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Certainly depends on the other instruments used.
With my orchestral brass quintet I use my Marian slant-rotor.
We played large venues and everyone used their large bore orchestral horns.
For smaller spaces/players I used my 184 CC.

Obviously it depends on the spaces and players.

It depends, but in general, large bass or small contrabass. Not like those are really any different!

Depends on the lit, the gig, and the player. I can think of great examples of pretty much all sizes of horns working in the quintet setting. There are even several examples of big 6/4 CC horns working really well when played by great players.

I play in two brass quintets with my Kanstul 66. I use a Sellmansberger Imperial mouthpiece with gives me just enough brightness to balance the group. The venues are most commonly reasonably large church sanctuaries. This is what works for me.

Long ago when I played tuba and string bass for most of my income I used my MW 32 CC for quintets. I like the 4/4 contrabass tuba for quintets.

Mark

I'd choose a small, gutsy bass tuba as my default with a 4/4 Bb and something cylindrical as backups.

It does depend on the sound to which the quintet subscribes. Canadian vs Empire is a classic dichotomy. Empire's desire was to keep the orchestral brass timbre and not scale things down to a smaller chamber sound. The Canadian's chose a lighter lyrical sound. Philip Jones Quintet featured John Fletcher on a Besson Eb (large bell). I heard the PJ group on many occasions over a 15 year period and spent 10 weeks one summer hanging with them in the UK. Big sound and a huge dynamic range from PP to FF. Back in the old days, Harvey used his smallish Conn CC with the early NYBQ and Toby followed up with the Mirafone 184. But yet Bob Nagel was one of the loudest trumpet players on the planet. So even though NYBQ was relatively lyrical, it was not a diminunative sound.You would realize that when you were 10 feet away. I heard the Chicago Brass 5tet with Gene using a pretty large CC Hirsbrunner (not the CSO York) on the Malcolm Arnold and the balance was fine. Both Torchinsky and Bill Bell used their King CCs in quintets and the balance was fine. Bear in mind that this was back in the 50s and 60s when these quintets were simply orchestral brass players in a small ensemble setting. They listened and balanced and projected their signature sounds. But while Fletcher did play a huge Holton 6/4 CC, and 5/4 CC Rudi, when in the PJBE he always played on the Eb Besson, but with a huge sound.

I just use the old standby. Olds 99. Nice sound and not too large.

PaulMaybery wrote:I heard the Chicago Brass 5tet with Gene using a pretty large CC Hirsbrunner (not the CSO York) on the Malcolm Arnold and the balance was fine.

I heard the same quintet play John Stevens' Seasons, and Gene did use the CSO York (well, consider who the driver is...) in a venue much smaller than Orchestra Hall.

I've usually played my 4/4 Nirschl CC, but I've been toying with playing my 983 with quintets.

Think of those gigs where you might have Robert King arrangements with abundant ledger lines below the staff coupled with other pieces with Trombone II parts (no tuba part per se) that should be lighter in texture and certainly in pitch. Never mind current serious compositions for quintet which almost always call for a light bass tuba sound.

Does anyone bring more than one horn to a quintet gig?

None. I think brass quintets sound like c__p regardless of what tuba is being used. I won't do them any more unless the pay is good. Dealing with unmusical trumpet players and horn players whose sound gets lost in a muddle someplace, just isn't worth it. Personally, I don't think brass ensembles sound good until you have at least seven voices - preferably 9.

58mark wrote: ...I couldn't see the group, only hear them, but the tuba sound was so thick it was out of balance with the other players. I don't think he was overplaying, it's just the horn had so much body that it sounded like a tuba feature every time the group played.

Something that you might consider are the acoustics of the "hall". It could just be that is was a bass-boomy environment.

Steve Marcus wrote: Does anyone bring more than one horn to a quintet gig?

I would take my F also if the tessetura called for it, certainly.

I vote for what ever Sam Pilafian played with the Empire Brass and Boston Brass. Maybe Yamaha 621? He's always been my favorite in small ensembles.

Rick F wrote:I vote for what ever Sam Pilafian played with the Empire Brass and Boston Brass. Maybe Yamaha 621? He's always been my favorite in small ensembles.

IIRC, Pilafian used a MW 2145 for a couple of the old Empire Brass CDs. At least that's what he's holding in the pictures.

Most of my live listening and my own playing of quintets happens tp be on the Willson 3400, so thats my vote. Fine in the low range, lovely in the airy acrobatic range. Might need a lower mouthpiece to play some lower parts, but never had a problem so far.

I've heard people play on small CC's. Some have sounded great, others not so much. I've heard some people play on large CC's. Some sounded awesome. Some not so much. I've heard people play on big and small F tubas, large and small Eb tubas. Some sounded great and others didn't. It's not the horn. A good player will make the equipment do what needs done.

bloke wrote:... so though all of my posts in this thread have been off topic, the bicycle worked! It's funny how cops will force golf carts and cars and everything else to wait in line, but they will not stop bicycles. I made it to the venue with plenty of time to spare, even though I had to get off of the highway one exit too far, because the correct exit was hopelessly blocked with carloads of parents and grandparents.

Should of just used your old Besson bell-front and strapped it on your back.

We always use bikes for crazy traffic stuff like fireworks/parades/graduations etc. - the cops always way you through and you get in and out super fast.

I'd use which ever tuba I owned which I was the most comfortable with and which was the easiest to play in tune. For me, this would by my "old shoes" Rudolf Meinl 4345 piston CC tuba. My Yamaha 631 Eb tuba would be a very good choice, but I'm not nearly as comfortable with it.

So Mark, which of your horns do you use? Your "Prague" or your little Eb?

What is the personal preference Tuba for brass quintet in Germany?