King Monster rotary on LA CL

[SousaSaver]

That is such a cool horn, but the price is too high for me...

[bort]

No, no, no... we're supposed to cut down to DD tubas now. Yeesh.

[EdFirth]

I own and play a four valve one. Tom Treece did Alot of work on it and concluded that there's noplace to cut them to C. Without messing up the taper. Although the Conn C's were cut dowm King branches with tapered ferruls to compensate for that.I tend to feel like they're really good the way they are, there were only around 100 built, and there are Plenty of good C's out there. I have had the pleasure of playing Joe Novotny's C. They are physically alot smaller with a smaller bore, and it was Fantastic! Mabye someone will chime in who has attempted it but there's always that possibility that you trash a great horn and of the hundred, who knows how many are still out there. Ed

[The Big Ben]

Anyone cut one of these to CC before?

Ahhhh... I see a pot being stirred up! Get that paddle in there and give it a spin!

[The Big Ben]

Really? Are you serious?
Why ruin one of the few American grand style tubas, especially one that uses rotary valves?
I can understand cutting a BBb to CC if there are a bunch of them, but with so few Monster Rotary Kings out there, why, just why would you even consider doing this?

You *easily* amused!

[Ken Herrick]

When I got one for Jake he had Carl Geyer look at it to assess possibly cutting it to CC. His conclusion was that it could not be done without wrecking it as there is so little straight tubing. In the past there have been several symphony players using these, mainly 4v upright. It would be possible to add a 4th valve (.750" bore) and get an upright bell - possibly Kanstul.

Jake felt the bottom end was better than the Yorks and it played "very comfortably" for him. As he put it when he tried mine "I normally blat a lot on a BBb but this is beautiful". He sounded pretty good on it too. Talk about a rocking Ride!!!

Dan Heeron from Denver Symphony needed a good tuba and bought Jake's. The two, with consecutive serial numbers , 180119 and 180120, were from a set of 6 made for Ohio State U prior to the OSU band doing a tour of Russia in the 30s.

Ken Hughes alerted me to the fact that they were being traded for Mirafones. They came with very sturdy shipping trunks and in '65 I bought 2 for virtually their original price of $250. Somebody at OSU got smart and decided they should keep the remaining 4. Don't know if they are still lurking in some dark basement there.

Jake's opinion of them was that if you had one, you did not need to switch to CC as they were as good as anything being made or cut to CC. He said that if he had had one while at Curtis, he never would have bothered switching to CC.

Ziggy should grab one and use it as a pattern for a 6/4 BBb and maybe even CC.

These were hand built, often as a way of keeping top craftsmen in work during the depression. The CC (Bell, Novotny et al) was indeed a smaller instrument - more 2341 size. Very nice horns, in my opinion.

[cjk]

in 1992 or 1993, i think i recall that there was a classified ad in the tuba journal for a king rotary which had been cut to cc.

maybe somebody has a pile of old journals from that time and can look. iirc, there was also a classified ad for a b&s f copy made by mirafone, aka the original version of the mirafone 181, in the same issue.

[SousaSaver]

I agree with Ian on this one. Why? This thing would probably be a killer BBb player.

[Lew]

A very fair price. I paid over 3k for mine and think it was clearly worth it.

[bububassboner]

My friend Howard Miata had one for a while, and of course, he let us all play in it.
It was a great sounding tuba that played bigger then it is. I would however, suggest that is not
a 6/4 size but only a supper sounding 5/4. It, like a lot of king tubas, has a really big bell throat,
but not as big as a Holton, York, Conn, or Martin.

I disagree about the size of the horn. The university of Oregon owns a 4 valve one piece bell up model that barely fits in the bag for my Nirschl. Plays super nice, even with worn out valves. Wish the school would fix it up.

[J.c. Sherman]

I've owned a lot of tubas, including a 4v version of this one. It was the best playing tuba I've owned, and the best sounding. Unfortunately, at the time, I could hardly ever use it, as it was bell-front only. If there had seemed any way to get a bell up for it at the time, I'd still have it. When I saw that Lee was selling top bells for them last year, I actually cried.

This is a fantastic price, and these are phenomenal BBb tubas. 5/4 or 6/4, there's nothing "bigger" made. They are nimble, facile, wonderful instruments and the ICC should prosecute anyone who attempts to cut one to CC. They simply don't need it.

J.c.S.

[J.c. Sherman]

Perhaps it's this one?

Similar, but not identical. I had a variant with a vertical valve set and without the gigrocious dent in the bell stem.

J.c.S.

[jeopardymaster]

If I were to consider surgery on such a beast, it would be to add a 4th valve. Just sayin'...

[b.williams]

Hi folks.
Do these horns have a string linkage?

Thanks.

[J.c. Sherman]

Hi folks.
Do these horns have a string linkage?

Thanks.

Yup. And it is EXTREMELY efficient and quiet. You barely have to move the paddles!

[Ken Herrick]

For those who might worry about the string linkage, it really is not a problem. I found that fishing line - braided flyline, to be precise, worked very well and and I had no worries about string breakages. I did routinely change them every couple years. A couple big advantages are that you can adjust the paddle height to suit your hand and a lot of accidents which would cause expensive to repair damage to mechanical linkages take a mere 2 cents worth of string to repair as opposed to hundreds $$$$.

There is a potential for wear on the stop arm over many years of heavy use, (the fly line did not seem to cause any problems) but a competent repair tech can pretty easily make new ones.

Probably my biggest regret ever was having it out where it could be seen one night when an old Vietnam Vet got very drunk, got curious and had to have a look, fell on it and pulled a heavy book case down on it. It was damaged way beyond what I was equipped to be able to repair - like a lot of dent machine work and I did not have one and could not afford to make the tooling required. Ended up selling it very cheap to a tuba player - repairman in Brisbane. I just hope he did rebuild it.

That old King served me very well in all settings from my time in the Chicago Brass Quintet, trad jazz groups, the full orchestra rep, including Bydlo etc., bands of all sizes. A lot of other players tried it and never did anybody say they didn't like it. That included the likes of Jake, Harvey, Rex Conner and others. When I was at New England COnservatory Gunther Schuller really liked the sound in the orchestra on rep such as Bartok Concerto, Brahms #2, Ein Faust Ovt, Berlioz Fantastique etc. It also worked very well a few times for covering contra-bassoon parts with one German conductor saying he preferred it and wondered why the part on the Brahms Haydn variations hadn't been written for tuba instead.

I'm absolutely serious when I say that somebody could get this beast, possibly add a 4th valve and get a Kanstul upright bell and have a great instrument which really can be used for everything. If you didn't like rotary valves it would not be too hard to swap them for a .750 piston set.

[TYA]

Does anyone know what happened to this tuba?