TubeNet

I think I was on the old Tubenet for a little while, but honestly don't remember much about it. That would have been when I was in college and right after college... So I was too busy drinking with my friends, and too busy actually playing the tuba for Tubenet. My official join date is 2004 when I was 23 years old, which sounds about right for starting my career, distancing myself from some college friends, and drinking with tuba people instead.

I was on the old Tuba Euph list around 1998, I think, but don't remember much about that either. That was the first time I had an email address, internet, etc., So it's too much to remember all of that.

I think I first started reading TubeNet in the late 90s as a high school student. I’ve visited frequently since then, but I’ve posted less and less over time (for fear of saying something stupid and having it exist forever on the internet?). It has been neat to be here through high school-college-grad school and now a decade or so into playing full-time for a living (I’m nobody - move along).

I’ve bought and sold many horns and mouthpieces here and have, thus far, been nothing but impressed with my real-life interactions with people I “met” here.

For better or worse, I’m pretty sure I put my real name on every post I made as a dumb kid on old TubeNet and remain identifiably me across all social media today.

-T. J.

About a year ago, I made a real effort to connect and "meet" some people "for real" on this board. Definitely recommend it, and in general, treating "internet people" like "real people."

I knew about the old BBS, but since I didn't own a computer until 2002 (yes, it's true), I couldn't post on it - I had an acquaintance who was in my area that helped me out by posting a horn I had for sale at the time.

I lurked for some time, and eventually took the plunge in 2007.

On a side note, just a few days ago I was thinking about all the names I've seen come and go here, and wonder what has become of them.........

Matt G wrote:I started posting when this thing was new in 94/95. You’d search for “tuba” on Alta Vista or Webcrawler and all that would show up is this place and that website that sold the St. Pete tubas for dirt cheap before Tuba Exchange became the sole importer. Back then it was much more anonymous for good and bad. Some of those threads were contentious.

Easier just to repost.

Wade, good call on the Waldo’s page. That disappeared in the late 1990s, iirc. I wonder what happened to that.

It's really hard to remember how long I have been here, what with the re-sets after each permutation of the site. I think it was 2001, though. Lot of water over this dam!

I'm fairly sure I've been reading Tubenet almost as long has there has been a Tubenet.

The mid to late 1990s maybe? I was still in undergrad iirc. I graduated in '97.

Before I started reading it, it might as well not have existed, you know?

According to the 'Members' page, Tue Mar 01, 2005 5:41 pm

So I was probably awake...

Joined Fri Mar 19, 2004 12:06 am according to the member's page.

Not long before;


Joined:Wed Jan 07, 2015 9:44 am

Not for Tubenet, but it's fun to look at the internet way back machine for the old websites.

I forget if it was tuba.com or thetuba.com, that was a site where you could buy St Petersburg tubas, and import them to the US yourself. Or, pay a little more, and have them change out the valve linkages with German parts. I always wondered how well those modified horns worked. "okay", I'm assuming... Was a long time ago, prices might have been in Marks?

the elephant wrote:I think it was thetuba.com, and yeah, the St. Pete with the German paddles and linkage were a steal; veeeery cheap. I remember on the old Musical Instrument Makers forum there were only a few brass people, and one had purchased one of these and completely disassembled it. After careful rebuilding and the addition of Miraphone paddles and arms he had a very nice tuba. I have always loved the St. Pete design. The issue has always been one of finding a good example. This fellow got his in raw brass, which made what he did *much* easier. You can't get a raw brass one from TE for some reason. You could back in the day, but not now. If you could I might have bought one and done the same work to it. The main issue is the crappy, poorly mated slide tube sets. Everything else is pretty solid, especially the valves, surprisingly enough. (They even come with genuine German Minibal links!) I use the valves as 5th valves on some of my horns.

Yeah, I dug the raw brass versions looks way more than the nickel silver plated ones. I figured those would also be way easier to work on.

Going from memory, I think raw brass was around $1,500 at the time. TE started selling the nickel plated ones for just under $3,000, iirc.

Apparently the technology didn’t exist in 1995 that does today where two people can import the same thing.

Whatever my joined date is... July 20th, 2015.

I am sure i came across the forum earlier putzing around looking for tuba related stuff, but i didn't take up the tuba until 2009, and even then i wanted to learn my own way, so i eschewed instruction beyond the most basic things. First principles or something high brow like that.

I probably lurked somewhat a month or two before joining, and in those days i didn't get out of the house much, so lurking on the interweb took more of my attention than it normally would. Strange... that description probably is now pretty much the status quo. Somehow i feel well prepared for life these days. I almost have forgotten how it feels to regret not practicing enough.

Anyway, thanks for putting up with me. Y'all make it seem easy.

Oh boy. Netscape was a thing, and I think AOL came on a CD sometime after that.

the elephant wrote:Original TubeNet thread from March 18, 2004, just before it was closed for good…

http://www.chisham.com/tips/bbs/mar2004 ... 70108.html

This one is good, too…

http://www.chisham.com/tips/bbs/mar2004 ... 70271.html

Ha. I'm in the second url, twice, and I still feel exactly the same way. So there. We grow but we do not change. For example, I changed "This one is goo" to "This one is good" just because I can't not.

1998-1999 for me. I lurked for a while before ever posting. When I finally did post I used various names to remain more anonymous (not really sure what I was worried about). Back then every post could be under any name you wanted and many members changed names frequently from post to post based on the discussion. Now, just to see because I was curious and had never really thought about it, I skimmed over a couple of months of the archived tips and do see postings under my real full name from 1999. The archives do not go far enough back into 1998 for me to find anything earlier. That coincides well with the time when I really started to focus on the tuba.

Early posts were typical student posts, nothing too memorable there. Later, as a college student I bought and sold many mouthpieces through this site along with a couple of instruments. Yes, there were dual tubenets as Sean was preparing to jump to this new site. Most of the activity was still happening on the old site at the time, so I didn’t register here on day #1, but still did so pretty early on. I registered here with my real first name to provide some identity but withheld my last name for just a little anonymity but plenty of people know who I am and what I do for a living, which is fine.

I remember all of that stuff that’s been mentioned about early tubenet and getting online. I spent many hours looking over the primitive Die Tuba site, too...that’s a blast from the past!

1997 probably. I do remember that it was on dialup through Netcom.

1997, the same year in which I crossed the threshold beyond being self-taught. I was convinced by friends (including my wife, children, and a 16-year-old TubeNetter who was working on the VW) to seriously study the tuba.