Tuba prices: are we are being ripped off VERY BIGLY?

[peterbas]

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[2ba4t]

You got me!! Feynman is my all time hero. Columbia refused his application to be an undergrad because he was - shall we say - of the wrong ethnicity - yep, they had quotas in those days. He married a sick girl just to be able to nurse her through her death. He stood up against the USA establishment and FBI and got persecuted for life because he refused to dilute the truth he had discovered about the 'O' rings causing the Apollo 8 disaster. He just said the truth at that immortal press conference. [a must watch] He played the bongo drums at a local clubhouse. Oh, and unimportantly, he was the greatest quantum mathematician we have ever had.

But that is nothing to do with academia and peer reviews. However, very true - my experience was only with one place where the oxen fording the Isis were far more appealing than the upper class twits (and smelt better). American colleges are entirely different, I imagine.

Also, the Bernouli stuff mentioned is nothing to do with the Venturi effect which cannot affect sound waves. All your links deal with a different subject - the buzz, effect of the mouthpiece - not materials, bulk, the shank or 'gap' or sudden change of bore in the receiver. Did you read 'em??

https://newt.phys.unsw.edu.au/jw/reprints/Trombone1.pdf" target="_blank" target="_blank" target="_blank - Just about science of the mouthpiece. Nothing to do with posts.
http://ica2016.org.ar/ismra2016proceedi ... MRA2016-81" target="_blank" target="_blank" target="_blank - Did not open. But it is entitled ‘Lip Vibrations … ‘
https://shareok.org/bitstream/handle/11 ... pdf;jsessi" target="_blank" target="_blank" target="_blank onid=7A9F8CE0470EF50FB07487E63E74A5EC?sequence=3 - This again discusses only shapes etc of mouthpieces and not materials used. On Monette, who declined to respond to her, she merely quotes his ideas and products.

But I know when I'm beat. I just realised that you can't win against dudes who throw perfectly good tea into harbours. I shall stick to playing

[tbonesullivan]

Again, those articles only discuss things that can be accurately scientifically measured. I'm not sure how you measure "feel". The only thing they can really measure is what comes out of the bell, the sound, but they can't measure what goes on in the person to make that sound. I think many people have said "Player X will sound like themselves no matter what they play on", and that's true to a certain extent. Due to the sound feedback and feel feedback, they will adjust their body to conform to the sound concept that they have in their head.

Back when I played a slightly smaller trombone mouthpiece, I picked up a Bach 5G megatone mouthpiece. I remembered my junior school band director, a trumpet player named Barry Browner, picked one up just after they came out, in the early 90s. He said it made his playing "feel more focused". So, I got one too, to see what it was like, and I would have to agree, it felt like my playing was "more focused". My Bach 42T was slotting better. But, it was also harder to get out of that slot, so flexibility was somewhat reduced, at least until I got used to it. That "focused" feeling never really went away, and also I felt I could put more energy into the horn without it getting "blatty".

I also am big fan of the "German trombone" tradition, even though I have yet to get a real "German Style" trombone. They use thinner brass, thinner bracing, and use bell garlands/kranzes and snakes on the tuning slide and main slide to help control the sound of the instrument.

[peterbas]

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[tbonesullivan]

O-rings disaster was with the challenger space shuttle.
Venturi effect is explained by the Law of Bernoulli;
I never responded on materials and mass so of course the links aren't related to that.

To bad I'm from the old continent. And it isn't a question of winning. It is a beter understanding how playing an instrument works and to get rid of the old dogma's if they are wrong.

I'm a much beter engineer than tuba player

Engineers have DEFINITELY helped us with superior valve designs in the past 20-25 years. The Axial Flow, the Rotax valves from Willson, the Greenhoe valve. Improved forming techniques for tubing, etc.

But, when you get to things like "feel", it's just hard to find a scientific way to quantify. Maybe too many variables, or something else.

[Mark]

Wow! Everyone is so smart!

[tbonesullivan]

Perhaps the horn doesn't matter near as much as the time you spend with it or the amount of $ you spend on it. I was at a Harvey Phillips workshop and someone asked him why he played a Conn 2 mouthpiece. He said, "Because it came with the horn." From what I understand, he played the same horn and mouthpiece most of his career - the one he found when he was able to buy his own instrument. Arnold Jacobs played the same horn he found when he was able to buy his own instrument, and stuck with it his rest of his career. I have a bunch of horns - too many - but I have found the more time I spend with just one, the better I sound on it. I own 3 Mirafones and an Alexander, but sound and feel the best on an Amati. Go figure.

This. So much this. Especially with a wind instrument, where you're almost part of the instrument, getting used to each instrument takes a while. It usually takes me a few weeks when I switch horns, especially if I go from a medium large bore to a bass or an alto, before I feel really like the horn is part of me again.

[Matt G]

While Harvey and Jake were fabulous players and those tales are true, they don’t apply universally.

Certainly familiarity with the instrument helps. There is also usually a player-specific mouthpiece/tuba combo that is the best overall set of compromises. Jake had a few different mouthpieces iirc for different literature. Harvey spent nearly 50 years playing the same setup. All cool stuff.

What’s kinda left out here is simple economics. The market will usually head to equilibrium. If ABC tuba costs too much, then people aren’t going to buy it in large quantities (e.g. Thein). With that being said, there certainly is a vanity factor when it comes to tubas. Whatever is in style will carry in increased demand and resultant increase in price.

Honestly, I’m surprised the market is as varied as it is.

[Big Toot]

Perhaps the horn doesn't matter near as much as the time you spend with it or the amount of $ you spend on it. I was at a Harvey Phillips workshop and someone asked him why he played a Conn 2 mouthpiece. He said, "Because it came with the horn." From what I understand, he played the same horn and mouthpiece most of his career - the one he found when he was able to buy his own instrument. Arnold Jacobs played the same horn he found when he was able to buy his own instrument, and stuck with it his rest of his career. I have a bunch of horns - too many - but I have found the more time I spend with just one, the better I sound on it. I own 3 Mirafones and an Alexander, but sound and feel the best on an Amati. Go figure.

A thousand times this. I have always been puzzled by people who insist that it is the horn or mouthpiece that makes their sound. Although I guess I am guilty of that to a degree myself...

[peterbas]

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[tbonesullivan]

Well at least we can see that with the "masking noise" there is some scientific basis bell alloy differences. I think the way they put it in the modular trombone world, is to get the setup so that the player can get their sound and playing style with the least amount of work. Why? Because the player will end up making changes based on what they hear, and correct accordingly.

I'm not even going to touch the Bernoulli effect, however I do know that a certain bass trombone, the King Duo Gravis, is often regarded as one of the best "commercial" bass trombones out there. The low register is uncommonly biting, and really helps get that 70's commercial sound, with lots of edge. The designer, George McCracken, did not feel that the F-attachment tubing should be oversized. Standard practice is for the F-attachment on a .547" bore trombone to be .562", as that more closely approximates the "feel" of a fully extended slide, which has a wider Inner diameter. The King horns on the other hand, had the F-attachment (and Eb/D dependent valve) at the same bore as the inner bore of inner slide.

I wonder how well that translates to the classic American style tuba, which seemed to have smaller bore tubing, with larger bells.

[Donn]

the King Duo Gravis ...
had the F-attachment (and Eb/D dependent valve) at the same bore as the inner bore of inner slide.

I wonder how well that translates to the classic American style tuba, which seemed to have smaller bore tubing, with larger bells.

Somewhat different acoustical principles at work there, with a cylindrical bore instrument. Doesn't that trombone also have unusual stepped receiver bore, such that if a mouthpiece shank is too narrow (as it commonly would be), it could bottom out rather than just dropping farther in? Which would create the "gap" as typically diagrammed.

[peterbas]

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[2ba4t]

Help! Waddado??
Big Ben says I give up too easily.
So a final attempt - but then I’m back to real life:
1. re Wyvern on Wessex - The greatest single contributor to tubaism on the globe.
a) I most certainly was not even thinking of Wessex instruments being over-priced. They are the perfect example of fair priced instruments.
b) Yes, the Coppergate FF and CC were display-only instruments and probably tried out beforehand. The staff absolutely absolutely refused to take out the tubas they admitted they had in stock - for me to try - even though I had been assured that they would let me do so over the phone. They said that they were not allowed to break the seals! So, I have no idea about their general standards.
2 re Peterbas/tbonesullivan
1. Yes, was Challenger – sorry.
2. Bernoulli did other stuff besides sticking his head down non-existent soundwave ‘Venturi’s. The paper you cited seems to be about the other stuff around Helmholtz and not the Venturi/Bernoulli effect - as follows; “These waveforms show that the mouth pressure is roughly equal to the sum of the mouthpiece pressure and the“Bernoulli pressure” term in the channel in the first part of the period where the lips are open..” But I’ll leave that between you and google.
3. You state - “your comment on academia is a silly one” I just stated a fact “I have never met so many stupid people as I did in academia”. It’s true. Most of what I say may well be silly - but not that bit. Those guys live in a privileged bubble.

Peterbas - Far more important: may I please ask about that ‘Wessex dr Young’ you have listed as one of your instruments. Is that the famous engineer Dr Young who built that double/7 valve BBb/EEE tuba? You got one??

[peterbas]

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[tbonesullivan]

Somewhat different acoustical principles at work there, with a cylindrical bore instrument. Doesn't that trombone also have unusual stepped receiver bore, such that if a mouthpiece shank is too narrow (as it commonly would be), it could bottom out rather than just dropping farther in? Which would create the "gap" as typically diagrammed.

Yes, it did, and in general the early ones were designed to work with a Bach 1 1/2G mouthpiece.

"That leadpipe is designed to have the end of the mouthpiece come within 1/8" of a "step" in the leadpipe. The idea was that, acoustically, it would appear as a continuous taper from the inside of the backbore to the start of the venturi. On the Duo Gravii I've seen a "standard" Bach 1 1/2G will go in about 1/2" more than in, say, a Bach 50B."

Other king trombones also did have a wider mouthpiece receiver than standard, which is why Doug Elliott makes a "king" taper shank for some pieces.