Gabriel Tubas

[CorporalCoward]

Hello there, first time poster, but haven't found the answer to this question anywhere else!

I have been playing the school tuba for the past couple of years, and have seen the "Gabriel" tuba logo on the bell. I have searched for this brand on the Internet for quite a while, and come up short. So, I have resorted to asking the renowned TubeNet forums for help. Des anyone know this brand?

Thanks,
Neil

[CorporalCoward]

Here's the whole tuba



And here's the logo (kinda hard to see, it's very small)

[sousaphone68]

Now that you know a little more about your tuba can you share how it plays?
Does it have any challenges or quirks?

[Dan Schultz]

"The GABRIEL range is made by the Jinyin Musical Instrument Company, renowned throughout the USA, Canada and many other countries for the quality of their instruments. ".....

Where did you get your information? .... mainly about this being a 'quality' instrument.

[k001k47]

the renowned TubeNet forums for

Hear that? We're "renowned"!

[Kevin Hendrick]

the renowned TubeNet forums for

Hear that? We're "renowned"!

That's nice -- and it's a lot less work than being "reverbed" verbed" verbed" verbed" verbed" ...

[Dan Schultz]

"The GABRIEL range is made by the Jinyin Musical Instrument Company, renowned throughout the USA, Canada and many other countries for the quality of their instruments. ".....

Where did you get your information? .... mainly about this being a 'quality' instrument.

That is Jinyin ad copy. I have read it on Alibaba in the past. Boilerplate stuff. More bang for the buck.

Thanks for the clarification. I was rather hoping that this WASN'T Ian's opinion!

[CorporalCoward]

Now that you know a little more about your tuba can you share how it plays?
Does it have any challenges or quirks?

Well, it's awful! I think what most annoys me is that the valves make an awful clunking sound, which I'm going to get fixed...

[CorporalCoward]

Now that you know a little more about your tuba can you share how it plays?
Does it have any challenges or quirks?

Well, it's awful! I think what most annoys me is that the valves make an awful clunking sound, which I'm going to get fixed...

The way the finish is aging and engraving style are extremely similar to the "Sanders Imperial" Chinese tubas that are sold out of Michigan. Those are not terrible tubas...again, considerably better than the worn/leaky King that I played in high school. As to "awful clanking sounds", 100% of all rotary tubas (the $7000 ones from Germany) come into my shop from schools with precisely the same symptom.

Buying Chinese instruments may or may not have been the best thing for the school to do in the first place...but not fixing this one (which I bet can be made to perform well) and going out and buying something else (Chinese again?) to replace it, needlessly wastes the money of people struggling to pay taxes.

Yeah exactly, it just needs some good old fashioned TLC.

[Dan Schultz]

I completely agree (well... almost ) with Bloke on most of these earlier imports. They can usually be made to play OK but parents sometimes get really upset by the fact that they need to spend $300 or so on their kid's brand-new tuba to make a few 'adjustments'.

I think it was probably one of these tubas that I reversed for a fellow a while back. It actually played pretty good once it was taken apart and properly reassembled.