quint valve

[Bob Kolada]

Better yet (on a contrabass anyway), 3 front piston valves and a threeish step rotor on the thumb. Long top slides on everything.

[J.c. Sherman]

I enjoyed Dr. Young's tuba... it can be played conventionally, but after only a few minutes working with it, the other valves actually make seriously good sense. And his current model plays as well as any very good King.

I had the wonderful opportunity to try out Sam Green's old Sander tuba. That instrument had a major third ("2 & 3") 4th valve, and a perfect fourth fifth valve operated by the left hand. There were some great tuning options with that system! With the exception of the range issue if only equipped with those 4 valves, intonation was a breeze, with alternate fingerings for practically every note! Plus... DAMN nice instrument.

I played a Cerveny 6-valver with a quint valve and I'd slit a wrist for that horn - WONDERFUL F tuba!!! And the larger-bore quint valve opened the low range up a LOT!

Bloke, I've found, through Ron Bishop, that on a good instrument, it's an easy system on a four valver to have a flat 4th for an in-tune tritone with the 2nd, and a highly mobile 1st valve. With a highly mobile first valve, you've got everything. On my modified YBB-641, I've got a solid scale down to low C; and I had a great scale on my Alex 163, though the 1st valve pull to D was iffy. And there's no reason I couldn't put the first valve on a trigger on the 641, except that I like to physically touch that slide... Old Dog, New Trick, etc.

A quint valve, if my thinking isn't to clouded by the hour, would make some notes on the third (which I wish all manufacturers would allow a semitone pull on) require a hell of a throw to make the tritone work, IMHO. I get the idea... but the speed of execution with the best of triggers would concern me with two slides. It'd be worth a try on a King or MW 2X or something. You would have a saleable feature

J.c.S.

[joh_tuba]

Any time I want to ponder alternative tuning systems I jump to this website first: http://galvanizedjazz.com/tuba.html

The provided spreadsheet should keep even the most ardent tuba nerd entertained for hours.

[joh_tuba]

Alright, since the rest of you weren't nerdy enough in the last 24 hours to play with spreadsheets I've taken it upon myself to ponder the possibilities.

Assuming we are testing out this concept on a theoretically perfectly in tune(HAH!!!) BBb(I went with BBb because it is the most likely candidate for this system and also offers a worst case scenario for pulling slides) tuba:
2nd valve perfect half step
1st valve perfect whole step
3rd valve tuned to create a perfect double whole step(G-Flat) when used with 2nd valve
4th valve tuned to a perfect tritone

This is the chart:
Bb: Open and perfectly in tune
A: 2 -Perfectly in tune
Ab: 1 -Perfectly in tune
G: 1+2 -10 cents sharp requiring 0.7" slide pull
Gb: 2+3 -Perfectly in tune
F: 1+3 -15 cents sharp requiring 1.2" slide pull
E: 4 -Perfectly in tune
Eb: 2+4 -28 cents sharp requiring 2.5" slide pull
D: 1+2+4 -9 cents flat requiring 0.9" slide pushed in(potentially impossible with the proposed slide trigger... doubtful anyone would mind in this register)
Db: 2+3+4 -8 cents sharp requiring 0.8" slide pull
C: 1+2+3+4 -14 cents flat requiring 1.5" slide pushed in(again doubtful anyone would mind in this register)
OR 1+3+4 -42 cents sharp and requiring 4.5" of slide pull
B: 1+2+3+4 81 cents sharp and requiring 9.2" of slide pull(I wonder if that is a practical amount of slide to pull between the 1st and 4th valve if attached to the proposed thumb activated kicker)

Thoughts?

It seems more doable than I might have guessed.

[joh_tuba]

Lars suggested exploring extending the tuning of the 3rd valve so that it is a full double whole step on its own:
2nd valve perfect half step
1st valve perfect whole step
3rd valve perfect double whole step
4th valve perfect tritone

The results:
Bb: Open perfectly in tune
A: 2 Perfectly in tune
Ab: 1 Perfectly in tune
G: 1+2 10 cents sharp requiring 0.7" slide pull
Gb: 3: Perfectly in tune
F: 2+3 19 cents sharp requiring 1.6" slide pull(this could prove problematic with the proposed 1+4 slide kicker unless we also could kick the 3rd slide simultaneously)
E: 4 Perfectly in tune
Eb: 2+4 28 cents sharp requiring 2.5" slide pull
D: 1+2+4 9 cents flat requiring 0.9" slide pushed in
Db: 3+4 8 cents sharp requiring 0.8" slide pull
C: 1+3+4 14 cents flat requiring slide pushed in 1.5"
OR 2+3+4 45 cents sharp requiring 4.9" slide pull
B: 1+2+3+4 28 cents sharp requiring 3.2" slide pull

Hopefully I got that all right.

Thoughts?

[joh_tuba]

For reference purposes this is the theoretical intonation issues with a standard tuning system on a four valve tuba:

Bb: Open Perfectly in tune
A: 2 Perfectly in tune
Ab: 1 Perfectly in tune
G: 1+2 10 cents sharp requiring 0.7" slide pull
Gb: 2+3 Perfectly in tune
F: 4 Perfectly in tune
E: 2+4 24 cents sharp requiring 2" slide pull
Eb: 1+4 46 cents sharp requiring 4.1" slide pull
OR 1+2+4 21 cents flat requiring 1.9" slide pushed in
D: 2+3+4 8 cents flat requiring 0.7" slide pushed in
Db: 1+3+4 24 cents sharp requiring 2.4" slide pull
C: 1+2+3+4 61 cents sharp requring 6.5" slide pull
B: 1+2+3+4 152 cents sharp requiring 17.2" slide pull

Enjoy!