cimbasso intonation

[Bob Kolada]

I remember seeing a picture of it before, it looks a LOT bigger with a person holding it.

Why do all the factory horns have the bell so far forward? It seems it would be harder to get an accurate sense of volume and do mute changes.

[UDELBR]

Wow, that looks like marvelous beast!! What does it sound like?

Like a cimbasso! Or at least what I think a cimbasso should sound like. I started on trombone, and logged a bunch of hours on bass trombone at NTSU as well, so have that sound in my head when I play this axe.

The valve section is my Eb "project" section, so can be plugged into whatever Eb creature I may have lying around.

[Donn]

I've seldom played these types of instruments, but it seems to me that the main job of the left hand might need to be stabilizing the instrument.

To play while standing, are any of them a practical alternative to the contrabass trombone? There's no "helico-cimbasso", I guess.

[pjv]

The BBb cimbasso Tim Sullivan made for me has a very long sturdy pin fastened in two places for standing. It works great and seeing that a most of my playing is done standing I'm quite thankful for this feature.

-Patrick

[pjv]

You'll never stop the wiggle entirely with a top heavy horn of the proportions of a cimbasso, but having a larger peg with at least two contact points helps.

I think if anyone really had the time and energy they should be able to develop a a hollow peg with a substantially larger diameter (kinda like a pvc pipe). Much more stable.

BTW, Tim also made a stand for this horn from...a cymbal stand. Nothing like percussion hardware for strenth and reliability.
Cheers,
Pat

[UDELBR]

A little more information for those who may be interested. The horn (as I've said) is essentially a 19mm tuba valve section, a length of straight pipe, a cobbled-together bell, and a leadpipe. None of these were difficult to make, and as you can see, I've got *no* soldering skills whatsoever. But.it.plays.

Here's the bell by itself (the perspective's a little weird; I stuck to the standard "1/3 conical, 2/3 cylindrical" formula, which the picture doesn't really reflect):



And here's the length of straight pipe I concocted to go between valves and bell:



I had a GREAT time building this, and really enjoy every opportunity I have to whup this out.