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The thread about "which horn you use most" made me decide to post this.

I acquired a Yorkbrunner which I was not particularly impressed with. I have taken it to a few rehearsals but haven't felt confident that it is enough of a player to put it on the line at a gig. True... a Yorkbrunner.

A few friends suggested that I get it cleaned and generally serviced, "that might help it" was the usual comment. So I took it in. As the teenage girls say: O MY GOD!!! What a difference. The sound was big but undefined before, it's now big, solid and consistant.

The response is immediate. The low register was "iffy" before, now it's a rock. I will confess that some 5th valve fingerings are better but, for example, the Ride excerpt is just incredible on this horn now.

Last, but not least, the intonation seems better. I bet it's because the sound is more defined but whatever the reason, it's better.

The change was such an improvement that I took my wonderful YFB621 in and got similar results. I've now got two euphs in the shop and am thinking about carting everything else in eventually.

My point is: If you play an instrument for a couple of years, get it cleaned by serviced by someone who know what they are doing. I take care of my instruments, clean them myself regularly and "align" the valves but I never got results like this.

I lucked up, the repair shop uses a cleaner which is not acidic and doesn't hurt silver finishes. Now, repair gurus, chime in with tomes of wisdom.

Bob1062 wrote:Let me be absolutely clear here, I DO like the horn VERY much and it IS a blast to play AND was in great shape when I bought it. I am in NO way speaking against the owner at ALL.

Uh, Bob, aren't you the owner of the horn?

Alex C wrote:My point is: If you play an instrument for a couple of years, get it cleaned by serviced by someone who know what they are doing. I take care of my instruments, clean them myself regularly and "align" the valves but I never got results like this.

I've had my instruments serviced regularly and have never had such dramatic results. The only drama in my results has been that the valves are more reliable.

But if there was something wrong, a deep servicing is likely to find it. Such as: The water key cork that doesn't leak much to really notice but enough to have an effect. And the slide ferrule whose solder joint has become porous. Or grease blobs that have built up in a slide.

Even a deep servicing doesn't find all issues, however. My Holton had been deeply serviced by high-end repair techs twice before I sent it to Memfus to get the valves redone. Joe found that the fourth slide was barely inserted into the valve knuckle and the solder joint was leaking. That was not apparent in previous servicings.

My suspicion in the case of your YB is that a water key cork was just that little bit leaky, or there was some big honking grease blob in a slide that you had missed in your home wash-ups. Not enough to be obvious at all, but enough to affect the instrument. And since the instrument was new to you, you didn't have a baseline of normal performance for comparison.

Rick "curious about the improvement in what has been a rather dodgy fourth valve on the Holton" Denney

I wanted to share this with the TNFJ. This is a great FREE online video that Jeff Funderburk has put together. It is an excellent resource for maintenance of tubas.

http://www.uni.edu/drfun/repair_video/r ... index.html