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Cool engraving!

Which make, model, and pitch is the compararison tuba?

These are the only Rudy Eb's I've seen before:


Source: viewtopic.php?t=22407&p=188993

Maybe it's mostly like the one on the left?

If it was parted out once, my guess is that it wasn't a great instrument. Why rebuild it?

cjk wrote:If it was parted out once, my guess is that it wasn't a great instrument. Why rebuild it?

Maybe... but also, how many people are (or were) really buying rotary Eb tubas to begin with? Even if it was good, if it sat there for a really long time, it could have been better off as parts than as a tuba.

Sidebar: Why does it seem that rotary Eb's are so unfavorable? I posted a little while back about a Miraphone Eb I've got on loan and the general consensus from that thread was that they're just not that great.

Is there something about building an Eb rotary horn that just makes it difficult to pull off? We have rotary horns of all the other keys, why is Eb the odd one out?

My guess -- rotary Eb's see less demand, so less R&D. The majority of Eb's are either British-style (very popular) or American style (used to be popular). Rotary Eb's are just in 3rd place, and seem to be a courtesy to people who like Eb and like rotors.

The Miraphone 183 was sort of the Eb version of the early Mirphone 180-series of F tubas... which is also not really considered to be the greatest F tubas of all time. They're okay for what they are, but anything below the staff isn't going to be much fun. Modern Eb and F tuba models are FAR better than those old ones.

However, it's not that Eb rotary tubas they can't be built. The current Miraphone Eb lineup (Norwegian Star and Starlight) are both considered to be excellent tubas. Hard to say if they would have built these without Baadsvik's influence... but hey, let's not question the "why" and just enjoy what we get.

I tend to wonder about the 0.680" bore.

Tuba bores very often vary in increments of 0.5mm even in countries using inches as their main unit. So I would expect something closely related to the metric scale from a German instrument.

0.680" is 17.272mm, which is odd.

But then 0.679" is 17.25mm, which sounds more likely, even if I havent seen those quarter of a mm increments very often.

Nitpicking about a measurement, but I wanted to see that bore fitting into a metric pattern.

Klaus

I may or may not have played that tuba when it was whole. Back when I lived in Royal Oak, I used to stop into CMC regularly to sample their wares. Being an avid Eb player myself, and owning a Rudy 4/4 CC which I really like, I would have been all over a Rudy Eb as soon as it came in. Back in those days they were exceedingly rare! The ones I played had the same baggage I feel almost all F tubas from that era had. So, if a player was looking to avoid the headaches of having to learn F (because of their well known deficiencies at that time), selecting an Eb with the same issues didn't make sense.

Good luck on the restoration. If it ultimately plays well, it could be a really nice horn. For the few Eb playing professionals in this country, it would be a pretty special horn to have if it played well.