What I have long thought required, is a compensated BBb, with the comfortable ergonomic proportions of the compensated Eb with the tone of German and American tubas.
Since starting Wessex Tubas three years ago I have had in the back of my mind for us to develop a BBb tuba to fulfil these requirements. Courtois had attempted to make a compact compensated BBb, but it had too small bows to provide a free blowing tuba with full tone. Yamaha have more recently addressed the problem of reach to the fourth valve with their Neo model but it's still of large proportions with high mouthpiece.
I am excited that with the work of Jim Langley as developer, Wessex Tubas has at last created the compensated BBb bass/tuba of my dreams. This is a true 5/4 size tuba, but with mouthpiece height and reach to fourth valve exactly the same as the Eb tuba making this comfortable to hold and immediately familiar to anyone that has played the Eb.
Last week, I visited Jim Langley to collect the development prototype of the new Wessex Excelsior tuba. As soon as I saw it, I thought what a beautiful Tuba. Excelsior does not look like a tuba that has been put together with parts, but a beautiful integrated design. The outer bows are big and chubby to give that good full sound, while inside this is full of piping to get this Big Tuba within a compact size, only a fraction bigger than the Eb tuba. On picking up it immediately felt familiar and comfortable to hold. Then when blowing the big tuba tone was music to my ears. Next out came the tuner to check intonation and I found that was not only good, but incredibly good with the needle on the green up and down the range.
Next day I tried it at band rehearsal playing alongside a Besson Sovereign BBb and found it blends very well into the band texture.
I think for all those brass bands that have had trouble filling the BBb bass seats, there will at last be a bass available that people actually want to play. We still have more development work to do, and it will be several months before this tuba goes into production, but if you are looking to buy a new compensated BBb bass/tuba then it may well be worth the wait. I can't wait to play one myself regularly with band. Excelsior is such a pleasure to play!
I thank Jim Langley for his incredible work in bringing my design concepts for this new Tuba into reality...
http://www.wessex-tubas.com/excelsior-is-conceived/
