AMAZING new piston F and Eb tubas!!!

[bisontuba]

HI-

Just left the music hall in Buffalo after hoking up with Don Harry, fellow tubist/librarian Travis Hendra and Dick Barth from Gemeinhardt. Dick brought with him today two horns to check out--both piston, front action, in silver--Gemeinhardt's 'designed 'in Elkhart, 'assembled in China' F and Eb tubas--both 5 valve, 4 piston and 5th dependent valve--WOW, WOW!!!

I will let Don speak for himself, but he had his Yamaha modified silver 822S F to compare with the two horns Dick brought. Dick has two winners.

The Eb is a wonderful horn, very open, clear, excellent intonation, slots easily--if you are an Eb player, you MUST check this out.

The F is just out and out incredible. The pitch is spot on, it slots easy, the sound is more 'colorful and rich' than Don's Yamaha (and his modified Yamaha is probably one of the best, if not the best of the 822's out there). The piston's on the new F are super, the low range rocks--you could play EVERYTHING on this F (I wish Dick had brought the new piston CC with him--according to Don, it is amazing)--the high range just sings so beautifully, the horn is light weight, easy to hold, you can get to the 1st slide by going 'through' the horn--a great design, and an even better playing horn.

Bottom line--the best F tuba I have ever played--period. Awesome is an understatement in a one word description for this instrument.

In silver, with an MTS type hard case, I am told it will have a street price of under $4,900. He will have them at MidWest, Texas, NAMM, Florida, Ohio, and Army Tuba Conference shows. You MUST play this horn--period. This horn sets a new standard for F tubas, IMHO.

Some pics:

Don with his Yamaha


Don with the new F


Don with the new Eb


Kudos to Dick on his designs/horns--just incredible!!

Regards-
mark
jonestuba@Juno.com" target="_blank

[bort]

Neat!

My 2 cents of commentary though...which is general and not directed at anyone specifically! What do you suppose this tuba would cost if they went the extra mile and actually BUILT it in the US as well? All this "Designed in ___, Assembled in ___" stuff is complete bull. Yes, it helps resolve fears about the quality of Chinese-made goods, but the other concerns (crappy working conditions, low wages, suicide nets, losing American jobs, etc.) aren't exactly problematic at the design level.

Not at all trying to rain on the parade here, and it's really cool to see a great tuba come out of good design. But come on, if it plays like an $8,000 tuba, then just build it here and charge $8,000 for it. Wouldn't that be better for Elkhart, too?

[cjk]

Do you have any pictures of the new instruments or just pics of Don?

[DonShirer]

Pic at http://www.barthsbrassblog.com/" target="_blank

[Alex C]

Mark, thanks for the report. Dick told me he has had great reports on the Eb but this was the first time the F had been played by a professional. I'm stoked for what Gemeinhardt is doing and looking forward to having the opportunity to play on these horns.

Gemeinhardt tubas... whodathunkit?

[cjk]

Gemeinhardt's 'designed 'in Elkhart, 'assembled in China' F and Eb tubas--both 5 valve, 4 piston and 5th dependent valve

Dependent 5th may be a bit limiting. Like having 4.5 valves....

I agree. I question the wisdom of bringing an instrument to market with a dependent 5th as well, especially since that will be a drawback unique to these particular models. However, if they're both good and cheap to buy, they will probably sell that way.

[bort]

DP, I have no idea what that means.

[pgym]

DP, I have no idea what that means.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Exclusion_Act" target="_blank

[bisontuba]

Joe-
The 6v JinBao F is an excellent tuba for the money--a 'best buy', so to speak. However, the new Gemeinhardt is the best F tuba I have ever played, period--whether rotor or piston, costing $1,000 or $15,000.

That's it in a nutshell.....
mark

[Bob Kolada]

It's nice to see new piston F and Eb's coming out. It'd be even nicer to see a 2341-style valve set, positioned as such and not like a 56J, on a 981-style body (there's gotta be enough "slack" between the mouthpiece and main slide to make up for the front action valves). Also, make mine 4+2.
RE dependent 5th valves- I hope there's a usably long 4th slide (or a kicker on 2?). There's gonna be a lot of 24 fixin going on.

[Alex C]

All of the options for placing a fifth valve require trade-off's. Apparently the bugle of these horns was affected with a rotor and the result would not be acceptable.

I would miss the 2-3-5 low E and low B (on F tuba) but those are only two notes. On the other hand, if the overall horn is improved with a dependent rotor it would be worth it.

BTW, Warren Deck's CC Holton had a dependent 5th valve and that was the horn he won the NY job on.

[Timswisstuba]

If there had to a depentant 5th valve, I would make it within the 3rd valve circuit.
That way you still have the 5-2-3 combination, and what is normally played 5-4 can be played 5-1-3.

[UDELBR]

These have a dependent rotor because the bugle was designed for a 3+1 valve set and there is NO way to include a 5th valve any other way.

Seems hard to imagine they couldn't've winnowed out the extra 2 inches a 5th valve requires from somewhere else: make the leadpipe more direct for instance, or move the valve block up higher. In fact in this image, you can see a big 'pretzel' right after the main slide.

[bisontuba]

Hi-
Check out Dick's new comments about the horns on his blog-- Barths Brass Blog.
Mark

[bort]

DP, I have no idea what that means.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Exclusion_Act" target="_blank" target="_blank

Yes, I knew all this. Rather, I meant that I don't see, nor agree with this connection. I don't hate China, nor Chinese people.

What I don't like is China being the world's factory and the US being ok with not making anything for themselves anymore.

[k001k47]

That's real dang neato
EDIT:
I had only read the first page, and - after seeing the run down factories - it isn't that neato anymore.

[Alex C]

Seems hard to imagine they couldn't've winnowed out the extra 2 inches a 5th valve requires from somewhere else: make the leadpipe more direct for instance, or move the valve block up higher. In fact in this image, you can see a big 'pretzel' right after the main slide.

I was told that the reason the rotor was not put in AFTER the main tuning slide was the size of the bore. Putting a fifth valve BEFORE the tuning slide took away too much tuning slide. Putting the fifth valve at the end of the leadpipe is just wrong.

[bisontuba]

Hi-
I have received MANY emails about these tubas-- and one question that keeps popping up is the model designation-- 'J'- for the tubas. I had asked Dick about that, and, NO, it has nothing at all to do with the Weril models at all-Gemstone just adopted the old 1920's Conn method of model designations-- and it just so happens that tubas 'fall into' the grouping of the '600's'---nothing more, nothing less--just a FYI........( or I could lie to you and say 'J' stands for Jones--NOT!!!!)....

Regards-
Mark

[UDELBR]

JinBao ... ?

[bisontuba]

Hi-
You can read Don Harry's thoughts on the tubas on his Facebook page or you can see them-they are copied-on BarthsBrassBlog now-FYI.
Mark