Are Alexander Tubas Out of Fashion?

[Jedi Master]

Some Alex questions:

• 1) Are many Alexanders being used in professional orchestras currently?
  2) With the proliferation of good horns being offered nowadays, are Alex's no longer a "big player" on the orchestra stages across the planet?
  3) Anyone know of any particular people who use an Alex regularly?
  4) Are the Fs more commonly used than CCs (or BBbs)?

Thanks!

[Jonathan Fowler]

I'd say that since Alexanders were the vogue instrument to play there has been a deluge of new models and "advances" in instruments. Given their reputations of having poor intonation, they became old-fashioned in recent years. Production as well as availability in the states has also been a factor in recent years. They tend to be very hard to find (new ones especially) and rather expensive.
I'll go out on a limb and say that if you asked 10 college students if they'd rather have a MW Thor or an Alex, 9 of them would choose the Thor, simply by its recent popularity and "newness".
My main F is an Alex 155. I use it for quintets, solos and the requisite orchestra tunes. It has a great sound and plays in tune. I'd actually love to have an Alex CC as a 4/4 alternative to my Meinl Weston.

Jon

[Rick Denney]

• 1) Are many Alexanders being used in professional orchestras currently?
  2) With the proliferation of good horns being offered nowadays, are Alex's no longer a "big player" on the orchestra stages across the planet?
  3) Anyone know of any particular people who use an Alex regularly?
  4) Are the Fs more commonly used than CCs (or BBbs)?

1. By a hardy, remaining few only.

2. Alexander tubas made a sound that people found irresistible some years back. But many of them posed difficult intonation management challenges. Back when the alternatives didn't come close to the magic sound and probably didn't have all that much better intonation, the sound of the Alex trumped. But now, many tubas provide a great sound and have intonation that is far more manageable. Most of those who played Alexanders but no longer do never expressed any dissatisfaction with the sound, but complained that they were just too much work to play compared to newer possibilities. Also, the York-style tuba gained in popularity in orchestras as a result of the increasing influence of Arnold Jacobs's concept of orchestral playing. When credible York copies started becoming available, they gained popularity steadily right through to the present day.

3. There are several regular Alex users on this forum.

4. The Alex F was the standard orchestral F in America from the time before the B&S became readily available here. Since that time, however, I would suggest that the B&S is far more likely to be seen than an Alex. I can't think of anyone in an orchestra still using an Alex F for orchestral literature, but I certainly do not know what everyone uses. The B&S provided an ethereal F-tuba sound but is far more playable (I compared my two B&S's with a decent Alex F in January). But the Alex love affair that I've always observed in the U.S. has been for the C tubas, which (ironically) may have the worst intonation of any of them.

Rick "expecting abuse from current Alex lovers" Denney

[J.c. Sherman]

Don't worry too much, Rick. My 164 isn't too hurt.

But true to old form, it took a year to feel confident enough to play the 164 in public, in tune. I won't sell it until I find her equal in sound. Currently, their ain't no such thing

I did more than half of my playing in college on their Alex F. I would happily do ANYTHING to get that horn. I was privileged to do some work on it and play it again recently. She's still my baby and my first love, and I would use her for more than half my playing again in an instant. I have yet to find its equal. And the pitch, with some very simple alternate, common-sense fingerings, was more than manageable.

J.c.S.

[Dan Schultz]

..... I'll go out on a limb and say that if you asked 10 college students if they'd rather have a MW Thor or an Alex, 9 of them would choose the Thor, simply by its recent popularity and "newness"....

And.... Thor is such a cool name!

[tubadood5150]

I just go for what sounds better and is more comfortable to play. And dare I say, I'm not a fan of the Thor.

[oedipoes]

Don't worry too much, Rick. My 164 isn't too hurt.

But true to old form, it took a year to feel confident enough to play the 164 in public, in tune. I won't sell it until I find her equal in sound. Currently, their ain't no such thing

I did more than half of my playing in college on their Alex F. I would happily do ANYTHING to get that horn. I was privileged to do some work on it and play it again recently. She's still my baby and my first love, and I would use her for more than half my playing again in an instant. I have yet to find its equal. And the pitch, with some very simple alternate, common-sense fingerings, was more than manageable.

J.c.S.

Is there some reason to believe the 164 BBb has less intonation issues ? I know they are rare (saw one on repair in the Gronitz shop in Hamburg, but not in playable condition)
I remember having read that somewhere, but was not able to find back the thread.
I guess the Alex kaiser tuba design originated in the German tradition of BBb tubas, so I expect the bell, bows and slides have been made accordingly.
Maybe this setup does not work very well intonation-wise, when scaled to CC.

Don't know, just an idea...

Wim (would be interested in BBb only)

[Wyvern]

If I am not mistaken, there has not really been new development work on Alexander tubas for many years. The focus of the company is primary on French Horns.

Therefore, the tuba world has moved on from when Alex tubas were developed. Other manufactures (M-W, B&S & Miraphone) have brought out new improved models and have therefore, in most players views, become better. So in effect Alexander have gone out of fashion, except for a few devotees.

[Lee Stofer]

There is nothing wrong with Alexander tuba design. However, over the years, there have been a number of their instruments that were not assembled as well as they should have been. This can be said of the instruments from several manufacturers.

A textbook case of this was an Alexander 163 CC that was brought to me for repairs several years ago, the WORST one I've ever played. I disassembled the entire instrument to de-dent it, as this was before I had the magnetic dent removal system. There was not a single joint in the tubing that was properly tinned and soldered, ie., it was leaking at every joint. After cleaning and de-denting every piece of the instrument, and carefully tinning and soldering the instrument back together, combined with forming a new leadpipe for it where it would use a modern Euro-shank-sized mouthpiece, the instrument's response was consistent and the intonation was as good as 95% of new instruments, and better than most. After play-testing the instrument, the owner said, "I don't know what to say - I'm going to have to learn how to play it again. All the intonation quirks are gone".

I have a customer that owns a 164 BBb that he bought new from Fred Marrich 50 years ago, and it is a marvelous instrument with very good intonation and response. I've played one Alex F that was not put together right, and I would not have wanted to play it for any reason in the condition it was in. I've also played an alex F that was apparently correctly assembled, and I'd be happy to play that one anywhere, any time. Very, very few tubas have inherently faulty design, but many tubas suffer from faulty assembly. Also, instruments eventually have mechanical wear to the point that they just don't play as well as they once did. They can be restored, and when factory defects are corrected in the process, they will often play better-than-new.

I believe that a great-playing tuba, regardless of what it is, doesn't really go out of style. Last night, I performed on an old-school King 2341 that I've given some TLC in the shop. The instrument offered no intonation or response challenges, and playing it was as fun as eating freshly-baked chocolate chip cookies..................

[TubaTodd]

Very, very few tubas have inherently faulty design, but many tubas suffer from faulty assembly.

I've always wondered about that. I imagine that would be the biggest factor that determines differences between horns from a factory. I love my 56J, when I carefully inspect the tuba (with my non-expert vision) I can notice some assembly oddities. The bottom bow guard is not completely flush with the bow. The top bow and the bottom bow look assembled slightly askew. Finally, I could swear the bell does not meet up directly with the bottom bow. There feels like a 1/8" gap that is "hidden" cause of the ferrel (spelling ?). I think I might get up the time and $$$ to drive to Volunteer country and have the bloke disassemble my horn and built a horn from the parts.

[Lee Stofer]

Todd,
Yes, the Conn/King tubas of today could be some of the very best on the planet, but making everything fit just right takes more time (time=money), and the Conn-Selmer bean-counters do not seem to think that the additional expense is justifiable. When every joint fits virtually perfectly, that makes for a very special-playing instrument, whether it is billed as a pro- or student model.

As part of this week's summer band instrument repair work, I have a Conn 4J on the bench now. We now leak-test every instrument, and the bottom bow had to come off because it was leaking like a sieve at both ferrules. The ferrules had solder on less than 40% of their surface, which means that no student that has used this instrument in the last 40 years had a really decent-playing instrument to use. That is about to change. The other Conn 4J from that school had to have the same repairs, and the two Conn 10J's from another school had the same problem. I don't know when I've removed so many bottoms bows in one week.

If you have Mr. Bloke rebuild your Conn, you'll truly have a special instrument.

[Wyvern]

There is nothing wrong with Alexander tuba design. However, over the years, there have been a number of their instruments that were not assembled as well as they should have been.

That is quite surprising! I thought all Alex tubas were hand-made and therefore they would take greater care over their assembly

[oedipoes]

There is nothing wrong with Alexander tuba design. However, over the years, there have been a number of their instruments that were not assembled as well as they should have been.

That is quite surprising! I thought all Alex tubas were hand-made and therefore they would take greater care over their assembly

Every tuba is hand - assembled, I guess. It would not be cost-effective to build a 'braze-robot'... for the relative small batch numbers.
It depends on how exact the, whether or not hand-made, parts were made. And after that, how exact these are put together.
All comes together to time. If you take the time to re-make a bad part, or to re-fit a tube that was not positioned exactly, you will get a nice horn, but an expensive one.

Wim

[J.c. Sherman]

I've found that Alexs vary widely... the old "bent around a tree" analogy being perhaps too close to reality.

My Alex 164 is really ancient - probably pre-war. And as of a few years ago, the bell had had it... it began to just shatter. No joke. Cracks everywhere.

With inexplicable luck, a new but only lightly damaged bell was available from a new Alex 164 CC, and I nabbed it. In installing it, I was able to solder it on straight, which is one of 1,000 oddities of my horn (it looks like it was overhauled 40 years ago by a blind man). Once put on, the bell plays almost identically to the previous one. However, I noticed one very important difference - one I don't like: The bell wreath is soldered on.

This is not the case on many of the older instruments. And it "stiffened" the response and made it slightly brighter. But the basic quality of sound was still there.

I had a late 70's Alex 163 at one time and before buying played it against Ron Bishop's; conclusion? 20 years difference made them "different, but same."

They are great, open, beautiful playing horns, but there are dogs out there. But they usually still sound wonderful.
***
As for the Conn 5XJ tubas, they are excellent chop-job CCs. I'm not knocking them; I had one. But even after getting the pick of the litter of 7 of ‘em, it still had significant problems. They are chopped Kings, after all. After re-aligning the 5th valve, replacing the receiver with one from an earlier King 2341, and resoldering the leadpipe ferule to the valves, I had one bad-a$$, in-tune tuba. Really a great quintet horn too!

J.c.S.

[TubaTodd]

(it looks like it was overhauled 40 years ago by a blind man)

I laughed EXTREMELY hard at that!

[MikeS]

When I bought my 163 it had a rather large dent in the bottom bow. I had my repairman remove the bottom bow to fix it. I also wanted a couple of other minor tweaks. When he finished with the horn he remarked that it was a real pleasure to work on a tuba that was built right the first time.

I've never quite figured out why folk think Alex's are so much work to play. They are amazingly responsive instruments. You need to approach them a bit differently than some other horns, but once you wrap your mind around the concept it's no big deal.

Just to show how faddish our world can be I'll cite the example of (I think) a very similar instrument that is currently in great vogue. What else has terrific response, a killer sound, but truly "quirky" intonation? Remember to phrase your answer in the form of a question.

For $6000, Alex, what is a Willson Euphonium?

[jonesbrass]

The really great thing about buying an Alex in Germany is that they will "fix" whatever you don't like about the horn before they lacquer it . . . seriously considered buying one myself when I lived in Wiesbaden . . . right across the river from Mainz. A serious advantage to buying a "boutique" horn . . .

[Chuck Jackson]

Was this owned by a guy in the Ft McPherson band? If so, I've heard about that tuba!!

If that Alex was Archie's from Tyler, TX, then it was mine prior to that. I guess I didn't know any better, it seemed fine to me. Lee swedged the rotors for me in 1990 and I sold it shortly thereafter, maybe in 1991. I bought it in 1987 and was the 2nd owner. Pitch was fine. Sound was fabulous.

I owned Chester Roberts Alex from 1976-1980. It was a HUGE hybrid, by that I mean you could change the main tuning slide and 4th valve slide and change it between BBb and CC. What a sound!!! It actually was better in tune as a BBb. I sold it to Don Harry in 1980. I bought it from Paul Destito who bought it from Peter Popiel who bought it from Rudy Emilson who bought it from Roberts. FWIW, My Mom bought it for me for $800.00 with a case.

Alex's are far superior in sound to anything I have ever heard. Hands down.

[TUbajohn20J]

I just know that I got a chance to play an Alexander 163 BBb a few years ago in Austin, Tx.. and I absolutely loved it. I could only imagine how a 164 would sound..

[bort]

Well, they don't make a 4P/1R CC tuba, so they're not cool right now.

The two F's I've tried before were really nice tubas. A lot of fun to play.