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Im looking to get a gig bag to fit my 188 but dont know what to go with. Some say that Altieri are good but that horns tend to dent easily in them. Any suggestions for other types of gig bags that are more or less in the 100-250 dollar range but wont end up being a poor investement?

horns dent easily in any gig bag. i'd go with alieri or reunion blues though. Those have worked the best for me.

I will second the Cronkhite leather gig bag. I used to own a ProTec gig bag and they are not in the same league of protection. OTOH, they are quite a bit more. I figured that I was going to have this horn for quite some time, so why not go with the best. Good luck!

I really enjoy my Reunion Blues gig bag. It's very sturdy and pretty easy to walk with compared to others I have tried.

A gig bag is useful if it makes your tuba easy to carry and if it has a good pocket for sheet music folders. (Avoiding dents is your job, not the bag's.) Many gig bags have the music pocket on the wrong side, so the folder gets bent over the valves, unless you have a top-action tuba. I actually cut the pocket off my bass bag and sewed it onto the flat side of my old Altieri tuba bag, just so the charts would stop getting bent out of shape over my pistons. I sewed shoulder straps onto a couple of other cheaper bags; now they are very useful.

Cronkhite tuba bags are available from Just For Brass. Not the cheapest, but definitely the best.

http://justforbrass.com/index.php?main_ ... cts_id=583

Soundwear Gig Bags are great, too. It has some extra protection around the bell. However it is about $400 for new...

I have a tuxedo soft case and I would say watch out. The metal rings that attach your strap to your tuba so that you can put the tuba on one of your shoulders are made of white metal which is a really crapy metal. I had the metal break already and caused a dent in the first horn that I owned. If you get one, cut the meal and put some steel rings or clamps. Thats what I did and I haven't had a problem since.
Zach

wow ll of your information helps thanks!

I've had 3 horns with 3 different Alteiri bags. The first one (obtained in fall of 1985) wasn't so protective for a college student who dragged his horn everywhere and didn't really care about beating it up (probably the key part in that sentence). The second one was for a Mirafone 188 and when I ordered it I asked for "double" padding (and a blue stripe). I paid extra and that bag did great. The last one was for a CB-50, pretty much a stock bag, and I never ever had a problem with that bag not protecting the horn.

I have, however, seen a back strap fail on an Altieri while the bag was going onto someones back, resulting in the horn plummeting and putting a really good whack on the bell.

I had a Dolly bag for my Kalison 2000 and it too was an excellent bag, especially the sheets of plastic. Most protective bag I've ever owned. They can be rather difficult to be obtained these days, though.