A 5-valve compensating system. I designed one last year for use on tenor tubas and large euphoniums. So, you've got 4 valves tuned to what you expect, not compensated with each other. The 5th valve is tuned the same as the 4th, but bored larger and compensated through the other 4 valves. The result would be a 5-valve Bb euph that can turn into a small 4-valve F tuba. I also contemplated designing a second set of valve slides that would allow the 5th valve to be tuned to a fifth instead of a fourth, yielding a small 4-valve Eb tuba. A valve lock could make life easier if you need to use baby-tuba-mode for a long while.
Then I realized...
-euphonium parts very rarely go low enough to need such a system, and if it does, 4 valves do the job just fine
-the extra tubing and valve would make a very heavy instrument
-the intonation and tone quality would suffer with the 5th valve in use
-there's already a euphonium that can do tuba stuff too... the French Tuba in C
Put this 5-valve compensating system on your big old BBb or CC tuba, it'll act like a black hole... so heavy it has its own gravitational field, and it'll suck up all your air without much sound coming out the big end. BUT... theoretically speaking, a 5-valve compensating BBb would bottom out at G-1, an octave and a third below pedal BBBb... play one of those in a concert and the conductor (and everyone else, for that matter) might need new pants.
KingBassTrombone wrote:A 5-valve compensating system. I designed one last year for use on tenor tubas and large euphoniums. So, you've got 4 valves tuned to what you expect, not compensated with each other. The 5th valve is tuned the same as the 4th, but bored larger and compensated through the other 4 valves. The result would be a 5-valve Bb euph that can turn into a small 4-valve F tuba.
I have a Cerveny F tuba with a 5-valve compensating system that works very similar to what you're describing. It began life as a CC tuba with an ascending 5th valve that raised the pitch of the instrument to F...this was truly a bad design so I reversed the valve.
With its current configuration the 5th valve lowers the instrument a 4th and goes back through a 2nd set of slides to compensate the rest of the valves. The "CC side" has enough issues that I typically only use it when I'm in the basement where it makes the fingerings easy and the intonation very manageable. Certainly the design could use some refinement, but it's really not a terrible setup.
bloke wrote:a GG sousaphone (same length as contrabass bugle, but shaped like a sousaphone) with two goosenecks - to play transcriptions of Paganini violin/guitar duets on one instrument
Winner, winner chicken dinner!
Last edited by windshieldbug on Sat Jul 21, 2018 9:58 am, edited 1 time in total.
Instead of talking to your plants, if you yelled at them would they still grow, but only to be troubled and insecure?
I can't tell if it is progress, and i anticipate a relapse in the near future, but i think my apartment is free from a persistent infestation of sousaphones.
humBell wrote:I can't tell if it is progress, and i anticipate a relapse in the near future, but i think my apartment is free from a persistent infestation of sousaphones.
What a horror!
Q
I would put a good signature here, but i dont have one, so this will make do.
I am not so lucky. I have only been able to rid myself of about half of my souzy infestation. Fortunately, it seems to be rather self-contained at this point, although I never know when an outbreak will occur.
Introduced a tuba playing friend to a double bell euphonium last night, and she came up with the following observation and gave me permission, encouragement even, to share it here:
She expects some new fangled composer to write something for the double bell, taking advantage of a seperate tuning slides for each bell to implement explicit microtonal differences between 'em.
