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Bass Trombone bell section (with some extra tubing) + the F tuba valve section = JinBao Cimbasso? Is this in our near future?

It seems like a nice preliminary though. However, that bass trombone only has a 9.5" bell. That would be a small bell for a cimbasso, especially in the context that the bore for the valve section is 19 mm. The bore on the bass trombone doesn't reach that diameter before the the middle of the tuning slide. In other words, to use that bass trombone bell they would have to redesign a tuning slide.

To make a cimbasso the bell from an baritone horn would probably be a better match. Maybe even the contrabass trombone bell would be a better match.

They couldn't do it on their own. A European would first have to build one for the Chinese to copy.

The JinBao F is too large a bore for a cimbasso - although they do have other models with suitable bore through the valves.

Watch this space...

Sorry,

but do you really think that you can play on a YinBao Cimbasso like this guy:
--> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1DNl8BF ... re=related

JinBaosso?

Cheap ophicleide ... Watch 'em fly off the shelves ...

And who wouldn't have a mess around on a cheap (fibreglass) serpent ...?

Wow that would be great.
For years I'm waiting for a cimbasso with the wonderful intonation of the jinbao F

michaelkeys wrote:Wow that would be great.
For years I'm waiting for a cimbasso with the wonderful intonation of the jinbao F

TubaTinker wrote:They couldn't do it on their own. A European would first have to build one for the Chinese to copy.

Are there no copyright or patent laws that apply to instument designs? It seems that for every name brand horn, there is a Chinese copy (usually exact, as far as I can tell).

PaulTkachenko wrote:And who wouldn't have a mess around on a cheap (fibreglass) serpent ...?

You can buy a fiberglass serpent from EMS. It's identical to the old Harding instruments and at a very good price. It's a copy of an anon. instrument c. 1790.

Kaiser Serpents also makes fiberglass serpents (with a wooden serpent in the works!) that are nicely priced.

I don't call £1200 cheap ...

I emailed Kaiser's, but no reply ... If anyone knows him, give him a nudge!

I bought a Kaiser Serpent some years ago.
You have to be very patient, because he does not build a lot of serpents.
(I had to wait over a year for mine)
But it's a good Instrument and a affordable way to the "serpent-world"
Keep contacting him, he'll answer.

How complicated is it, to learn to play a serpent?

PaulTkachenko wrote:I don't call £1200 cheap ...

I emailed Kaiser's, but no reply ... If anyone knows him, give him a nudge!

Compared to our tubas, and compared to wood and leather (or, now, carbon fiber) it's a hell of a bargain. Mine was quite a good way to find out I wanted to go the wood route.

J.c.S.

In response to the question about patents and design rights of the manufacturers being copied. Patent law is based on the proliferation of "prior art". Unless your instrument has some addition that makes it very unique when compared to the standard models, then that could be protected. The same is true with mouthpieces. The R&S mutes were able to be patented, but only the adjusting mechanism (no "prior art") was specified in the patent.

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Pars ... ND+Shockey" target="_blank

Hope this helps.

Roger

jmerring wrote: Are there no copyright or patent laws that apply to instument designs? It seems that for every name brand horn, there is a Chinese copy (usually exact, as far as I can tell).

No. One of the deep concerns of the European manufacturers is what has already happened most famously with copies of the Miraphone 1291 & 186, Besson Sovereign EEb as well as others.

That is not to say some Chinese horns aren't good but when they try to capitalize on someone else's design it's a clone. Avoid the clones.

Z-Tuba Dude wrote:How complicated is it, to learn to play a serpent?

Well, it's as hard as you make it. And as easy.

Serpent, despite it's oft cited ancenstry with the tuba (which I don't think is very direct at all), it doesn't play like a tuba in the slightest. It's much more like singing. The serpent - especially a good serpent - is a resonator which can be modified in dozens of ways to make your buzz make a warm, resonant sound. It doesn't do it like the closed pipe of a typical brass instrument or even the ophicleide. It uses it's own and the room's presence to enhance what you feed it. It has some notes which are more focused and familiar like a tuba or euphonium, but it's always far more difuse and free to pitch bending and nuance. Some notes have no "focus" at all... many of them, actually. You use the serpent to add a timbre and resonance to those notes; you do the work.

If you have a mind to learn fingerings which often make no accoustic or familiar sense, little sense of pattern, and a great ear and a great buzz, you can learn serpent quickly. You play it gently, and the two of you develop a relationship which can be very, very rewarding. You get the most "power" from it when the two of you come to a great agreement.

J.c.S. (who's hardest step in serpent growth was starting a second serpent; I had to relearn the whole damn thing!)