Conn 4p BBb Raincatcher on eBay

[Heavy_Metal]

Not sure it'll sell at that price though...............

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Conn-4-valve-BB ... SwX~dWiCQv" target="_blank

[Tom Coffey]

Opening bid is not too far out of line. Beautiful bell on it, and four valve sousaphones are not that common.

[Gongadin]

It's a nice horn. I sold it to this Seller - he's a repairman and has put some work into it in the interim. I originally bought it from Don Harry.

[Gongadin]

[Gongadin]

Or, ya know, use it as Sousa intended...

Of course! "What would Sousa have wanted?" is always the most important consideration when playing a vintage instrument.

[bigtubby]

I'm sure Kuhn and Hare were on to something by turning the bell. They could probably hear themselves and it projected the sound better.

Maybe forward facing sousaphones were a good idea?

Or different sounds for different gigs?

[Gongadin]

And so I did. When angled bells first came out, all the vintage catalogs online refer to them as "Bell to the Front" or "Bell Forward" or "Front Facing" or "Bell to the Left". You would think if their "SOLE" original purpose had been to record on, it would have been referred to as such. King and Holton start referring to them for "recording" purposes in the mid twenties, but only AFTER they list the advantages of forward facing bells mainly for large ballroom dancing and projecting the sound over a dance band and not getting lost in the curtains.

I generally don't refer to SOUSAPHONE bells as "recording" since they are pointed EXACTLY FORWARD and I didn't use that term in my post to which you replied trying to educate me. I think of recording bells as tilted SLIGHTLY to project over a large group on a CONCERT tuba.

See? You ARE a sousaphone-ma-thoptomologist!

[Donn]

I generally don't refer to SOUSAPHONE bells as "recording" since they are pointed EXACTLY FORWARD and I didn't use that term in my post to which you replied trying to educate me. I think of recording bells as tilted SLIGHTLY to project over a large group on a CONCERT tuba.

Hm, "recording" literally refers to the intent to get into the mix on early recording technology, and I don't think it was because the groups were large. Some lap tubas of the era did point straight forward, and I can't think of any tuba with a bell that only tilts slightly.

I wouldn't imagine sousaphone bells point forward for the sake of better recording, rather the sousaphone is designed to serve as a mobile tuba, outdoors, and the bells point forward because the sky doesn't reflect sound very well. They still worked indoors, and for recording, but notably the bell flare is larger, which is supposed to contribute to a more "diffuse" tone that might have left the forward bell tubas in first place as recording instruments. That large flare on a vertical bell might (?) also mitigate the sky loss on a raincatcher.

[Donn]

I'm STILL learning how to judge how loud a "recording bell tuba" is from BEHIND it.

I'm trying to decide, it might be a little worse than the sousaphone for no reason I can think of.

[bigtubby]

Which gig do you not wanna hear yourself?

That isn't the question for me as much as the sound. Generally I prefer the raincatcher configuration indoors, letting the ceiling disperse the sound a bit and bell front for projection outdoors.

I'm no sousaphone-ologist but I suspect somebody bright saw all the tuba players turning their raincatchers forward and said "Why don't we just turn the bells forward so they don't have to do that?"

Historically this is a bit backward. The predecessor of the raincatcher design was the helicon which usually has a more "bell front" arrangement than does a (raincatcher) sousaphone with the bell rotated.
http://sousacentral.blogspot.ca/2011/01 ... d-its.html

It doesn't devalue your horns to say this. They still are pretty and will demand a high selling price for rarity.

The value of the King pictured above for me comes from its great sound and playing characteristics.

Helicons: