelly 18 in it, set up my tuner and blew near-perfect (yeah... imagine that!) open bugle Eb and Bb. Most every thing else is in tune within 10 cents or so. The main tuning slide is out about 1 1/4" on mine. I think you need to look for a leak... or some pretty worn valves before you cut the horn to bring the pitch up.

Dan,

How would I test for leaks?

I have played on leaky horns before (I am a middle school band director after all) and this doesn't 'feel' leaky. I get an OK pop on all three valves when pulling slides.

Thanks

Oh Pachyderm, my pachyderm...



I would sell it if it would not break my heart, bank and marriage - not necessarily in that order.

sffz wrote:Dan,

How would I test for leaks. I have played on leaky horns before (I am a middle school band director after all) and this doesn't 'feel' leaky. I get an OK pop on all three valves when pulling slides.

Thanks

I do a quick check for leaks by pulling the main tuning slide and blocking the open bugle with a wine bottle cork. Blow into the leadpipe and listen for a 'hiss'. You can check the individual valve circuits the same way... by pulling the slide and blocking the tube.

There's another thing you might check out... the alignment of the pistons. Pull a piston and look into the adjacent ports with a dental mirror. check both the 'up' and 'down' position. Misalignment of the ports can cause a horn to play flat and stuffy.

Great tip! Thanks Dan.

One of the possibilities not yet mentioned is that it was made to a lower pith than A=440, A=435 being one possibility, since it was considered the "international standard" before 440.

You don't mention the age of the horn, but I have a Conn double-belled euphonium that was built in 1907 to A=435. It was extremely frustrating to use this horn with modern instruments until I was able to make new tuning slides for both sides of the horn which brought it back up into tune.

If this is possible, I'd recommend it, leaving the history the horn carries intact.

For more info, see John Swain's Notes on Early 20th Century Pitch Standards at his J.W. York Company Research Site

Unfortunately, Prof. Swain passed away before this project could be completed any further than you'll see.

This wonderful post is a glaring example of the trouble we get into when people who love us buy for us tools of our trade.
We would spend mucho dinero to salvage-even a beater horn to spare the feelings of a loved one who shelled out bigtime to give us the present of a lifetime.
Reminds me of my dear departed mother who would start a conversation, "You know what I think you should do?" I knew right then that I was in for a long hard way to go.

FWIW, my first tuba was one of these, and I had the same experience: Loved everything about it but the intonation. I, too, found an old York mpc to be the best thing for it.

Stupid, naive, inexperienced me then sold it to buy a horn with even worse intonation--a situation I finally remedied just this past fall by getting a horn that has both a sound that I like and very good, if not spectacular, intonation. While I still suck as a tuba player, at least I now realize that it wasn't ALL my fault. The decent horn is a small boost to my ego and a bigger boost to my motivation to actually get good at it at some point.

I am thankful for all the information you have given. Keep it coming.

Windshieldbug (or anyone else) If it is a=435 what would it take to get the pitch up? How much shorter would the expert repair tech have to shorten it? I am going to go home and chart the intonation tendancies and will also calibrate my tuner to 435 to see how my pitch is then.

I really am going to put in the time to make this work. I am enamored with everything about the horn except the pitch. It is in really good shape for a 1919-1920 era tuba and I don't want to hack it up or piece it out to make other frankenhorns. Hell, I even like cleaning it (for now).

OTOH I don't want band-mates/quintet-mates to get royally pissed at the once solid pitch center now in the toilet.

I'll keep working and listen to any advice offered. My first quintet rehearsal with this horn is Sat. AM. I'll let you know how it goes. I think if I can work it out, this is an ideal quintet horn.

I am very appreciative of the intelligent and thoughtful responses.

Randy

I spoke to Dan Oberloh about this. Sight unseen and taking my word for it he said the best place to remove some length is at the 4th bow. To keep the horn in tune with itself would tubing also have to be removed from all slides?

Sorry, I am just not knowledgeable about stuff like this.

Thanks

I'm not knowledgable either. But my approach to my beat up Conn 14j, the serial number of which puts it at 1957, so it should not be low pitch, but it played flat across the range, but it had a small dent on the lead pipe which might have something to do with it, but I don't that it was enough to make the whole thing flat, but I could be wrong ... was:

- Find the note (or notes) that played the highest. In my case it was notes played with valve #2 down.
- Saw enough off the main slide to bring those notes up to pitch. On the 14j, the main slide is after the valves. The lead pipe goes directly into the first valve; and I'm pretty sure it is the original pipe.
- Then I started working on the slides for valves 1 and 3 bringing up to pitch and doing some comparison with 1/3, 1/2, 2/3, 1/2/3 combos.

When I finished, it is centered mostly at A440. The only significant anomaly is the 123 e-natural which tends to play significantly sharp. But I don't think the 14j was ever known as the intonation champion of the world. Other than that one note, the intonation is fair to middling which, I think, is about all one can expect. But I could be wrong.

Mouthpiece choice makes a lot of difference with this horn. It uses small shank (or large trombone shank). I have Wick 3 and 5, and a Herco something-or-other. I'm not kidding when I say the Herco is a vast improvement over the Wicks. On my other horns, the choice of mouthpiece is just a choice of tone character and playing characteristics. On the 14j, the choice of mouthpiece (of the ones I have) makes a world of difference.

My horn had lots of dents that I got out to a wavy state with the big magnet and balls. The valves were excellent and the insides looked like it has hardly been played -- which it might not have been if it was always this flat. But the outside looked like it had spent its almost 50 years of life being thrown from one closet to the next.

So ... I don't think a little un-square, hand-hack-sawed, tubing will ever be noticed.

But I could be wrong.

And I used a pipe cutter for the slides -- which is lot prettier and easier than hack sawing.

And now that I think about it (it's been a while since I did it), the #2 valve and no valve played about equal in pitch. So I must have compromised with no valve and #2 valve pitch.

Yes, if you change the length of the horn it's likely that the valve slides need it, too unless they were built to short to begin with. The difference for valve slides is not all that great (maybe a 1/4 -1/2" or so, but CHECK the pitch first). It turned out that my euphonium didn't need any adjustment to the valve slides at all. If it if it turns out that it's what you need to do, the good news is that if you make them too short, it's always easy to pull them out back a little!

sffz wrote: . . . . I am mostly 20 cents flat, with the York it's better (not great, but better) and still flat. Most pitches are too low for me to even lip up with out breaking.

My early 1920s York Monster Eb, with 3 top piston valves, has an adapter slide that converts the horn from low to normal pitch.

The tuning slides also have scribed lines to locate settings for low pitch. Others have reported this low/noral pitch feature also.

Perhaps that adapter slide on your horn is missing or was lost over the years.

SplatterTone wrote:And I used a pipe cutter for the slides -- which is lot prettier and easier than hack sawing.

I have done that before, but it does tend to round the ends inward. Usually the edges of the slides have to be filed and sanded afterwards - also makes a great opportunity to reverse bevel the inner slides.

My 4th was added by Custom Music according to the seller. I have 2 pics here: http://davetibbets.spaces.live.com York Eb album

One shows the thumb trigger and the other shows where all of the extra tubing was added.

This thing pretty much plays in tune, so the Custom folks must have done a good job.[/url]