FFF Tubas- What do you know?

[tylerferris1213]

I've seen the 4 valve EEEb tuba pop up from time to time on here (I believe Kiltietuba had it last?), and I was wondering if there are any usable FFF tubas in the world, or at least any good attempts at making one. I'm talking about a tuba pitched one full octave below a bass tuba in F. I've had a small itch to try making one, but I would rather not start from scratch.

[MikeW]

Probably not relevant, but I noticed yesterday that Mike Johnson's website in the UK says he is working on a subcontrabass EEb

http://m-j-c.co.uk/instruments/index.html

I seem to remember the Amati giant tuba is in FFF (??) but that stands about 8 feet tall.

[Steve Marcus]

Weril of Brazil made one or two 4-valve top action FFF tubas. When I attempted to learn more about these horns, they were very secretive about the entire project--even to the point of having an owner of one of these FFF tubas delete the photo from his Facebook page. I suspect that the design was not successful in terms of intonation, tone quality, stuffiness, marketability, or any combination of the above.

[bort]

Sounds very, very heavy.

[tylerferris1213]

Thanks everyone! I have an Olds Ultratone GG bugle, and I just acquired an Olds fiberglass sousaphone. I want to mate the sections together and add some tapered tubing to put it in FFF. Opinions?

[bort]

Sounds very, very heavy.

My EEb subbass wasn't any heavier than the Holton 345.

Well how about that! Thanks for clarifying

[Steve Marcus]

Where would you use it?
I used my EEb (subbass) in community bands,

Some BBb Bass players in Brass Bands tend to drop the octave; a properly designed and built EEb subbass tuba might be just the thing for [one of] them. Of course, such a horn may not pass muster with the judges at Brass Band competitions.

Four valves is too many, you'd easily make do with three valves in F, I didn't use the fourth valve on the EEb much, if at all:

That's because the 4th valve introduced stuffiness on that tightly-wrapped EEb subbass horn that you owned. It makes one wonder how much more effective a 4th valve might be on an EEb subbass that is much larger. The size of that EEb subbass tuba that you owned (at least the outer bows and bell) was considerably smaller than some 6/4 CC's and BBb's currently on the market.

[iiipopes]

More discussion on this thread:
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=75996" target="_blank

[tylerferris1213]

Kiltie, I would like to say I have some grand purpose for building it, but I want to simply because I could. I've had frankenhorns built in more traditional keys in the past, but I have all the horns I need in my arsenal now. I want to build something unique.

[southtubist]

I'd love to have an FF tuba- a full octave lower than a standard F tuba. I think the fingering patterns would work well, and it wouldn't be so large as to be unmanageable. Ideally it wouldn't be tapered like a 6/4 tuba. With a 3/4 tuba taper it would still be pretty big compared to a standard contrabass.

[tylerferris1213]

This is to the techs on here; what size valves do you speculate would be good for such an instrument?

[Lee Stofer]

Not wishing to be a kill-joy, but I'd be willing to buy the Olds sousaphone from you to save it from this project. I'd think that piston valves of .730 - .750" bore size would give you a better chance of good response on an instrument that long. The instrument would have to become rather large, too, to avoid some real response issues.

[tylerferris1213]

Lee, I sent you a PM

Kiltie, that is good information to have. Thank you!

[tylerferris1213]

I'm happy to see this thread in the "modification" part of tubenet. I didn't even think of putting it here. Thanks admins!

[Heliconer]

So does anybody have a beater K-90 or large GG bugle laying around? I have a Kaiser Valve set (~.863) that I have trying to figure out what to do with.

Perhaps an American BAT body might work for this as well?

[tylerferris1213]

I found a larger bugle to use instead of my Olds GG contra body. Would that be large enough?