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One of dem dang old tuba just oom oom oom no pah pah pah vales go up down up down spit dibble down floor slip and fall man I tell you what.

bloke wrote:Discuss the worst tuba you ever played or owned.

Owned?! If it was that bad, I wouldn't have bought it!

New Besson F compensating. Just unplayable, un-tunable. And I really wanted to like it.

bloke wrote:tuba defenestration

Discuss the worst tuba you ever played or thrown out a window!?

A Chinese 4 valve in BBb with valves that would start to stiffen up after a day after I oiled them and with a 4th valve slide that would slowly rise and fall out as I played......

Not a tuba but an ophicleide - could not get a decent sound out of it. I remember thinking at the time "I know why these became extinct"

Of actual tubas, a new Besson 994 BBb - was like playing into a bucket with really dull tone. I am full of admiration for those brass band players who get a decent sound out of one.

Yamaha 321. Worst. Tuba. I've. Ever. Played. Big, awkward, instrument, bland tone...all kinds of bad. (in my opinion)

Boosey 3+1 F tuba.

A Conn Eb Sousaphone made in the 1950's. I think the horn was originally o.k., but when I got it, it was pretty worn out. Valves leaked, slides were stuck, a lot of joints broken and an interesting array of dents and bruises. The goose neck was not for the horn and just didn't fit. It played just barely. It is now a wall hanger. Hey, I got it for free. What do you expect!!!!!

A leaky, corroded, untuneable, flatulent-sounding Conn 12J with tons of dents and wrinkles. It wouldn't have even made a good flower planter. This thing had been through innumerable generations of middle schoolers and had been dreadfully abused.

bloke wrote:Discuss the worst tuba you ever played or owned.

I've never played a tuba that was worse than I am.

Boehm & Meinl 5/4 CC. Chinese scale, would not stop sounding like a bath tub no matter how small of a mouthpiece I used. No clarity whatsoever.

But it was shiney and silver!

Mojo workin' wrote:Boehm & Meinl 5/4 CC. Chinese scale, would not stop sounding like a bath tub no matter how small of a mouthpiece I used. No clarity whatsoever.

But it was shiney and silver!

I don't usually like to badmouth anything (one person's trash is another's treasure) but the worst tuba I have ever owned, by far, was a B&M 5520 factory CC. Calling it a 5/4 is pushing it, although it is no small tuba. Mine was lacquer but still looked like a really good tuba, despite having more crooks in its valveset than the Nixon adminstration. The overall sound was good - full, round, and "yorkish" but playing it in tune and with a consistent sound note to note was an exercise in frustration. Playng anything faster than half notes made me hate playing the tuba, forget about playing any Bordogni on this! I understand the BBb tubas cut to CC, as well as the later CC's that were produced, played with a much more even scale.

Besson Stratford Bb that has been used as a weapon in some war, perhaps Crimea. It had about 200,000 dents, weight a ton, came equipped with a standard Besson unmanning device, and required considerable slide shortening to make it remotely possible to tune the valves. Oh, and it sounded like crap. I would take a similarly shaped Yamaha 321 any day.

But it was the instrument that allowed me to make a comeback to playing.

Rick "who shouldn't complain--it was free" Denney

cjk wrote:Boosey 3+1 F tuba.

One of my favorites!

Do ergonomic concerns count? In my opinion, the Yamaha 321 is very heavy and cumbersome to hold onto. I could never get comfortable playing one.

HB Lay "Columbia" eefer. Poor thing. It never had a chance. Let's put it this way: even after having the valve stems and caps rebuilt so the valve ports would line up, it suffered even worse than most other well-known "monster" eefers. The scale was so bad, the loop in the leadpipe containing the tuning slide before the valve block had all the silver worn off of it from prior generations of players riding throttle on the main tuning slide. Below 1+3 Bb, valves became optional.

like Neptune, I didn't enjoy playing the Besson 994 BBb, but the one that really gets my vote is the Yamaha YEB321, my little finger was never strong enough to move the 4th valve

Mojo workin' wrote: like a bath tub

Not familiar with that one.


The worst tuba I have ever played was the CSO York:
I couldn't make fast notes and it sounded farty.

Mojo & Marty... I'm curious, were these just clunker versions of that model? Or poor design to begin with?

You both know your stuff, so I'm sure you would've had it serviced, fixed, etc. if it could have been done. Or, was it that something more drastic could have been done to fix it (or better it), but not worth the cost it would have taken?