TubeNet

Stupid question.
Background: my high-level German custom horn sounded like crap with the high-level German bell on it. It sounds to die for, by all accounts, with the Lawson ambronze bell on it.

I wanted to get a cheap alto horn to sub in the brass band. Jupiter makes one that would be acceptable except it has a tinny sound that resembles the sound my horn used to get before the good bell. Is there a way to de-tin the sound by adding weight to the bell? I tried golfer's lead tape on the tinny horn bell, as a home-made kranz, and while it helped, it didn't put it in the ballpark of the ambronze bell.

MA

bloke shouldn’t make fun of little old ladies, but maybe that is part of his contract with the Mocking Symph.

His suggestions are disproportionate with the potential values of a student model. Which after all is not terrible through all of its samples.

I remember being asked to test this model by my sax friend owning a wind-and-brass store. I remember that model because I complained that the ergonomics were too much directed towards kid players (a complaint the OP would never make). And my friend replied that not everybody had a hand like a garden racket (OK I have very large hands).

The sample I tried made a decent sound and had a reasonable intonation. But then I move a lot of air when playing. The dimensions of this instrument, like those of the old British alto (tenor) horns, are very small. The bore, like with old-style flugelhorns, allows for a relatively wide expansion rate. That is a Sax heritage.

My young genius solo horn of 35 years back went nuts, when I told him, that his B&H Imperial alto horn had a bore smaller than that of the cornets. Couldn’t be true as his sound was SO much bigger. But a very simple mechanical comparison test silenced him.

I wonder that a horn player doesn’t make this alto horn swell over with sound, as an alto horn after all has much less resistance than a French horn. I only see two obvious reasons: the player has a bad day or the horn has a leak, maybe a dried out or ill fitting water key seal.

I have 3 rather different altos. The Courtois Saxhorn and the Martin mellophone work well played through a Giardinelli J4 horn mouthpiece and an adapter. The Weltklang oval has a larger receiver. Hence a DW10CS or a Kelly 12C bonepiece for that one.

Some alto horns come with rather odd small mouthpieces. My experience says that the DW2 and the largest model from Vincent Bach give the best results for players specialising on alto horn. The former approaches horn/baritone/euph, the latter may give a more trombone like sound, which I have heard used very convincingly in a jazz context.

Klaus

bloke wrote:Mr. 'bari,

All of the instruments owned by my are "student" instruments, as I am a student of life.

Further, you should not mock my lofty position, sir:

http://tinyurl.com/6cgzpk

Your dad, Sir?

Imp Bar

bloke wrote:hmm...

You are right! Isn't nice to kill a mocking bird.

Im Ba

Have any of you worked with those belts you can wrap around the outer throat - around the "trademark" area? I don't know whether that is intended to address Mary Ann's issue, but maybe something like that would help. Or does it?

Gold-plate the bell. Add laquer. Have a tone ring made for the bell throat or (much cheaper) your mouthpiece. Add mass. Put a larger bow guard on. Many ideas.

It'll still be a Jupiter alto horn.

YGWYPF

J.c.S.

J.c. Sherman wrote:It'll still be a Jupiter alto horn. J.c.S.

I've been the golfer's lead tape road with the old Cavalier souzy I used to play. Yes, it can work, but it was a pain, and added significant weight. (Hey -- about 4 or 5 ounces of weight is significant when you're carrying a souzy!) Here's what I have done that has lessened the "ring" of the bell and has helped with a tad more "core" to the sound, and it's what my friend did to his Jupiter Tribune up-4 valve euph that make it sound twice as expensive:

Go to a home improvement/hardware store and get a length of the clear 5/16 inch plastic tubing as will go around the circumference of the bell. Since the Alto horn probably has @8 inch bell, 2 feet or so should do (remember your basic geometry: circumference = pi X diameter).

Take an exacto knife or other jig and slit it longways, and thread it onto the bell rim wire. It's a lot cheaper (probably @ 50 cents for the tubing) and a lot easier, and removable if you don't like it.

J.c. Sherman wrote:Gold-plate the bell. Add laquer. Have a tone ring made for the bell throat or (much cheaper) your mouthpiece. Add mass. Put a larger bow guard on. Many ideas.

Don't forget to weight the valve caps!

While adding mass, I suppose one should attach the mass in a way that doesn't acoustically insulate it in any way. I don't know enough about such matters, to know if that means lacquer would have to be removed at the point of attachment.

Another possibility with a student horn is that the molecules just haven't been aligned. Try the cryogenic treatment.

MaryAnn wrote:Stupid question.
I wanted to get a cheap alto horn to sub in the brass band. Jupiter makes one that would be acceptable except it has a tinny sound that resembles the sound my horn used to get before the good bell. Is there a way to de-tin the sound by adding weight to the bell? I tried golfer's lead tape on the tinny horn bell, as a home-made kranz, and while it helped, it didn't put it in the ballpark of the ambronze bell.

MA

Every alto horn I've ever pick up sounded like a duck with his b........

No, I'll be good.

Seriously, I think it takes some work to get good tone out of an alto horn. More work if it's a cheap one. While I'm not discounting physical improvements to the instrument I think that it may be that you'd get more bang for the buck by putting in the time and effort to get as good a sound out of the horn as you, yourself, can first.

You've spent countless hours working on that on your tuba. Would it be reasonable to expect a good sound out of an alto horn without spending a goodly amount of time developing it?

Meanwhile, mine still sounds like a duck in pain.

Come to think of it - what would darken it fairly cheaply, and guaranteed to work - would be to remove the bell and anneal it. You'll have to be careful about dents, but it sure as heck works. Done this to some trumpets and bones - should try it on a flug... hmmm....

In any case, you would have a cool horn with the rest opished and this custom patina afterwards. Or buff it and put it back on. Honestly, it shouldn't be that expensive...

J.c.

Bob1062 wrote:The Yamaha altos seem to be pretty nice. I played with a guy with the shorter one and it actually sounds really nice. I don't quite remember the taller one that well, though. Maybe not cheap though.

Right, we got a used "student" model (202?) via fleabay, and it's a marked improvement over the older student line Besson (2-20?) it replaced. That wasn't awful, when the 3rd valve wasn't sticking, but the Yamaha has a richer but clearer sound.

I guess it was my turn to be "mocked." I'll strongly consider buying a new alto, sawing the bell off with my Sawzall, and doing the rest of what Joe "suggested." I especially like the prospect of having solder runs all over the rest of it; would make it a mighty unusual looking instrument, one that I could perhaps sell for twice what I paid for it on the *bay, if I referred to the fact that mid-south music had recommended this particular means of improving the instrument.

Only tooted it for 30 seconds in the store, on the stock mouthpiece, which I didn't look at very closely. They also had a used Yamaha but I didn't ask the price, should have.

Going back to old Tubenet, wasn't it Rick who installed solid metal rods down the inside of his bell, at one point? And liked the result? I remember the picture but not the specifics.

Were I to play alto it would be using my horn mpc with an adapter; might sound just fine that way. For some reason the conductor of the brass band doesn't want a "real" horn on the "horn" parts. So...I decided not to bother, altogether.

MA

It was Jay Bertolet having vertical sound rods installed in a huge Cerveny’s bell inspired by a teacher or colleague.

With the general love or the opposite for the alto horn we may twist the more funny sides of an ongoing battle:

An alto horn with lipstick all over the bell will still be a pig.

But the bell will be heavier.

Some brass bands have made fine music with French horns replacing the usual alto horns. A pioneer in that area was Geoffrey Brand and his City of London band some 35 years ago, but then he could pick the best students from all of London’s conservatories. The French horns project better than the altos, but they also create some problems. Traditionally the altos form a sound bridge between the flugelhorn and the baritones, and that is a function not easily done on French horns.

Klaus Smedegaard Bjerre

MaryAnn wrote:Only tooted it for 30 seconds in the store, on the stock mouthpiece, which I didn't look at very closely. They also had a used Yamaha but I didn't ask the price, should have.

Yamaha has had various alto horn models over the years. My first hand experience is with the original YEH-201 of many years ago. Musically that was a very decent competitor for the Class B British instruments of the same price range, as the Yamaha was way better in tune with itself.

Some twenty years ago there was a model with a trigger on the third slide. A good idea, but that model had other tuning problems according to my sources.

If you find an old YEH-201 make sure the pistons are not pitted, as they had a problem in that area. Also make sure the 3rd slide is not damaged. If you can make that slide run well, then you have every chance that you can play well in tune with a little trombonizing.

Klaus

The cryogenic treatment has not been scientifically proven. Everything I have read is subjective, if a valid test is available, I would like to read it.

tubamirum wrote:The cryogenic treatment has not been scientifically proven. Everything I have read is subjective, if a valid test is available, I would like to read it.

If you want to test your instrument during the treatment I would recommend a Kelly mouthpiece.

Klaus

tubamirum wrote:The cryogenic treatment has not been scientifically proven. Everything I have read is subjective, if a valid test is available, I would like to read it.

This is about the closest it gets to an objective cryo test:

http://www.whc.net/rjones/jlynch/cryo/" target="_blank

I asked the guy at Dillon's to look at the pistons, and he said the monel was starting to come off. So....yeah it's cheap but there is a reason. Dillon's continues to impress me with their honesty.

Thanks for the link.

MA

MaryAnn wrote:I asked the guy at Dillon's to look at the pistons, and he said the monel was starting to come off. So....yeah it's cheap but there is a reason. Dillon's continues to impress me with their honesty.

Thanks for the link.

MA

Never heard of monel coming off. Isn't that the very alloy the piston is made out of?

What happens to the first generation of bottom sprung Yamaha brasses is about a brilliant idea turning rotten. Each piston guide has an adjustment screw to expand two wings to make up for wear. Sadly that screw is out of a metal causing the piston material below the nickel plating to corrode. Eventually the bubbles in the nickel will burst and a bad pitting will become visible.

I don’t wonder about that shop trying to tell a little old lady nonsense. I rather wonder about exactly that little old lady buying that story. Fortunately she didn’t buy that alto horn.

Klaus

The concern of the OP has been approached in different ways.

Amrein of Lübeck in Northern Germany offers these rings for an after-market placement on trumpets:

http://www.musik-amrein.com/gb/product/ ... tm?prod=11

The English translation makes very little sense compared to the German text which already touches on voodoo. Still I am considering buying these rings for instruments with an unwanted ring.

I can’t find it on the web now, but I have seen Christian Lindberg advertise Conn trombones and some corduroy thing to strap weight to the bell stack.

From just about all sorts of German/Czech brasses we know the Kranz/garland most often made of nickel silver.

Klaus Smedegaard Bjerre