TubeNet

Heck... go for a cheapo just to get back in the swing. Once you can afford a better horn, you can always use the cheapo as a beater when you don't want to drag your 'good horn' to a rowdy Octoberfest gig. The Olds 0-99 ain't a bad horn to play.

schlepporello wrote:Miah, I feel your pain. I too have gone through the same thing. ....... there's someone in Texas who knows your ordeal and is pullin' for ya.

Hey Schlep! I just noticed how much your new Avatar looks like the Mr. Six guy!

http://www.wendellwit.com/?itemid=371

Heck, my first tuba (that I wasn't borrowing from a school) cost all of 900 bucks, and I kept with it until about my junior year of college. It was a 4-rotor .890" bore Zeiss BBb that played more in tune than the S-186 Mirafones that the college bought while I was there.

It's entirely possible for a beater horn to play well and have a pleasing sound. Keep networking with everybody you know (and with everybody they know) to find more good used tubas. All you need to do is increase the odds of finding a good deal, which usually arrives in the form of somebody saying, "Hey, so-and-so told me that a friend of theirs wants to sell his tuba..."

First of all, I'm still playing the Sear Cerveny "piggy" that I bought for $600 30 some years ago and it's doing fine. As to the significant other thing (versus an insignificant other): When my wife asks why I need another horn, I march her up to the bedroom and point to her shoe collection and ask her "Why do you need another pair of shoes?" I frequently follow this up with a story that she told me. She was shopping in one of theose big, fancy mall stores and had found the perfect pair of shoes. She was there for AN HOUR, trying them on and going over the check list of which outfits and purses they would go with and admiring the style and the feel - then only to realize (after AN HOUR mind you) that she already had this exact pair of shoes at home in the closet!

Usually just dresging up this story will get her to agree to let me get the horn just so she doesn't have to re-live that moment.

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don't like playing against that beast - too much work for them - the pansies! The Piggy does most of my quintet work and it has good color and pitch as well as fine dynamic range. It gets the job done.

Generally one shall over-invest, as economy mostly comes out the right way.

You will find avatarian proof, that even the most schleppy TubeNetter can afford a clean shirt by now.

Klaus

Talk about stress. When I ordered my Yorkbrunner from Custom music in 1994 it was damaged during shipping. I unwrapped the huge wooden box after having gone to LAX to pick it up from United airlines. The bell was half crushed. Brand new horn. I played a few notes and felt much better. The horn played better than the one Custom sent me to try and even better than Gene's Big Boy. I contacted United airlines and their insurance took care of the rest. I took the horn to Robb Stewart and he did it up. Valve allignments, he cut the third valve slide to give it extra room, and of course rolled out the dent in the bell. There was minor discoloration, but he did a great job. It was weird having a brand new $18,000 horn that didn't look perfectly brand new. But once I got to playing the thing, I forgot all about the minor incident.