TubeNet

Folks, when I was in undergrad, from 1980-1982 I played a Yamaha 4-piston front valve .689 tuba. I'm trying to find out what model it was. I borrowed it for a gig several years ago, and it has finally been disposed of. I'm trying to find out what model number it was, and what the bell diameter was.

Now, before we all reactively say "YCB-621," I looked up that model, and it only goes back to the mid-1980's. The tuba I played could very well be a predecessor, but my recollections are that I liked it because it seemed to be larger, more like a King 1241 or 2341, and had similar playing characteristics, if not quite the "heft" that a King has. It also seemed to have a little better access to pull 1 than the current model has.

The last time I saw it, a couple of years ago, I was actually looking to borrow something else (I should have snagged it when I had the chance) and it seemed to be a little larger overall than the Conn 2J sitting beside it, including a larger diameter bell than a YCB-621.

Then again, my memory may be faulty.

So, if anyone out there knows what model it was, or has literature or brochures that can be scanned to pdf, especially a picture of it, I would appreciate it. I have surfed the web with all kinds of permutations of search terms over the past week trying to find something, and have turned up empty, even on old TubeNet archives.

Thanks.

A guy in a band I play in has one. Four front action pistons - it is similar to a new King 2341 except the flare of the bell seems wider as it tapers down to the bottom bow. I have a King 2341 and the bell as you probably know tapers down much like an old Monster Eb would. The Yammie bell is I think a little smaller in width - but I'm not positive as I've never sat them next to each other and studied them together. The Yammie bell stays larger as it tapers down. This thing is not even in the same ball park size wise with a 103 or for that matter a 621. Much larger. I've never seen another one in person or even in a catalog or Yamaha's website. I'll ask him what the Model # is - his is well kept and looks brand new. Last year we had a guy with a 621 as well in the section and it was easy to see how much bigger this horn was compared to the 621.

Tofu - thanks. That's what I'm looking for. I wonder if it's one that Schilke helped them work on?

Any other ideas?

I have no recollection of such an instrument, but the YCB-621 goes back earlier than you suggest. I played one in 1984 and it was already a well-established model by that time, having already been made famous by Daellenbach. You may be thinking of the F version, which came out much later. My YFB-621 is number 72 and was a Yamaha booth demonstrator during its first year. That was 1990.

I spent time looking through Yamaha brochures in those days, and recall nothing of the sort of instrument you suggest.

The 822 series started life as an F tuba, as I recall, designed with Jim Self's involvement, and it didn't come out until the early 90's, after the YFB-621.

All the front-action piston Bb tubas designed for students seemed to use those same 3/4 outer branches as does the 621. Maybe they had a slightly bigger bell, though they seem to have been made on the same mandrel.

Rick "who remembers the early YCB-621 as a bigger instrument, but that was before BAT retraining" Denney

Rick, you may be right about the 621 being a different sized instrument in its earliest incarnations. This would have been 1980-1982, and the tuba would have already been at least a couple years' old by that point.

It definitely had four valves, so we had to pull 1 on low F, and I remember thinking that it was the same bore as the King, but everything else overall was just a little smaller, not a lot smaller like the current 621, than the King I played in high school, so the transition was easy. And that impression was confirmed when I borrowed it some years ago for a recording session.

iiipopes wrote:Rick, you may be right about the 621 being a different sized instrument in its earliest incarnations.

I didn't say that. I said it might have had a different sized bell (the 621s really have very little bell flare, especially compared to a King, and borrow more from an earlier Besson than an American instrument), and I said it seemed bigger to me then than it does now. But my high school seems smaller now than it did then, too.

Rick "who now thinks of a Miraphone 186 as being smallish" Denney

Sorry I misunderstood your post. Yes, the bell was definitely smaller than the wide-flared King bells at the time, which at that time was my only point of reference.

Rick Denney wrote:I have no recollection of such an instrument, but the YCB-621 goes back earlier than you suggest. I played one in 1984 and it was already a well-established model by that time, having already been made famous by Daellenbach. You may be thinking of the F version, which came out much later. My YFB-621 is number 72 and was a Yamaha booth demonstrator during its first year. That was 1990.

I spent time looking through Yamaha brochures in those days, and recall nothing of the sort of instrument you suggest.

The 822 series started life as an F tuba, as I recall, designed with Jim Self's involvement, and it didn't come out until the early 90's, after the YFB-621.

All the front-action piston Bb tubas designed for students seemed to use those same 3/4 outer branches as does the 621. Maybe they had a slightly bigger bell, though they seem to have been made on the same mandrel.

Rick "who remembers the early YCB-621 as a bigger instrument, but that was before BAT retraining" Denney

I find myself a little confused.
I own a YCB-621 that I purchased new, from the Tuba Exchange @1989. The serial number is in the single digits.
I guess that they could have gotten it from Yamaha much earlier, and just did not "get around" to selling it.

This is the number: 10000X

I was told that the "1" is kind of a place holder....

Z-Tuba Dude wrote:I find myself a little confused.
I own a YCB-621 that I purchased new, from the Tuba Exchange @1989. The serial number is in the single digits.
I guess that they could have gotten it from Yamaha much earlier, and just did not "get around" to selling it.

My whole point exactly. I don't think it was a 621.

Z-Tuba Dude wrote:I find myself a little confused.
I own a YCB-621 that I purchased new, from the Tuba Exchange @1989. The serial number is in the single digits.
I guess that they could have gotten it from Yamaha much earlier, and just did not "get around" to selling it.

I played a Daellenbach model C Yamaha in the middle 80's, probably 1985 and no later than '86. During that period, the Canadian Brass was parading around with their gold-plated instruments "designed by Renold Schilke", and as we all know, they were Yamahas. I attended a master class led by Daellenbach in about 1991 or 1992, with my 621 F tuba in hand, and Chuck and I compared notes. He showed me how the valves on his were vented. By that time, he had been playing the 621 for a very long time. That was the instrument he used following what I seem to recall was a Miraphone 184.

He may have been playing a Schilke prototype that didn't go into production, but that doesn't explain the demo model I played in Austin in the middle 80's. That instrument was definitely a C tuba, and it was definitely a front-piston tuba, and it was definitely small. It was also definitely attributed to the Canadian Brass.

On a lark, I thought I'd look on Yamaha's web page. Could have saved myself some typing, heh, heh.

http://www.yamaha.com/yamahavgn/CDA/Con ... 00,00.html and click the "history" tab.

It says it was introduced in 1985.

The YFB and YBB 621 models came out in 1989, and the 822 models came out in 1992. I bought my 621 F directly from Yamaha in 1990 at TMEA, at the end of the show season. Mine is 100072. My bet is that yours had been in the store for several years.

Rick "wishing their history included discontinued models" Denney

I own and play a Yamaha CC 621 tuba that was originally owned by Jim Self and I contacted him about it.
His reply: "Yes that is the FIRST (maybe only) 5 valve 621 CC Yamaha.
At the time they only made a 4 valve which is useless for a studio musician.
So I asked Yamaha to make it for me. It was a good horn but quite small sound. "

The model on the valve casing is YCB621 but there is a sticker on the case that says YCB681x.
Not certain what that means?
The bell is 16 inches (not the 14+ inch bell).
I'm not sure if Yamaha built it that way for Jim or it was changed later.
I have had the tuba for maybe 20 years and really enjoy it.

John Clark

Yamaha tuba serial number 100001 would have been AFTER 1988 and should have plastic valve guides.

tubatooter2 wrote:I own and play a Yamaha CC 621 tuba that was originally owned by Jim Self and I contacted him about it.
His reply: "Yes that is the FIRST (maybe only) 5 valve 621 CC Yamaha.
At the time they only made a 4 valve which is useless for a studio musician.
So I asked Yamaha to make it for me. It was a good horn but quite small sound. "

The model on the valve casing is YCB621 but there is a sticker on the case that says YCB681x.
Not certain what that means?
The bell is 16 inches (not the 14+ inch bell).
I'm not sure if Yamaha built it that way for Jim or it was changed later.
I have had the tuba for maybe 20 years and really enjoy it.

John Clark

Could you possibly post some pictures of this tuba? I'm curious to see it. I've thrown around the idea of adding a 5th valve to my YCB-621.

TubaTinker wrote:Yamaha tuba serial number 100001 would have been AFTER 1988 and should have plastic valve guides.

What would have been the serial numbers for the first YCB-621's?