TubeNet

Bob1062 wrote:http://tinyurl.com/3mb283

1/4 F tuba w/ 3 valves!





Boy, if'n I lived in Germany I'd have SOOO many cool horns! Cheap Weltklang bari saxs, no valve Bb contrabones, small bore cimbassos, giant Kaiser 3 valve Bb's,.... just what no one else apparently wants.

Sadly the seller isn't in the know. Rotors and carrying rings should make this tuba special. Hardly so in Germany.

Sizewise this tuba is almost down to the Rücksack/backpack low brasses made by Cerveny for military field usage. The seller thinks the same was the purpose of this tuba. Would any experienced tuba player want to take an instrument with such vulnerable leadpipe to field duty?

The same leadpipe position would also make this instrument less relevant as a kids' instrument. But then it must have had some kind of purpose at some point of time.

The maker looks like being a predecessor of B&S. The price still looks a bit too high for an instrument with an undisclosed valve problem.

Klaus

Bob1062 wrote:http://tinyurl.com/4ldmnu

I suppose this is a beginner's tuba in Germany (though it's kinda clean for that! )?

Of course it could be a beginners’ instrument. However F tubas in many German amateur bands are used to fulfil a function, which is more similar to the function of the bass trombone in American march-type arrangements. The weakest point in German brass instruments' making is, at least was, about trombone slides. Bass trombones never became widely in use in amateur bands. The situation possibly is changing with the upcoming of technically better versions of the original German trombone (small bore/wide bell flares). Yet you can find Tuba 1 parts working quite a bit around the top of the bass staff. Eb basses used to be common in the US a century ago, but are they in common use in community bands today, and how high were they taken in their range in the then common way of writing?

Søren and I have discussed B&S/Weltklang tubas quite a bit, as we are closer to the German market than most TubeNet’ters. This actual tuba puzzles me a bit. It has valve entry and exit at the angles found in B&S models. It looks like having the same bell and body size as the B&S F tubas, but then it has a horizontal main tuning slide. I cannot avoid the suspicion that this tuba is in Eb.

Klaus

bloke, your observation about the missing inner body loop is true! Which fact also fooled me into at first thinking it was an F like announced.

But even if you are proud of not having worn one of the black saucers with a square foot, that cannot hold water, when turned upside up, you still use to be able to follow general forum discussions as long as the math stays simple.

If this tuba discussed here had been an F, it would have had its present leadpipe (maybe with a shorter tapered portion), its present large bows and branch, and it present bell. But it would have had a vertical and much shorter main tuning slide with only short female branches leading to and from it.

Weltklang normally turns the said F tuba set-up into its common Eb design by adding tubing in shape of the mentioned post-main-slide, inner body, second, tapered loop. Which likely gives a reasonably full sound for a German Eb tuba.

Bore has influence on pitch, but not as much as length (which is redundancy for you). But length can be added in various places within a main bugle albeit with varying influences on intonation (which is an equally redundant message for you).

As we haven’t moved out of areas you can navigate blindfolded, I wonder quite a bit why you don’t do the simple comparative math between the inner loop (normal for Weltklang) and the present oversized main tuning slide assembly (not so normal for Weltklang).

OK, you are, with a Danish saying, going to laugh you a$$ into rags, if this tuba eventually can be proven being in F.

Some mason, maybe even a free mason, implies, that I am to tough on you. If so might be, please make Mrs. blokiana contact me, if she really finds I am roughing her bloke.

Klaus

As all eBay formalities and screennames have been removed (also mine) this would not violate any rules. It represents the opposite of anything associated with scandal:

“ danke für die Nachfrage. Ich habe das Instrument nochmals
angeblasen und festgestellt, dass es sich tatsächlich um eine Es-Tuba
handelt. Das Angebot habe ich bereits gelöscht und neu eingestellt. Tut mir
sehr leid.”

(thanks for asking. I have played the instrument once more and have established that this really is an Eb tuba. I have already deleted the offering and relisted (it). I am sorry.)

To me this represents fairness. Even our foremost expert errored. Fortunately some of the runner-ups aren’t too bad either.

No rags for bloke this time.

Klaus

the elephant wrote:I "knew" as I have played this model in Austria. (heh, heh, heh… )

Is this in the German sense: Es war einmal in Österreich!?

I don't know the English equivalent, and sad to say so, but I can't come up with the Danish saying with the same semantics right now either. But it something to the effect that one can refer to everything having happened in Austria, as nobody will be able to verify or falsify anything in such remote country.

Klaus

the elephant wrote:The 1st slide is also a bit long-ish for an F of that size. With the extra (?) bugle tubing and what looks to be long slides, I vote Eb on this one.

The tube layout here is almost identical to my old Haag 3 valve Eb. I wonder if this one has the same good tone, but with a 'difficult' Bb below the staff?

Bob1062 wrote:Jonathan, are the Weltklang Eb's (or your Haag) smaller than your 2040? If so, you should get the 4 valver as a backup/...!

My Haag is no smaller than my 2040/5. In fact if anything bigger with its high bell and is pretty wide bore. Can certainly produce some sound too!

B&S F tubas certainly are not small. As I recall it they had the same bell and bottom bow as their CC tubas around 1985 before the many PT variants came up.

I only have two poor photos of Haag Eb tubas in my galleries (hint-hint), one shown below here. Like some US makers of custom horns buy their bells as well as their valve blocks fully finished (but for lacquer or plating) in Germany, Haag may very well have bought their bells in Markneukirchen. Before GDR conglomerated everything some master shops didn't make anything but bells, and others made valves only. The one master putting his name on the bell was the model-designer/assembler/marketing-person.

I was a bidder in the auction of the Weltklang in question as long as I thought it was in F like announced, but I don't need a fifth Eb bass. Had it been in F, it would have been a cheap entry into the species of bass tuba so wildly discussed on TubeNet. And I like the valve arrangement with the 3rd slide on the back, ready for pulling.

Klaus