Casca Grossa wrote:If you have a American, Japanese, or European 6/4 CC, silver plated, with an AGR, and a Monette mouthpiece while using perfect posture as described on the Monette website, all MAW valves scooped, swedged, and rotated, a tone ring, a tuba stand, an old, enormous Cerveny style thumb ring, and Saturn water keys, you will sound like a god no matter what.
I think the big Rudy Meinl tubas take some player maintenance to be successful.
Old Alex tubas can sound amazing, but will do zero to help you make that sound. I wonder how some of those old Alex tuba players would sound on a modern, easy to play tuba!
With the exception of the PCK or 5450, "big" tubas seem (to me) to require more grooming than something like 186/188, 2145, PT4, etc. I like my "big" tuba's sound a lot, but I feel like it doesn't take much time away from it for things to go a little bit sideways.
Some tubas don't require much acclimation. The 3/4 Rudy Meinl CC comes to mind. Any that I've ever tried......just throw a mouthpiece in there and play it.
I’m somewhat biased since I play on one as my primary horn, but I honestly feel like a Miraphone 188 (and most likely the 186 as well) are easily enough handled decently by most players.
