M&M horns

[ken k]

Anyone familiar with M&M instruments?

There is an M&M bass bone for sale on fleabay. It looks like a copy of a King 7B for $650

http://cgi.ebay.com/Trombone-Bass-Doubl ... dZViewItem

well the bidding starts at $650. These are always on though...

any comments?

ken k

[jeopardymaster]

Curious. The "Buy it Now" price is way higher than list for a new one - $895 last time I checked. I've been monitoring this instrument ever since I found M&M's site. It looks like the Weril that was posted on Tubenet and eBay a while back, and also like the horn played by the fellow sitting next to me in an orchestra gig last month. That one was marked Willson - I was told it was a prototype. Sounded REALLY good. Mechanics looked a bit Rube Goldbergish but he said it was very reliable. Surely a top-o-line Bach is going to be better, but it would have to be at around a 3X markup.

[ken k]

I am sort of looking for a lighter weight pedal monster for big band gigs and I am wondering since it looks so much like a King if it plays at all like a King.

The Werils are patterned after the Bach more than the Kings. I know a local player here who has a Weril and it looks very Bach-ish in the trim pieces and even down to the brown leather case, which is just like the older style bach cases, whcih bach still uses on the bass bones I believe.

It doesn't play that bad.

ken k

[jeopardymaster]

I just looked on the King site - no bass trombone was offered. Kind of surprising and sad - I well remember the "Duo Gravis" as almost a standard for big band bass bone jockeys. In looking at all the pics, of Kings, Werils, Bachs, and the M&M, only the Weril and M&M have that funky offset valve arrangement and linkage. The M&M main brace is curved like a King's, but otherwise I don't see a resemblance. So I emailed M&M - apparently it is based on the Willson prototype I had seen.

[ken k]

what is the M&M web address?
ken k

[MartyNeilan]

I am sort of looking for a lighter weight pedal monster for big band gigs and I am wondering since it looks so much like a King if it plays at all like a King.

maybe a well used Holton 181?
but you can make a getzen really rip if you want to, just depends on how you color it - they seem to sit somewhere right between the big band and orchestral world

[Dan Schultz]

Someone once told me that the Benge bass is the loudest bass trombone they had ever played

I gotta honk on one of those.

I think many of those Benge trombones were either built by King or utilized many of the same parts.

[ken k]

Someone once told me that the Benge bass is the loudest bass trombone they had ever played

I gotta honk on one of those.

I think many of those Benge trombones were either built by King or utilized many of the same parts.

yes they were and the 290 is a great horn. I played one on loan for about 7 months before I bought my Getzen.

And they are very responsive (ie. loud!)

(Grammatical question: is it "ei." or "ie." and what does it stand for?)

ken "who wrote his butt off in freshman comp class and barely scraped a C" k

[Dan Schultz]

Sounds like your receiver may be a bit out-of-round.

[MartyNeilan]

The 290 I tried was an excellent horn with a very open low register. It had a dark sound that would be ideal for orchestral playing or wind ensemble. The sound did not seem to have as much color as I might want for big band or soloing. My 1062 can get very "in your face" if you stand on it, and I found that the 290 did not have that tendencay. FWIW, the 1062 is a little darker and more open than the 1052, so the differences are probably magnified in your case For just playing orch/WE music, I think the 290 is a great and underrated horn. You could always buy a King DuoGravis or something if you wanted a separate jazz horn.