New Blog Post: My Visit to the Miraphone factory

[tubajoe]

Greetings!

A couple of weeks ago while on tour in Europe with Gato Loco, I had the extreme pleasure of visiting the Miraphone factory in Waldkraiburg. Germany, outside of Munich.

What an amazing place!

And YES, I played horns... a LOT of them, for quite a while!! The Bruckner is the bomb!! Amazing!


Read more here....

http://www.tubajoe.com/tubajoe/2011/11/ ... phone.html

[tclements]

WOW! Thanks for the post, Joe. How cool is THAT??

[Trevor Bjorklund]

That is an amazing experience! Pretty awesome to have those guys tweak your horn. Thanks for sharing!

[bort]

AWESOME!

[jimgray]

Pretty cool! Thanks for sharing.

(getting itchy to try a Bruckner, ideally in the same room as a Tuono)

[tclements]

Re: The Bruckner. I have one, 2 of my students have one. 3 of my students have the BBb version, the 191. These are wonderful instruments!

[oedipoes]

What is that big tuba on the right, second picture?
Looks like a Siegfried-sized thing, but not completely identical...

Wim

[jimgray]

Tony-

How does the bruckner compare to a nice pt-6?

Jim

[rodgeman]

Thanks for the post. Did you get a chance to play a Seigfried?

[Art Hovey]

Your story seems to indicate that the bows are lacquered before they are soldered together. Is that correct?

[ckalaher1]

I know it's called a 5/4 by Miraphone, but I believe the Bruckner to be the best 4/4 CC that is currently available on the market. I also played several different examples, and found them to be very consistent from horn to horn.

Thanks for the pictures. Sounds like you had a great trip.

[OldsRecording]

Free samples at the end of the tour?

[tubajoe]

I’ll try to answer your questions as best I can...

What is that big tuba on the right, second picture?
Looks like a Siegfried-sized thing, but not completely identical...

I’m not exactly sure, they had a number of BAT Kaiser-style tubas they were working on. BIG tubas.

Hope you got your mouthpiece back...

LOL. I did! I left it in the Bruckner! We were rushing for a train back to Munich and since it was not in my tuba, I mistakenly left it! I had to take the train back out there a second time to get it though...! Fortunately, my gig was not until the next day, and I had some time to kill and another nice ride through the Bavarian countryside was certainly not a bad thing! What was funny is that Christian Niedermaier said it is a common occurrence after someone tries a bunch of horns.

Your story seems to indicate that the bows are lacquered before they are soldered together. Is that correct?

I believe so. It seemed like chunks of the horn (larger bows, valve cluster, bell cone etc) were lacquered individually before final assembly. After assembly then great detail seemed to go into the final finishing; all the way down to the point of the small details being painstakingly polished by hand...with a small cloth. They had a special room dedicated just to final finish detail work. This aspect was actually one of the things that impressed me most about the whole process.

I know it's called a 5/4 by Miraphone, but I believe the Bruckner to be the best 4/4 CC that is currently available on the market. I also played several different examples, and found them to be very consistent from horn to horn.

Yah, they even said many consider it a 4/4. I’d say it was comparable to a 188 or a 4/4 Rudy, or an HB2 in it’s size. It was bigger than my 186 but was not foofy and importantly didnt try to be bigger than it was, as many modern horns of all brands do. It had a nice “pop” to it. It was also very clear in the higher register for a big 4/4, but still big down low. I’d say a good player would have no problem playing Bruckner or Berlioz on it, ...or persuing solo rep. I’d say solo-wise, playing something like Penderecki would totally be doable on a Bruckner. I am guessing it would be a good recording horn too, as it seemed quite flexible. And most importantly, it was also one of the few “modern” horns I’ve played that had an “old soul” to it (which is a make or break issue for me!)

My *only* caveat was with shorter bell (or taller upper bow, however you want to look at it) it would be harder to be played standing up, which is an issue to me, as that is what I do so much of. This ergonomic issue is one where I really prefer the old-school long stove-pipe stack format of the 186.

Free samples at the end of the tour?

Man, I wish!! But they sure did an amazing job with my old valve linkage though!! I toyed with having them update it to a modern system which they did offer to do, but I am so used to the older system, I had them just clean and tighten the existing setup. They really went above and beyond the call of duty and made it great -- way way waaay beyond what any repairman in the US has ever been able to do with that old linkage in 20 years of owning that horn. (so much so that I am amazed, and irritated that it hasn’t been as good as that for 20 years!!)

[Steve Marcus]

I understand that Miraphone won't have the Siegfried at Midwest because they've hit the right formula with the prototype, have disassembled it to build tooling to make production models that are expected to be available shortly after the first of the year.

But Joe, you refer to a York-type 6/4 prototype. Is this a piston CC? Do you think that the prototype will be at Midwest in a couple of weeks from now?

[tubajoe]

But Joe, you refer to a York-type 6/4 prototype. Is this a piston CC? Do you think that the prototype will be at Midwest in a couple of weeks from now?

Man, I have noooo idea! I don't even know what point of production it was in. It was more of a "hey cool! Can I play it?!" type of thing!

[SousaSaver]

Joe -

VERY cool. Thanks for posting!

[Roger Lewis]

It is remotely possible that there will be a production Seigfried at Midwest. It all depends on how fast it can get through Customs once it gets here.

Roger