Midwest

[bisontuba]

Hi-

Soooo...for those attending Midwest this week, what horns that you played there did you like/dislike......
Mark

[tclements]

Photos, please.

[Bob Kolada]

I'll have pictures later on.

[Bob Kolada]

The Gemeinhardt tubas- small Bb, Eb, F, and big C. The F was ok, but that Eb really shone. I still don't like dependent 5th valves, and would much, much prefer a setup like a 2341.



The Adams/Hirsbrunner tubas. The F was quite nice and thankfully nothing like that terrible piston Hirsbrunner Eb I played at the SOM-


Miraphone contrabass tubas. The 1291, 1291 Bb, and 291 are all nice horns, but my favorite is still the 191. A little wonky for me on C and B below the staff but a wonderful sound and a fantastic low F.



Small and big Willson Eb's, big piston F, big piston Bb (but aren't they all big? ). That little Eb is a fantastic horn- easy to play, solid low register, nice sound, awesome retro "feel". Willson reps told me there's only a few of them in existence and that there will be a 3rd F in a similar format.



This is my pick of the litter (roughly tied with the small Willson Eb and MW 2250), the Miraphone 1281 F. Sweet, sweet horn. Great sound, awesome low register, good intonation, so easy to play,... Markus Theinart was nice enough to take this picture for me.



The wonderful, as always King 2280 and 2341. Nice full sounds, good intonation, bangin low register on the euph,... I also played the 2341 copy. It wasn't quite as good as the King. See the pBones? They play ok, but oddly enough everyone outside of high school who picks one up plays scalding jazz licks on it.



The excellent MW 2250's. Big, clear, colorful sound, solid low range (only slightly edged by the 1281), fun to play,... I do think they look a little odd though.



Lousy picture of the big Besson top valve comp Bb. Very easy playing horn with a pretty solid low register.



Partial view of the Courtis dual Hagmann bass trombone. Heavy as 20 sousas, but still a monster horn.



The Miraphone bass tubas, right to left- 1281 (see above), 281 (very nice horn, easy playing, solid sound), 181 (kinda odd to hold but still a player), and the big Star (nice horn, deeper sound than all the F's but possibly not quite as easy to play?).


I thought I also had a picture of that giant Jupiter contrabass flute. Oh well. The Edwards and Getzen bass trombones rocked as they tend to do; I didn't care so much for the stock indy Bachs, either the rotary or Hagmann.

[Steve Marcus]

Jinbao had reserved booth space and was listed among the exhibitors, but did not appear at the designated booth space. It would have been interesting, especially since their website is far from orderly.

There were a few Chinese-built stencils (Tuba Exchange, etc.), but surprisingly none under their own market brand name. There are a few remaining Brazilian horns among Dick Barth's Gemeinhardt tubas, but production of that line is also going to be happening in China.

I was disappointed that Miraphone's Siegfried did not make it through customs. But Miraphone is very close to bringing them to market. Apparently, they will be essentially hand-built models, at least for initial production. A 6/4 CC prototype was mentioned, but is probably too far from a finished product to display.

M-W had a very full selection. It was very interesting to compare the 5450, 6450, 6450/2, and 195s side by side, albeit in the horrible acoustics of an exhibition. David Fedderly raved about the new(?) 3450 4/4(?) CC. Indeed, it played with much ease in all registers.

I learned two things that might have already been discussed on TubeNet (I don't have time to frequent this website as much as years ago):

Tuba Exchange has new ownership as of this past September. Vince remains as a consultant (practical, since he lives right there) and retains ownership of the historic collection.

Peter Hirsbrunner will still build tubas to order. Adams did not acquire the rights to all the Hirsbrunner designs, mandrels, etc.

[bort]

Awesome info! Thanks so much!

Was the full lineup of Miraphone F tubas there? That is, the new 181, 281, and new 381? Curious how they compared side-by-side to each other, and to the Petrushka.

[jtuba]

The Adams/Hirsbrunner tubas. The F was quite nice and thankfully nothing like that terrible piston Hirsbrunner Eb I played at the SOM-

I always loved the look on student's faces when they found out we had a Hirsbrunner Eb. I would always them them, make sure to play it with a tuner. The look on their faces the following week was even better.

[cjk]

The Adams/Hirsbrunner tubas. The F was quite nice and thankfully nothing like that terrible piston Hirsbrunner Eb I played at the SOM-

I always loved the look on students faces when they found out we had a Hirsbrunner Eb. I would always them them, make sure to play it with a tuner. The look on their faces the following week was even better.

lol.

[Bob Kolada]

The worst part was not the intonation, but how stiff it felt. I was able to eventually play it tune but it was such an odd horn. The valves also kinda sucked. I was SO close to a 3.0 I had to blame the horn. I did count myself lucky to find ANY piston Eb.

[Steve Marcus]

I was told that a gentleman from Belgium is the new owner of TE. He may or may not be a musician.

[SousaSaver]

You can find more photos here:

http://www.SousaCentral.blogspot.com

Also, there was talk of a 6/4 Holton/York CC copy might be coming from Gemeinhardt soon. I REALLY liked the CC Tuba they had on display. It was really easy to play.

[fenne1ca]

I LOVED the Gmeinhardt CC horn. I visited it multiple times over several days. If you heard somebody playing Die Walkurie, Beelzebub, or the Grøndahl Trombone Concerto on it, that was most likely me. I'm not the biggest fan of the dependent 5th (I love me some alternate fingerings!), but I'm considering this one of my top choices if I need a 5/4 any time soon. The price, especially, is hard to beat.