Why don't more people use the main tuning slide?

[UDELBR]

When the Yamaha design team started their thought process on the 641, they wanted to build the Miraphone 186.

Aren't you the same fella that swears up and down that everybody plays the Dies Irae in octaves because "that's how it's done"?

[Chuck(G)]

Well, you all had me fooled. If asked, I would have guessed that the 641 is a copy of the Alex 163 without the intonation problems and without the Alex sound.

Shows what I know.

(Anyone want to by an Alex 163 or a Yamaha 641? PM me.)

[Steve Inman]

I admire your collective tenacity. That being said, it's rather perturbing that as a group, you seem to readily and regularly take conjecture as fact.

Ed -- The photos are hard data, and the 641 looks a lot like a MW25 and not similar to a 186. That's "concrete", not "conjecture".

When the Yamaha design team started their thought process on the 641, they wanted to build the Miraphone 186. They did it. In testing, they found that players could not distinguish a 186 from a 641 in all respects.
(snip)
The particular individuals to whom I spoke asked not to be named, but the conversation took place in the presence of a considerable amount of sake.

Did these players also consume a large quantity of sake before testing the horns?

Thanks .... that's the best joke I've heard all week! I've played all three of these horns and could easily tell the difference between a 641 and a Miraphone, playing them blindfolded. That's just more marketing hype.

Was the person you talked to a Japanese employee of Yamaha?

Cheers,

[Lew]

... If you were a non-tubist band director in 1981, you had probably never heard of Meinl-Weston. If you needed to get some tubas then you asked other band directors for adivce, and pretty much everyone at that time, across large swaths of the US, bragged and raved about their excellent Mirafones. The 186 was THE school horn for a few decades. ...

I believe that you are probably correct, but in 1972 when my High School (in NJ) band director (a trumpet player) decided to buy a new 4 valve rotary valve tuba to replace the 3 valve Besson compensator that he had me playing, he bought a Meinl-Weston that I believe to be a model 20. Since I was first tuba I was expected to play the new horn, and was excited to try it out, until I played it for a while. It was stuffy and didn't have anywhere near the sound that the Besson did. I would have gone back to the Besson in a second, but I couldn't, it only had 3 valves after all . I don't know where they heard of it, but I noticed a number of the other high school tuba players in the State bands using M-Ws at the time.

[windshieldbug]

[trseaman]

Thank you. You've all lived up to every last one of my expectations. I did expect certain people to post in this thread, but for one reason or another they failed to do so. Sometimes silence speaks volumes.

That's it for me, for a while. I'm going to go out and learn everything, so that I can be just like you guys. Then we can all sit here and agree on stuff. It's too inconvenient when people post stuff that doesn't match what we already know.

Though I'm sure you don't want it, I'd like to leave you with one last piece of advice: Learn to read. Especially people's posts. It helps.

And stop picking on little kids!

He said with his tail between his legs... The exit is this way...

[iiipopes]

I have been known to knit some long yarns together on this forum, but I know the rest of the guys would and will skewer me if I wasn't telling it like it is, and making it very apparent where fact ends and opinion begins.

I am not saying anything contrary, because I have not played a YBB-641. But I have played the older 5-valve CC version, whether it was called a 641 or 661 I can't remember, which I believe is no longer made. Maybe I just didn't get a good example, but with the placement of the 1st valve tubing, this particular example looked more like a M-W clone to me, with the large bore and small bell of an older Alex, an old-style left hand 5th valve, although granted with the long whole step instead of 2+3, and it just played worse than $#!+. There's not a Miraphone detail, copy or not, anywhere near that, well, pile of brass.

[Rick Denney]

Thank you. You've all lived up to every last one of my expectations. I did expect certain people to post in this thread, but for one reason or another they failed to do so. Sometimes silence speaks volumes.

You mean me? Well, given what you've been saying, and the vigor with which you have been defending it, I didn't see the need to add anything at all.

Rick "whatever" Denney

[Rick Denney]

It was not exactly ubiquitous, but the 186 certainly had a very widespread following. There were plenty of places that had probably never heard of Miraphone at all, but it was the top selling public school tuba in the US for a long time according to several charts published by NAMM over the years.

I have this feeling, unsubstantiated by sake, that the only thing Yamaha was trying to copy from the 186 was its commercial success.

Rick "who would he floored if Yamaha didn't study all current instruments at the time" Denney

[Steve Inman]

When "little kids" post like an adult, in an adult forum, then they will be treated as an adult, as they deserve.

When "little kids" post with insight, they will be afforded respect.

When "little kids" ask an honest question, we (most of us) quickly assist.

When younger posters provide "know-it-all" posts that are inaccurate, the inaccuracies will be pointed out.

When older posters post like they are "little kids" this too will be pointed out.

When trolls try to give advice, they will be ignored -- unless they provide gifts of sake ....

It's a forum populated mostly by adults -- or by those old enough to know how to behave in a "responsible" manner on an adult forum. Therefore, respect will be afforded as it is earned, whether someone is younger or older doesn't matter -- do the ACT younger or older is the question!

Cheers,

[Steve Inman]

"ed" you will have to forgive me if I raise the BS flag on you here, bud. I doubt that this conversation over sake ever took place. You are bordering on prevarication. Why do you troll so much? Why not just post under your own name? You would be just as funny as "you" rather than "ed" or any of your other troll names.

"E" -- so many things about the "sake story" don't ring true with Japanese culture that I just had to laugh at this claim -- almost as amusing as players being unable to tell the difference between a 641 and a 186! (It's not that discussion over sake couldn't have happened -- it's the implications and conclusions drawn that are quite amusing.)

[windshieldbug]

Does "e" "d" spell "b" "s"...??

I always thought "b" "s" spelled

Oh, you mean Barbara Joan...