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Anyone know about these instruments? There are a couple of model 223 Besson tubas with a .720 bore and a 17" bell for sale at the Tuba Exchange. I have never heard of the model, but they are calling them "fully compensating" and in excellent playing condition, for 1295.00 with case. If anyone has an opinion out there I'd love to hear it. Thanks.

I know a guy who plays one and ssys it has the best intonation of all the tubas he's played and he loves the sound . I have owned a Besson 3 valved compensated euphonium. I really liked it a lot and had few intonation problems with it .

vintage7512 wrote:Anyone know about these instruments? There are a couple of model 223 Besson tubas with a .720 bore and a 17" bell for sale at the Tuba Exchange. I have never heard of the model, but they are calling them "fully compensating" and in excellent playing condition, for 1295.00 with case. If anyone has an opinion out there I'd love to hear it. Thanks.

I wondered about the .720 bore, which didn’t match any Besson bore known to me. Actually TE announces the bore to be .730. From there on we may discuss whether it is .728 or .731. My 3+1P sample has a bore of 0.731".

I like the focus of my Besson BBb (and its low range potentials), but I find it much less flexible than my other BBb’s, and also much less flexible than my British compers in Eb and in F.

And then I find the British BBb’s too tall. They have been so since before 1900. My take is that the makers avoided making two large bows that way compared to the more compact American style BBb basses.

Klaus

Very in tune (only goes down to low E, though), awkward for some to hold, kinda bland tone - works in a band section but not really an orchestra or small ensemble horn. Built like a tank (from the good people across the pond who invented tanks.)

Funny story about one -
Many years ago, I sat in a church / community band next to a middle aged fellow who played one. (Never had any intonation problems with him, BTW) He was of English descent. Most weeks, I showed up with a German made Mirafphfone 190. He never had anything negative to say. One week, I brought my Yamaha 621 F instead (190 was in the shop, I just wanted to work up F chops, don't remember.)
The man totally goes off on me for buying a Japanese horn, and then about everything the Japanese had done during WWII. (He was a gentleman and did apologize the next week.) I don't think he ever caught the irony of the situation.

Part of the stuffiness problems often mentioned with the low range of Blaikley syste, compensating instruments may come from the fact that there are loops of tubing, which are hard to clean.

With the 3+1P compensators there usually is a slide on the 3rd valve comp loop allowing for draining and cleaning. At least on some of the 3+1P comp euphoniums there also is a slide on the 1st valve comp loop.

However there never is a slide in the 2nd valve comp loop and in most cases neither in the 1st valve comp loop. Trombone snakes rarely, if ever, may access these non-slide loops. Working through the open piston casings may be risky in respect of scratching the inner surface of the casing.

Chem cleaning may be helpful, but an element of mechanical force may be desirable also.

My method is to place the instrument on a towel in bathtub (in my previous homes) and now on the floor of my bathroom. I connect a hose with the water tab (maybe only unscrew the shower head), and hold the hose to the mouthpiece receiver to flush the instrument with fairly hot water under fairly high pressure. I wiggle the valves, and very important in this special Blaikley comp situation: I hold down the shift valve (#3 or #4) while I wiggle the other valves. You may have to block some 4th valves to hold them down.

Things to watch out for:

Some of the slides with short male branches may come off due to the water pressure.

Instruments filled with water become extremely heavy. When closing down the water stream, I first let the instruments drain themselves as much as possible via the bell. Then I put my mouth to the receiver and blow the as empty as possible before spinning them.

Hot water may make it impossible to hold or support the instrument, so always make sure the instrument is placed securely so no tilting is possible. Make sure the receiver is cool before putting your lips to it.

Your instrument will need oiling and greasing after this procedure. And there will be a need for frequent draining during the first playing time thereafter. Do not put your instrument into longtime storage without it being thoroughly dry.

Klaus

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I also have one. I have just picked mine back up from the shop having a good cleaning, corks & felts fitted, and general going over to make sure there are no leaks.

Now, the one pictured looks infinitely better than mine. I believe mine spent most of its life in a Texas high school, and it shows, with so many dings it looks like it has a ball peen finish, holes in the rim where it was improperly stored on its bell, and crazy dents all the way around. It has the obligatory flat spot on the outside opposite bow where it would have fallen over more than once by being improperly stood on its bell. And it still has the original smaller receiver so that the only mouthpiece that really fits and sounds good at the same time is the Wick 1. But it does have all its original hardware bits, including all three original valves, slides, all valve caps, top and bottom, all springs, all buttons, and all braces and receiver.

That said, the valves, including the guides, are perfect, intonation is damn near perfect, and the only stuffy notes are low C 1+3 and low B nat 1+2+3.

There are a couple of quirks that most USA tuba players overlook: 1) because of the comp loops, you use 3 alone instead of 1+2 for G & D. 1 and 2 are made dead on, and 1+2 is noticably sharp. 2) because of the comp block and the bugle flare, it doesn't do false tones well, if at all. But there is enough slide pull on 3 that you can get an in tune low Eb if you have time to set up for it.

Everyone talks about "the dent" to get low C to speak with authority on certain F tubas. My "intonation dent" is in the knuckle that connects the 1st valve casing to the 2nd valve casing. This keeps the 5th partials in perfect tune. Yes, D, Db and C in the middle of the staff are perfect. I had this particular knuckle dent taken out once, and these notes all went flat in a hurry. So I took a ball peen hammer and gently tapped the knuckle, reintroducing a little bit of dent until I approached intonation. I didn't go all the way it was before, as that would have obstructed the ports too much and caused other notes to suffer.

Another quirk on mine: the flat 7th partials are usable. Yes, I can play top space G 2nd valve only and top space Gb 1st valve only, and they are in better tune than the 5th partials of a lot of other tubas. And the tuba just absolutely sings in this top register, as secure as it gets, in spite of the abyss-like depth of the Wick 1 cup.

OK, the down side: that mouthpiece does take about 3 lungs' worth of air. But if you got it, you can get as broad as it gets. The tuba is heavy. I have repositioned the leadpipe and angle of receiver for my torso height and slight overbite so that I turn a regular performance chair 45 degrees with the back under my right elbow and the horn balanced on the corner of the chair. Many years before I got it, it must have gotten dropped, because the neutering device has been smashed up into the bottom bow, so I don't have to bother having it removed.

Because C and B nat are stuffy, you have to be careful when transitioning these notes to open Bb to keep the line smooth. And because you are dealing with two sets of ports, your breath support and embouchure and right hand technique have to be exactly coordinated to keep from burbling.

On the comp loops, condensation can collect even there. So I occasionally I have to take out the valves one at a time and do a modified version of the "King spin" to drain water out of the secondary loops.

It has a rich tone. Some might think it doesn't have enough fundamental, but there is more fundamental there than at first appearance because it has such a great overtone structure that reinforces it. It plays with clarity in a small room, and then comes into its own as you get to a bigger venue.

Because of the mass and the comp block, it is not the most responsive tuba out there, and takes some work to play, but the new style Wick 1 with the thinner rim and more metal around the throat have helped that out a lot.

I prefer the 3-valve comp over the 4-valve comp, because the comp loops only work on the last valve, so on a 4-valve, you still have the same intonation problems as any other tuba with having to lip down 1+2 slightly, and pull 3 so 2+3 is in tune, which you don't have on a 3-valve comp, which is theoretically in perfect tune on everything but 1+2+3, and in practice really is amazingly close to perfectly in tune all the way around. Since I play conventional band literature in the ensembles I'm in, I don't have anything below F anyway, and a couple of times that I've had a low Eb or a low D, either written or elective, I've used my 186.

The bore on all of these "golden age of Besson" BBb tubas, post WWII, is @.730.

I got mine off Ebay, used, so cheap it was worth the risk. Some necessary and elective repairs (water key corks, a couple of dents in the valve tubing, etc.) and I was up and running. It's kind of like the old VISA commercial:

Tuba, shipping, dent work: $411 + @$200
Immediately having to purchase another mouthpiece because I forgot it had the smaller shank: @$100
Chugging along on Holst, Alford, and others on the kind of instrument the repertoire was written for: priceless.