Playing Tiger Plastic tuba - The good, the bad...

[Sylvano]

And the ugly.

I've been using a plastic Tiger tuba and a large bore tenor since for a few months now and I can now give a review of both.

I bought both from Libin Musique et Sports in Montreal. I had the luxury to try 6 or 7 plastic tubas and probably a dozen trombones. The prices were very decent considering that I didn't have to pay US dollars or shipping.

The trombones are large bore with a trigger F attachment. Brass leadpipe and rotary valve, carbon fiber slide. I was looking for a shiny black one but the best one was purple. I'm quite happy with the attention it gets. It plays quieter but very well all the way down.

The tubas were fairly consistent. I picked a black one that felt good. Amy, at the store was very accommodating.

The good:
I brought it to a symphony rehearsal and ended up playing the whole program with it. It was a family show with a bunch of John Williams, 1812, the march from Hindemith Symphonic Metamorphosis. Everyone assumed it was made of carbon fiber. Other than flat B, C, C# in the staff, the tuning is all manageable. Playing the lower octave fingering like on F tuba solves the problem.
It's loud and dark.
Notes slots very well in the center up to Bb.
It's very light.
Good access to 4th slide.
It looks cool.
It's a novelty.

The Bad:
Alternate fingering for B, C, C# in the staff unless you want to lip up.
It rattled itself lose. Bring an Allen key with you to the gig and tight up these screws. I told Amy that it should be assembled with Thread lock.
Probably needs more bracing.
The back bow sticks out quite a lot. It would be a problem for some body shapes.
Stuffy low D (234) and below.
Upper register B (2) , C (0) , C# (2), etc above the staff gets flatter and difficult to slot. Using 1-2, 1 makes it worse.
The valves gum up easily. They're not easy to access and taking them out for cleaning is a chore. The caps are difficult to thread.
Considering the cost of horns from China, it isn't cheap.

The Ugly:
Levers will break on you. They're made of plastic and they are fragile. The horn was out of commission for 3 weeks while I waited for parts. I got 5 replacements but I'm down to 4 now. They can't take any side pressure. Think about that when transporting it or even putting it in its bag. I'm going to build a bridge to protect the lever. I pointed this out to the sales rep in Montreal. She said she'd pass it along to the manufacture.
The leadpipes would also break easily in a school environment. A solid brace needs to extend all the way to the end of the receiver.
This is not a horn for students or schools.

Overall, it's quite impressive for a plastic horn but I look forward to major improvements.

The purple trombone water key broke off too. Unlike the Pbone, it doesn't have ridge to protect it. It's plastic.

Other instruments I tried from the importer:
-4 valve plastic euphonium - Not good. Don't bother.
Compensating 4v Eb silver - Played very well but under pitch all slides in.
- Cerveny piggy copy - good but not as nice as the one Dillon had on consignment at the Workshop 3 years ago, I still regret not buying it for $1000.
- Compensating silver 4v Bb - Now, understand that I dislike B&H Besson Bb horns from my early years in the military. I played some good older 3 valves but never had a good experience with the Besson 994 so I reluctantly gave it a try. Wow! The Chinese Bb was outstanding. Great response, valves, pitch, tone and it looked fantastic. I was surprised and impressed.

[pjv]

Just a thought; maybe putting a large square Tupperware over the valves before putting it in the gig bag might prevent contact with any external pressure.

[Ulli]

Thank you, Sylvano, for your review.
But- are Tigers- fresh from Rheinsound music- currently available?
The order button at their homepage doesn't work here in Germany-
and the very few retailers here have non...