Whatzit?

[Dan Schultz]

That's another characteristic of the old a$$ Alex F in town...

I ran into this on a Pre-Boosey Hawkes & Son Eb recently as well. Darn near made a BAD mistake removing it - caught my error just in time!

J.c.

Yeah... I came very close to pulling those guards off for the dentwork. I think this is going to be a very resonant horn. The brass had a nice temper to it... making the dentwork pretty easy.

[Dan Schultz]

OK. This horn is stripped, dedented, and back together. I played it tonight in a community band setting. The intonation characteristics of this horn very closely resemble the Carl Wunderlich (B & S stencil) I used to own. Anyway I have it listed on my 'for sale' page. I would garage my St. Pete for a while and play this horn but I have a slant-rotor Marzan on the way that I want to spend some time with.

[Dan Schultz]

....how's it play?? (objective, quantifiable terms please)

Plays good. How's that for quantifiable??!!

[imperialbari]

The guy to the right must wear too warm clothes since he needs all that piping and that huge tap to drain his back from moisture.

A bit more OT (on topic):

The guards continuing down inside the ferrules may save work, but they also contribute stiffness to the whole structure. Not a bad thing in Czech tubas, as they often are built of quite thin brass.

Klaus

[Dan Schultz]

..... The guards continuing down inside the ferrules may save work, but they also contribute stiffness to the whole structure. Not a bad thing in Czech tubas, as they often are built of quite thin brass. Klaus

That's a interesting observation and a point well taken, Klaus. I mentioned in one of the earlier posts that this tuba was very 'easy' to straighten out. There was very little temper to the brass and the dents rolled out nicely leaving behind material that did not seem to be overstressed. And yes... the brass is thin and quite resonant. Some of these old 'junkers' turn out to be rather nice horns.

[J.c. Sherman]

Okay, time to splash some fuel on the fire

Here are some photos of the F 4-valve compensating Double tuba I spoke of earlier in this thread.

I didn't take a shot of the outer bow guards, but they do go under the ferule as on the disputed tuba. Note specifically the thumb ring flange, the similarity of the leadpipe brace, somewhat the receiver, the tops of the rotors, and a thousand other little things. Also, the bell reading "Alexander Mainz".

Couple notes - this was overhauled (extremely well done work!) at the King Factory decades ago when they still did that. So there's a reinforcing ferule on the main slide, and a replacement waterkey. The lacquer is King as well. And the current owner lowered the leadpipe, so that's why the lacquer is different in that area. The bore is larger than the curent model Alexs, and the bell shape is substantially different than the current model, and without a wreath. Finally it plays... well... okay. The upper Bb is grotesquely flat, and the low C is beyond difficult compared to the normal Alex.

Any thoughts?

J.c.S.

[imperialbari]

Interesting tuba this compensating Alexander, as it differs wildly from the current 5 valve Alexander compensator.

This one basically has the same airpath as the British piston compensators after the Blaikley system. This allows for a progressive bore between the first passages of the first 3 valves and then the compensating loop with its potential second passages of the 3 first valves.

The current Alex compensator has the shift valve before the 4 main valves, which implies that the wider bored comp loop is placed earlier than the ordinary valves in the airpath, when the shift valve is engaged. Odd!

Klaus

[J.c. Sherman]

Actually, both versions of the Alex doubles have the same bore on the regular and compensating sides, so the bore profile is essentially identical whether a 5-valve version or a 4-valve comp. However, this one does differ significantly with a bigger bore overall, and it plays differently as well.

This is true for most compensting horns (French) as well. The Besson Blaikley (sp) system instruments (tubas) do have a graduated bore (as well do their copies), but the only (French) horn I know with a larger bore on the lower side are Paxman horns.

J.c.S.

[imperialbari]

It is a cheap trick to resort to Alexander’s own information as issued in a catalogue from around 1985. Yet that is what I do in form of a cut, as the whole page will not fit within the 256k limit:

Alexander 166 comp double tuba.jpg

Klaus

[J.c. Sherman]

From what I'm seeing, it says the bore is 18.5 mm for the F/CC "oder" (or) 20.5 for the F/Bb, which is the bore of the older F/C.

But my German isn't very good. Certainly, being a drooling, frothing-at-the-mouth, play-every-one-he-sees Alex fan doesn't make me an expert, but I have a seen a few of the newer doubles, and they all had the same bore on both sides. Think of it this way; how could you have a bigger bore on the CC side when the change valve on the newer ones is - like Kruspe Horns, _before_ the F slides. That would make a big bore CC side then _decreasing_ bore size to the the normal F slides. Unworkable. Even if we assume the reverse is true, that the F slides are larger than the CC side... why? And that would drastically change the normal response as you decended through the range. Just wouldn't work.

On the older one it would be possible as its change valve is after the F side, but it isn't in this case - the bore is the same on both sides.

Clear as Mud? I'm tired

J.c.

[imperialbari]

The German text tell the F side having a bore diameter of 18.5mm (circa 0.730"), whereas the C (or alternatively Bb) side has a bore of20.5mm (circa 0.805").

I like the idea of that reverse step bore as much as you do. But then the brass instrument considered acoustically most edfficient also has a reverse step bore in all of its many variants, models, and makes. I of course think of the trombonr, where the air enters the 2nd male main slide branch after passing the bottom bow of the hand slide.

And MW makes a 4 piston F tuba, which has 2 rotors with a retrograde bore as valves # 5 & 6.

Lawson makes horn leadpipes for the Conn 8D, which has a wave-formed profile including some retrograde bore portions.

Klaus

[iiipopes]

And Schilke did extensive research in this area for trumpets, with bore stepping, as well. I'm glad to see that this is acknowledged that the bores may need to be different and not necessarily linear or progressive, as brass instruments deal with two inconsistent concepts from the start:

1) trying to fit a tempered scale to play in all keys with relatively minimal adjusting to the instrument, into a "natural" scale behaving chunk of brass, and the manipulation of the overtone series, as Nick Drozdoff, #1 call player, MF alum, and physics teacher, has demonstrated on his website and his videos posted on YouTube and elsewhere; and

2) once the breath transitions the embouchure, the resonances, and their relative pitches, are functions of static wave theory, and not flow theory. (Remember the well meaning but misguided experiments with blowing smoke through a tuba to see how long it took to come out the bell with normal playing.) So the node and antinode behavior of the instrument has to be manipulated through bore, tuning slide knuckle and bend placements, and brace positioning, as well as overall length of the tubes.

I think Melton/Meinl-Weston is now using computer software to map the resonances and the nodes, hence the Thor tuba, but there is still a long way to go with the complex analysis of player interaction, as with the differences in physiology the same tuba will play differently for different people.

[cjk]

...

I think Melton/Meinl-Weston is now using computer software to map the resonances and the nodes, hence the Thor tuba, but there is still a long way to go with the complex analysis of player interaction, as with the differences in physiology the same tuba will play differently for different people.

Do you have any actual evidence that the Thor was computer designed or is it something you just think?

[iiipopes]

...

I think Melton/Meinl-Weston is now using computer software to map the resonances and the nodes, hence the Thor tuba, but there is still a long way to go with the complex analysis of player interaction, as with the differences in physiology the same tuba will play differently for different people.

Do you have any actual evidence that the Thor was computer designed or is it something you just think?

Of course, I started my post with, "I think..." which is open to correction. Now, M-W has recently changed their website, and I thought I had read on the old "about us" or similar page the integration of computers into the factory. But that may have just been on the CNC side, and not the CAD side. The Thor is advertised as being "ergonomic," and so with the prevalence of CNC and such going into just about everything else, I may have made an extrapolation that may or may not be the case.

But I wouldn't be surprised either way. Thank you for your post.

[Niko]

So just wondering if this thread is still active, as I actually own this exact same tuba, which i bought in the late 80's at a pawn shop. It had the name and serial number sanded off and i always wondered what kind of tuba it was.

[Dan Schultz]

So just wondering if this thread is still active, as I actually own this exact same tuba, which i bought in the late 80's at a pawn shop. It had the name and serial number sanded off and i always wondered what kind of tuba it was.

Well... the last post was almost five years ago but it still contains some good information. Reading back through the thread, I don't see if we actually identified the exact manufacturer. It's nice to see that there other horns like this still being played.

[TheBerlinerTuba]

Hello Dan,

The tuba was made in Markneukirchen by VEB (Volkseigene Betrieb-The People's Factory-the predecessor to B&S) probably in the 1950s to early 1960s. They were close copies of the then current Alexander tubas, which is why the ferrels can be confusing. The ferrels were later changed to the rounded B&S style by the early 60's. The name was usually stamped or engraved on a nickelsilver shield which was at some point in time removed for repairs and lost...again complicating identification. Many small detail changes occurred over their production span, which makes it hard to compare them at times.

Best Regards,
2165

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkseigener_Betrieb

[Niko]

Wow thanks for the info, obviously when i bought this tuba in 1988 i didn't have the resources available to us now. I was then studying with Brent Dutton (San Diego) and he thought it might be a cervany, but i was never convinced. I did play a sonora a few years later and found them almost identical, which now makes alot of sense with the 3 plus hours i have spent reading up. Only complaints i ever had with the horn were the rotary valve stems and linkages being extraordinarily loud and slow(a recording we did back then sounded like we had a percussion section playing in the other room!) and the upper range intonation was rather lousy.
Think i may actually get some work done on it now and some restoration and either start playing it again or sell or donate it. Thanks for getting back to me tho on such an old thread!

[Minkrott]

Wow thanks for the info, obviously when i bought this tuba in 1988 i didn't have the resources available to us now. I was then studying with Brent Dutton (San Diego) and he thought it might be a cervany, but i was never convinced. I did play a sonora a few years later and found them almost identical, which now makes alot of sense with the 3 plus hours i have spent reading up. Only complaints i ever had with the horn were the rotary valve stems and linkages being extraordinarily loud and slow(a recording we did back then sounded like we had a percussion section playing in the other room!) and the upper range intonation was rather lousy.
Think i may actually get some work done on it now and some restoration and either start playing it again or sell or donate it. Thanks for getting back to me tho on such an old thread!

I recently bought a nearly identical horn in raw brass with the same spatulas and no markings. I was able to peen the linkages, and the noise isn't noticeable. It is a little slow though. I believe it has an Alex sized receiver, as the GBH mouthpiece fits but has a steeper taper. It looks like your main tuning slide has also been shortened. Beautiful sound. Pics at the bottom of this page. viewtopic.php?f=3&t=59302&start=24" target="_blank" target="_blank" target="_blank" target="_blank" target="_blank