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I have a tuba that was previously owned by a master tuba player. Built in America and China. It is by far the best tuba I've ever owned. I own another horn made by the same company that I purchased from a music store. The latter has a few problems... Slides are poorly aligned, pitch is lower than A440, and some other fixable issues. My question is does anyone have experience (as opposed to scuttlebutt) with horns that were far better put together when the intended recipient was a respected pro? Another question is can a master tech bring the crappier tubas up to par with the better ones with tweaks? What types of repairs are just not worth the time/$ to try fixing?

while i dont have any first hand experience with this i can see how it would make sense to pay special attention to build quality and consitancy to a specific horn the handmade models in particular, when you are well aware that the reciepients opinion on the horn is going to carry greater weight and influence on potential future sales than the average bear. On the flipside it also makes sense to want to maintain a certain standard of quality lest you oshtrasize yourself from the vast majority of tuba players who arent in a position to be dropping 30k on a single instrument. To answer your question , i dont know. But if someone came up to me and told me that so and so who plays for the tubatropolis symphony plays on an identical model as mine but his/hers is better well made than mineor has more valves than mine or has a "/2" next to it i wouldnt be suprised.

I asked this question to Alexander once and here in a nutshell is the answer.

So let's say that they have an order for 12 French horns so 12 are about ready to go. Big time pro says he is bringing student or that he wants a horn. So then the pro tries all 12 horns and picks the best of the bunch. So then they just build another horn and fill in the missing horn to have 12 again. They have told me that they can build 80 French horns a month so it doesn't put them back too far to do that and the big name guy walks out with the best horn. This is why some of the better horns are over here in Europe. Players go to the factory and pick the best ones before they even get shipped out or they can try them at the factory before they are finished. I can't think of a builder over here that doesn't do this.

bloke wrote:I've had quite good luck buying used versions (sight unseen) of models that I played (and REALLY liked) previously.
I mess with them myself until (well...) they end up (very likely) playing better than any other examples of those same models.
More likely than "specially built at the factory", very picky players have gone through the same sorts of things with their previously-owned instruments that I've done to my own instruments...

+1

bububassboner wrote:I asked this question to Alexander once and here in a nutshell is the answer.

So let's say that they have an order for 12 French horns so 12 are about ready to go. Big time pro says he is bringing student or that he wants a horn. So then the pro tries all 12 horns and picks the best of the bunch. So then they just build another horn and fill in the missing horn to have 12 again. They have told me that they can build 80 French horns a month so it doesn't put them back too far to do that and the big name guy walks out with the best horn. This is why some of the better horns are over here in Europe. Players go to the factory and pick the best ones before they even get shipped out or they can try them at the factory before they are finished. I can't think of a builder over here that doesn't do this.

I had a similar experience when I purchased my euphonium. I went to the US distribution center and tried out 6 or 7 horns before picking the one that was best for me. No two horns were alike.

Thank you all for the information. On to the repair/tweaking questions. What types of improvements are done to bring some of the less well made horns up to par with the better ones? What repairs are not worth the cost or are just too much of a headache for pro craftsmen to deal with? For example, how hard is it to raise the pitch 30 cents or more, align tuning slides, improve bracing or others. How many folks use AGRs, deal with nodes etc?

Hello all,
I've heard by repute that B&S, when DDR still exists and B&S was owned by the state, built some of their instruments for export to a much higher standard than those for their domestic market.
The reason for that was to get foreign currency which DDR was in urgent need of due to restrictions from the surrounding world.
However, they also sold their domestic instruments abroad but for a cheap price. These instruments with bad quality and low price led to a bad reputation and they were not respected by demanding people.
Also if B&S generally is of high quality today (owned by Melton, now owned by Buffet) you can not be sure that all of their older instruments is of the same quality.
Just a little warning,
Lars

Repair techs are not all alike. A really great one, like J.c. Sherman here in Cleveland, Bloke in Tennessee, Matt Walters at Dillon Music in New Jersey, or Norm Epperly in Kentucky (and there are more--these are just a few that I have had good experiences with) often fixes "small" things that have a big impact. Techs like that can adjust pitch by lengthening or shortening valve slides or main slides, increase resonance by moving, removing or adding braces, and can sometimes make a big difference by adjusting the valves to maximize alignment and minimize impairment of the airstream.
J.c. once inspected a helicon for me and discovered that a lot of the joints, including the bell joint, had never been soldered on. There was a big difference in intonation and resonance after some solder was applied.
I play double bass, too, and the same thing is true with luthiers. Having a good set up makes a big difference, on brass, strings, or woodwinds,

Thanks for all the information. I'm becoming more addicted to this site more and more.

imperialbari wrote:viewtopic.php?p=80688#p80688

Fascinating, thanks!

My only thought in this is that if the tuba is named after you, I'd bet you probably have one of the best around, and the people at the factory know what they're making and for whom.