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[TheHatTuba]

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[Dan Schultz]

Providing materials would mean having a ready-to-play casing/piston assembly, ALL of the crooks, straight tubing, slide tubing (inner & outer), braces (already made to fit), waterkeys already affixed to the required crooks, ferrules, and all the 'thinking' about where to locate everything..... MAYBE $500-1,000. And that would not include any finish such as lacquer or silver plating.

It wouldn't matter if it's a piston or rotor retrofit. A rotor might be easier to 'plug-in' but you still have to think out and install a linkage.

Adding a valve is not always a simple task. Most of the time it requires several fit-ups and trials before actually soldering things together. And then.... the results are not always as good as one would like for them to be.

Save your money and buy the horn you want.

[Steve Marcus]

If you already own a good sounding, well playing 3-valve tuba, you may be much better off in the pocket book as well as tonal quality in developing a smooth playing transition between the regular valved tones and the privileged tones. You might gain better intonation on the B-natural below the staff (assuming that yours is a BBb horn), but that's a lot of expense and risk of loss of of positive qualities of your tuba for the sake of one note.

A friend in one of the brass bands in the States who had been playing the BBb Bass part on his Miraphone 188 CC was lucky enough to come across a great horn a few months ago that was literally hidden in a barn for 80 years*: a fantastic sounding 3-valve York BBb Monster Bass. He and his colleague in the band agreed that it's best to leave well enough alone and not go to the expense of added a 4th valve. The top-action 3-valve pistons remain, but so does the hall-rocking sound. When the tuba player from a major orchestra coached the band, he was so impressed with the sound of the 3-valve York that he asked if he might borrow the horn sometime to play in the symphony. The two BBb Bass players in the band are developing their privileged tones even though the second player has a 4-valve Holton 345 BBb.

*It's hard to believe that these "buried in a barn/grandma's attic/etc." stories still happen, but they do from time to time. I was fortunate enough to have someone "stumble across" a Conn 48K 4-valve Jumbo sousaphone in the attic of the warehouse of a multi-generation music instrument dealer. It had been out of sight for so many years that it didn't even appear on their inventory. It was literally black from decades of neglect. The bottom bow was banged in so far that the diameter at the damaged location was less than half of the original diameter. The guard rails were separated and dangling off the bottom bow. But I bought it from the dealer and had Lee Stofer and his crew do their excellent work on the horn to restore it to fantastic playability and appearance.

[SousaSaver]

PS As to the response issue, that's usualy overcome by using oversixed tubing as I did. My .740 fourth valve has .750 tubing.

Why? This isn't a gradual move. Your main valve set is .687 your fourth valve is .740 and your tubing is .750? You would have a large, rapid, sharp opening of the bore.

Maybe there is something that I don't understand. Please help me understand how this help with response. If it really does, maybe I should open up the bore on the 4th valve of the valve section I am building right now...

[SousaSaver]

Providing materials would mean having a ready-to-play casing/piston assembly, ALL of the crooks, straight tubing, slide tubing (inner & outer), braces (already made to fit), waterkeys already affixed to the required crooks, ferrules, and all the 'thinking' about where to locate everything..... MAYBE $500-1,000. And that would not include any finish such as lacquer or silver plating.

It wouldn't matter if it's a piston or rotor retrofit. A rotor might be easier to 'plug-in' but you still have to think out and install a linkage.

Adding a valve is not always a simple task. Most of the time it requires several fit-ups and trials before actually soldering things together. And then.... the results are not always as good as one would like for them to be.

Save your money and buy the horn you want.

Dan -

Best advice on this subject EVER! FOR THE WIN!!!!!

[SousaSaver]

As to the reason I wanted to expand the bore is this; the Burnulli effect would suggest a pressure change with the size change and
more imporantly, I want mine to be like the Chicago York, which is said to have the same thing - but for 100% of its fourth curcut.
Does it work ? Hell I don't know ! I'm such a good low note player I may only be getting placebo effect, but it seems to.

Brian -

You are right regarding the bore size on Selmer Signets. I forget that sometimes. Thank you for correcting me.

Secondly, I love your observation about the Chicago York and the placebo effect.
It seems like everyone wants to bottle that Arnold Jacobs magic, and really, who can blame anyone for trying. I think you are right about the placebo effect, but that doesn't mean that there isn't any truth to opening up the bore on the 4th pistons.

I did some reading through some catalogs to find out what major manufacturers do. Most have the same bore through 1-3 and open up on #4.

Is that scientific evidence? No. The only real and honest test would be to play a horn with an expanded 4th bore and one with a (nearly) identical design that didn't and test the response.

I don't mean to bust anyone's chops. I am really fascinated by this topic.

[SousaSaver]

Any way you might google Burnulli and see what you think. All I know is there sure are a lot of tubas with multiple bore sizes.

I have heard the name before. I will definitely look it up!

I agree about the multiple bore sizes.

Does anyone know of any Tubas that have a graduated bore throughout the cluster so that the bore is slightly larger as it moves through the cluster? I know this presents practical problems like slightly larger tuning slide tubing from valve to valve.

[David Richoux]

There were some mid 1800s horns I saw once in the Fiske Museum (collection now mostly moved to the Phoenix music instrument museum) that used proportionally small rotors and funnel transitional inlet and outlets to each valve section. The Bernoulli Effect allowed the horns to be relatively "un-stuffy."

[pjv]

Years ago I purchased Gary Buttery's B&S F and it has the conical boring throughout the valves. It's a lovely horn, but I can't really say its an improvement having a a 5th valve (the first in the row) thats smaller than the rest.

Maybe thats why they're not made like this anymore?

cheers, Pat

[GC]

@goodgigs: Doppler, not Bernoulli.