maximizing the Olds O-99-4 "eBay treasure" BBb tubas

[tbn.al]

Can't wait!

[tbn.al]

I picked my "girl next door" Olds from Joe today and after the first practice hour I'm very pleased. The "blokerized" version of the O-99 is the same versatile little horn but now it plays in tune. The only problem notes are the 4-2 B and E (and the slide is within reach). The rest of the normal 2 1/2 octave range is within the green(+- 20 cents) on my Korg. This is a vast improvement from the stock horn. The low range will still bark at you at high volumes but I think that is the nature of the beast(.656 bore). The upper range really sings and with a few alternate fingerings has spot on intonation. I now feel comfortable with that high solo in the Rosenthal Little Brown Jug for the first time. I am really surprised that the response is much better all around than my 184. The sound is different, not bad but different, kind of in between my 184 and the VMI 3301. I think I am going to like her a lot as a Bb quintet horn. I'll post again after a couple of months with her. I almost forgot the best thing about this horn.......18lbs.

[David Richoux]

Something I have never quite understood is venting valves. Is the purpose of the vent you put on the first valve to make an air passage to the bottom of the piston to relieve the vacuum when pulling the slide (without depressing the valve,) or something else?

Dave RIchoux

[The Big Ben]

It's Saturday the 13th and there is one of these on DaBay with 5 days left. It is dented but not thrashed. It has a $1500 Buy It Now. Worth that much? Don' know but, if someone buys it, they should print out Bloke's instructions and give it a right good Bloking. Or send it to The Man himself.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 0407325056" target="_blank" target="_blank" target="_blank

[David Richoux]

It's Saturday the 13th and there is one of these on DaBay with 5 days left. It is dented but not thrashed. snip

also today there is a Yamaha YBB-103 with 4 hours left at $510 (no buy-it-now.) with soft bag.
http://tinyurl.com/m7naso

[tbn.al]

The only reason I had Joe vent the first valve was in the event I needed to pull 1 for intonation. The "pop" you get when depressing the valve soon after pulling is quite disconcerting. The vent solves the problem. I had to do a lot of 1st valve slide work with the 184 but I don't think that will be case with this one. I may only have to pull for the low Eb 1-4. It's there if I need it.

[Alex C]

I've always thought this model Olds was a great choice for a small BBb, especially in the 4 valve configuration. Maybe not big enough for most band directors but a good horn anyway.

I never understood the too-long-valve-slides, what were they thinking? But it is absolutely true: the valve slides are, at best, in tune when pushed all the way in; and, most commonly, terribly flat even when pushed all the way in. Back in those days, nobody (I heard of) took their school's tubas to the repair shop to have the slides cut but they should have.

Venting is a great idea.

I've asked around though, and I can't find any information on the 2/3J's ever having been made by Olds. I'm waiting on a 2nd friend who used to work for Conn/UMI to also verify this but I'm pretty sure that Conn made all of the 2/3J's at the Abilene factory which they bought from Olds, ergo the interchangeable parts.

[iiipopes]

There is a 2J in the basement of my undergrad, hibernating quietly. When I pulled it out, it needed minimal repair work. But third space E and midline D were flat, so I had the tech shorten the 1st valve circuit about 5/8 inch per leg to get a good push to tune when necessary.

[Alex C]

This is not in response to any post above but given as information to tubists as curious as I am:

Conn took over the Olds plant in Abilene around 1970. There were a lot of Olds parts and the Olds tooling included in the sale, which Conn's new owner decided to put to good use. He likely made the 2J from parts he had at the Abilene facility, there's no record of this but the probability is too likely to dismiss. The economics of the sale of a manufacturing facility dictate that you use the parts you have and definitely use the tooling. It would have been far too wasteful to throw out the Olds tooling.

So, some parts on the 2J would have matched up with some parts on the Olds 99.

This explanation would account for the similarity between the Olds 99 and the Conn 2J. However, I can find no one with a direct connection who states that Conn had Olds make the 2J/4J tubas in Fullerton.

One of my sources said, "I would wonder if there were early horns that had already had Olds serial numbers stamped on the clusters and were therefore out of the Conn number system," which would account for some 2J's appearing as though they were made in the 1950's.

Hope this helps someone.

Gosh, this type information is too trivial to work so hard to find. I wish this was as important as discovering an in-tune tuba.

[Alex C]

(Edited response)

Well, the point is that Olds did not build the 2J in California.

What interested me was the opening statement of this thread that "at least half of those popular (quintet use, etc.) old small-bore Conn 4-piston CC tubas were actually made by F. E. Olds & Son in California." I'd never heard that before and wanted to follow up on it. I wasn't looking to dispute, I wanted information. If I wanted dispute I would nitpick a minor point.

I talked to people who worked with Conn over a (nearly) 30 year span. Two of them were deeply connected to Conn tubas. One of them was the driving force, for 18 years, behind Conn's eventual development of the present Conn CC tuba. None of the people I talked to knew of any Conn tubas being built by Olds in California. I'm not presenting a theory, I'm presenting my research, such as it is. Not academic research but sound, nonetheless.

The Fullerton plant was producing Reynolds parts and shipping them to Abilene for assembly in the 1960's. Olds has owned (still does) Reynolds which doesn't affect the research and the relationships between the various manufacturers is a patchwork I am not too interested in anyway. Perhaps you post about the relationship between Reynolds and Olds and how it affected the Abilene facility.

[Lew]

Dr. Margaret Downie Banks who is the Curator of Musical Instruments at the National Music Museum at the University of South Dakota probably knows as much about the history of the Conn company as anyone. Here's a link to her webpage:

http://www.usd.edu/~mbanks/" target="_blank

If you are really interested if there are any facts supporting the relationship between Conn and Olds instruments it would be worth asking her.

[cjk]

I don't have any "proof" of what I suspect...I'm only following strong evidence.

There DEFINITELY WERE some Conn CC tubas (same small bore size and same approximate body size/shape) that DEFINITELY were NOT made with Olds parts. The Conn-made ones (different model numbers) had chunkier/thicker-walled/shorter pistons (not as well-made, imo) valve sets, and (I'm thinking) maybe (...??) 18" bells, rather than 16" bells.

Someone, please, give us the model numbers ( _J) of those NON-Olds Conn CC tubas (those that I personally first saw around the early spring of 1979 at a Kansas-Colorado music educators' convention in Denver...Marty Erickson was hanging out at the Conn booth with the rep) that definitely were POST-Olds parts production...

The 3J was the CC with the 18 inch bell.

The 2J was the CC with the 16 inch bell and the "Olds compatible" parts. I would be willing to bet that the 2J is primarily an Olds 099 with the inner bows shortened. The outer wrap seems to be the same size as a 2J. So in other words, I think that the parts sharing is pretty significant.

I used to have the valve caps off of an Olds "Ultratone" (or maybe it was Duratone) drum corps bugle. They were identical in fit and appearance to the valve caps on the 2J. I think I sent them with the 2J when I sold it.

[tbn.al]

Please humor me. This maybe should go in the update post but it is only an update on this specific issue. I took the 184 out of the case for the first time this weekend and began the process of deciding which one to sell, it or the Olds. I thought the Olds would win hands down, but that 184 plays soooooo good. I really don't know whether it's because I've played it for 5 years or not. It does feel so right. The Olds has a fatter more American sound of course and my quintet likes that. I really prefer the 184 sound with more core, maybe it's my trombone background. The Olds is much, much better in tune with itself than the 184, no contest there. The quintet likes it when I play in tune. With the 184, I really got tired of wrestling with the first valve tubing, pulling and pushing. The Olds is almost plug and play. I don't make as many clams on the 184, maybe just 5 years of muscle memory. The Olds tends to break up at high volumes easier than the 184, which only gets a bit edgy like a trombone but I like that. I am finding myself in a delima not unlike what I hear the Alex guys voicing. Since I am only going to be using this horn in a quintet setting I am leaning toward the Olds. A couple of questions for the experts.

1. For lack of better terminolgy and hoping not to sound too much like a trumpet clown, the Miraphone slots better than the Olds. That is the slots seem to be wider on the Olds. I can bend the notes more appreciably with the emboucure without sacrificing tone quality. The slots on the 184 are so tight that any lipping causes an appreciable drop off in tone quality. Could this really be an issue with these two similarly sized horns?

2. These tight 184 slots could be the reason I feel more secure on attacks on it. If I'm off a tad, the 184 has a tendency to bring me back to the center and the Olds just lets me vibrate wherever I choose, hence more clams. Is this a reasonable assumtion?

3. Could what I'm experiencing be just the difference between an American tuba and a German stove pipe? I'm really not that experienced in the tuba world so any insight would be appreciated.

[tbn.al]

I am not really unhappy with the sound of either tuba. They are what they are. I think I prefer the German stovepipe sound with more core, but there is absolutely nothing wrong with Olds, especially in the meat register. It produces a warm encompassing sound that's really easy to get comfortable with. It gets a bit barky low and a little stuffy high, but those two octaves in the middle are so sweet. I play it with Cd's, looking at a tuner, with my quintet, and alone with just my ears and the intonation is amazingly good. That alone will almost sell me on a horn.

I was really wondering why. Does this go back to the German/American thing? Is it a factor of bore? If it is, does having the valve set so much closer to the mp give the horn it's properties? That could explain why they play so close to the same size even with the difference in bore. I suspect that the relative position of the valveset gives the American horn a more conical bugle and the German horn more cylindrical tubing. It is interesting that the VMI 3301 that I like a lot, but it weighs a ton, has features of both. It is a piston 4/4 horn with the valveset almost exactly in the same place in the bugle as a rotary. It has a lot of the tone quality of the stovepipe, but the super intonation like the Olds.

I am really spouting off about things I don't fully understand but maybe somebody out there can help me get a grasp on it. I am probably thinking too much because the decision on what to keep and what to sell will ultimately be made at the mouthpiece not the brain.

[tbn.al]

In the six months that has passed since Joe worked his magic on my Olds I have had a chance to do a thorough job of testing it against the 184. The Olds won me over and I sold the 184. Taking into consideration all of the factors involved, the Olds is clearly superior in two areas, intonation(thanks to Joe) and response. The 184 is superior in sound production, but not by a whole lot. The Olds fills my needs nicely. It is a small, light weight BBb that performs wonderfully with relatively little extra work on my end of the mouthpiece. It has replaced the VMI 3301 as my tuba of choice unless I need more sound production(hardly ever). It produces as nice a sound, is a lot easier on an old guy to tote, better in tune and responds as well as the VMI. With a couple of tweaks, another spit valve and another 2 inches on the 4th valve slide for my Eb and I believe I will be quite happy to play this tuba until death do us part. The quest is over!

[Paul Scott]

I also have an Olds 099-4 that was repaired and modified by Martin Wilk during this past August. The horn had a bashed in bell, broken valves stems and all manner of other problems but Martin saw the potential in the instrument and went to work. After straightening out the bell, some reinforcements were installed on the outside of it to give more strength and rigidity. A nickel leadpipe was added and the third valve slides were cut for the same reasons that Bloke has stated. Martin solved the valve stem issue by retapping the pistons in order to accept bigger King stems-a BIG improvement-and also added Yamaha euph springs which work quite well. The fourth valve tubing was not quite long enough so that was redesigned and lengthened, but my favorite touches are the additional diagonal braces that Martin added, (I believe there was only one in the original Olds design). I think they look spiffy and I feel that the added rigidity they provide improves the response of the instrument. A new bottom-bow cap and a guard was installed not to mention all manner of cleaning, dent removal, etc. to the instrument overall.

The result? IMO, a great sounding little horn that I regard as the perfect size and design for a younger player (and not bad for an older one either...). These tubas were considered "school horns" when they were made but certainly are better designed and constructed than most (if not all ) of the "school horns" available today. It does have one odd feature: the main tuning slide water key was mounted on the wrong side many years ago. I may have that moved in the future. Here are a few photos:

[SousaSaver]

That's a great bit of advice Joe!

[SousaSaver]

Those diagonal braces look really cool. Martin did a very nice job.

[iiipopes]

A friend of mine just had a Bach Mercedes 3-valve refurbed (my tech said it was an Olds contract/stencil horn) that has really good brass in it, and surprising, the valves only needed some stem work, despite decades as a small-high-school horn. It plays really great. I took it to my last band rehearsal and in the small room it was more than sufficient, until you get to something like the trio of National Emblem, where it finally started to run out of horsepower as the only tuba supporting the band.

[iiipopes]

A friend of mine just had a Bach Mercedes 3-valve refurbed (my tech said it was an Olds contract/stencil horn) that has really good brass in it, and surprising, the valves only needed some stem work, despite decades as a small-high-school horn. It plays really great. I took it to my last band rehearsal and in the small room it was more than sufficient, until you get to something like the trio of National Emblem, where it finally started to run out of horsepower as the only tuba supporting the band.

' not really a "stencil", as Olds/Reynolds were shuttered in 1980, and Bach actually bought the tooling for these tubas and moved it from Abilene, TX to Elkhart, IN (Bach plant #2) that year. The tooling is mothballed, but (obviously) it now belongs to Conn-Selmer.

Thanks.