TubeNet

This past Tuesday I spent the day with Martin Wilk working on two of my tubas. Two of my good friends recently had work done by Martin and after seeing his work and hearing the results, I drove to Palmyra, Indiana to have Martin work his magic. I've been a musician for 50 years - Martin's work is the best I've ever seen. The Rudy 5/4 I bought early last month was exceptional, but now it is amazing. I offer this praise to those who don't know where to go for high quality work. My 1,500 mile drive was well worth it. Most of the work Martin did was taking the lead pipe off, removed dents, rounded it back out, two small patches, aligned the valves, and removed dents from the tuning slide. All of that took at least 6 hours. The lead pipe is off the bell now. My other three tubas also have the lead pipes lifted off the bell. There are lots of great technicians out in the world, but if you don't have Martin on your list - add him!

Ted

Hey Ted!

Glad to see you are a proud new member of the 5/4 Rudy Club. I am curious, since you say you have had the lead pipe lifted off the bell on three of your tubas (and obviously consider it to be an improvement). How do they play differently and what, specifically, do you hear in how they respond with that adjustment? I would assume it allows the bell to vibrate more freely, but am interested in how that affects how the tuba plays and sounds. Best regards.

Congrats! Glad you are happy with his work.

.

Andy, you asked about lifting the lead pipe off the bell. I did this to my first tuba back in 1982. With that horn, I actually changed pipes. My brass Alex that Mike Thornton owned came with the lead pipe already lifted as did my Alex F. When I took my Nickel Alex to Alexander in Germany for work, I had them lift the pipe then.

The potential with the Rudy was obvious - low C, B, Bb, and A were HUGE, but Ab on down were not the same - now they are. Martin started by taking the lead pipe off the horn, cleaning it, and then removing and rounding it back in shape perfectly. When he put it back on, he built a spacer and a brace so that there was absolutely no tension in the pipe. He then worked on the tuning slide, removing small dents. I still don't know what he was doing on the female sides of the tuning slide, but he hammered away for a time until he saw what he wanted to see. He also carefully aligned my valves - that's it! From the lead pipe, through the valves, tuning slide into the main body of the horn. An amazing difference. I would guess just that work alone took 6 hours. He's thorough! Someday when I retire and sell my Rudy, I'll pass that cost along in my price and someone will be happy to pay it.

Overall I would say Martin's work evened out the Rudy, from top to bottom. All tubas have better notes than others, but now the usual suspects have been tamed. I hope this helps Andy, sound is a challenging thing to describe. At the time, I explained it to Martin as the notes being circles stacked on top of each other and now all evenly colored in. I can't tell you how excited I am to finally play it in our hall for our performance of Planets on October 6th.