VMIs at Dillons

[ken k]

Howdy fellow tubenetters,

Friday after Thanksgiving a friend and I went to Dillons. I went primarily to look at some bass bones, but while there I had to try some tubas too. I just played a few BBbs in the first room. Two horns that really impressed me were VMI tubas. Actually one was a stencil and I can not remember the brand name. It was a German name I was unfamiliar with, Sternberg or something like that. (It was not Schmidt. I have played those before but I understand they are VMI stencils also.) Matt Walters explained that it was basically a stencil of the VMI 103 with better valve linkage. If anyone knows the name of which I type please reply.

Anyway these were fairly large 4 rotor BBbs, maybe even 5/4 sized? One was a used VMI in brass lacquer and the other horn was silver plated. Both these horns were very free blowing and had a glorious sound. I would strongly recommend them to anyone looking for a nice BBb.

I also have a student with a "Conn International" BBb tuba and I asked Matt about that horn and he mentioned that that was a VMI stencil as well. This Conn International was not a s big as the 103s but it is an incredible player also.

So anyway I just wanted to say what I thought of these VMI horns since I was unfamiliar with them, and see what others thought of them. So please chime in with your experiences with VMIs.

Another surprise was a small four piston valved Jupiter. It as not the bigger 582 but a small 3/4 sized front 4 valver. I do not know the model number. Sorry for being so unprepared for this post but I did not write any of these model numbers down and you know the mind is the first thing to go....

Didn't play any bass bone that really caught my fancy except for the $4000 plus Raths and Shires which are out of my budget right now.

ken k

[Tubaryan12]

The Jupiter is the model 482

[Leland]

So anyway I just wanted to say what I thought of these VMI horns since I was unfamiliar with them, and see what others thought of them. So please chime in with your experiences with VMIs.

I've had just one person say that my 3302 sounded a little bright. Everybody else who's heard or played it has had good comments, including one well-known player who said that he needed one of his own to prove to his students that a good horn can be had in BBb. Plus, a DC military tubist remarked that if this horn was out when he was in school, he might never have switched to CC.

Of course, they could have just been nice to me, too.

[CJ Krause]

***

[drandomtubas]

I bought my 3302 online without ever having played a nice BBb horn. I used the information I obtained from this site to decide on a horn.

I LOVE MY TUBA!!! I think it sounds fantastic. As said in
the post above, the low register isn't that free-blowing, but, my goodness, I love my horn.

Sorry, this post wasn't really meant to be that helpful, more a way for me to say 'thank you' to all the people who give excellent advice on this website. Who knows what piece of crap I might have ended up with if it wasn't for you guys! (-:

[stardude82]

From what they show on they web page... it looks like a 2301 to me. Woah.. actually from the VMI webpage.. it looks like they stopped making the 2301.... and now make a 3301 model?
However, from they look the same and seem to have the same specs. Hence, I guess to keep the horn from sounding date/obscure, the 301 designation.

Its a 4/4 horn, but it seems much smaller than the 3301. (And the valve throws were huge on the 3301 too by comparison.)

What looks really interesting to me is the VMI (Sternberg) 3322. 4K for a 5V CC German horn, now thats a steal. Doesn't look like anything on either ML's or B&S's web sites.