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Speaking of braces, can the position of braces effect the tone and overall performance of a tuba? If so ,How so?

Brown Mule wrote:Speaking of braces, can the position of braces effect the tone and overall performance of a tuba? If so ,How so?

Yes, absolutely.

The number of and position of braces can absolutely impact the tone and overall performance of the tuba. While they are, of course, absolutely necessary for structural support of the instrument, moving them around, adding, or removing them can yield some very interesting results.

Depending on what you do you can get everything from more resonance to less, improved or detrimental intonation, better or worse response and so on.

Most people don't experiement with braces unless they are rebuilding a tuba that has been seriously damaged. There is really no way to know exactly what your results will be until you start moving things around.

You use brass sheets, rods and tubing of various lengths and thickness and cut or turn them down to the proper dimensions. Then you braze the sockets or rods to the foot or flange of the brace and use a rod for support...or something like that.

Second, there is some truth that moving braces can have an impact on sound. But it isn't as important of a factor as the design, the bore size, the shape of the mouth pipe, the overall rate of taper throughout the instrument, the bell flare size and shape or thickness of the metal throughout the horn. In other words, if you have a horn that doesn't play very well for you, moving braces won't change much. If you have a horn that is STELLAR, moving braces won't make you better, or open up your sound or anything of that sort. It is best not to focus too much on this stuff. The most important thing to do is find a horn that works best for you as-is, and practice, practice, practice.

That's just my opinion, I could be wrong...

Basically, there are three kinds of braces; 1-piece, consisting of two flanges made of sheet brass and cut into a shape, and a center rod, either plain or turned into a design, the three pieces then being brazed together. two-piece, consisting of two flanges, each brazed to a rod portion, the two rod portions being fitted, drilled ans threaded so that this brace is screwed together, allowing for removal of a portion of the instrument, on a tuba typically the valveset or the leadpipe. three-piece, consisting of two flanges brazed to sockets, and a rod that fits into the sockets. Each brace has it's advantages - the one-piece brace is the lightest-weight, the two-piece brace allows for disassembly of the instrument without soldering for cleaning and repairs, and the three-piece allows easy assembly of an instrument with no tension, since the rod can float within the two sockets during soldering.

Making these braces? For restoring obsolete instruments, where braces are damaged or missing, I will sometimes fabricate replica braces. This is a labor-intensive, expensive process, so I only do this where the restoration justifies it. There are companies that make and sell braces, that are perfectly acceptable for all other applications, and much cheaper to buy ready-made.

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Braces are sold by band instrument repair supply houses, some of which sell to the public, and some don't. Very possibly the most accessible is Badger State Repair in Elkhart, Wisconsin. The owner, Ed Strege, sold me supplies when I was in the Army, wanting to get into the repair business, and other companies would not sell to me because I wasn't "in the business". PM me for contact info.

The model shop near me has brass tubing in graduated sizes so they telescope into each other. This makes it easy and neat to make a post and socket, then silver solder the socket to the foot. Bend the foot to fit the curve of the instrument before soldering.