Dalyan Tubas

[Bob Kolada]

I played the Eb years ago at WWBW. Meh; not terrible but not really noteworthy.

[bort]

Got a few horns today - one is a Dalyan F tuba. Anyone know anything about them?

Taiwanese, right?

[bort]

It's some kind of Asian origin. It's probably from about 10-15 years ago, and was a brand that was sold a lot here on TubeNet before all of the Asian tubas we have today.

[Wyvern]

Dalyan was a Chinese brass factory which is no longer in business.

[Ace]

Those tubas were produced at a factory in China's northern-most open water seaport, Dahlian. Conditions north of there tend to freeze over (?) They made some instruments for the Chinese military and their ads portrayed military bandsmen. I seem to remember reading somewhere they converted some of their output to automotive and machinery ball bearings, but my memory is unreliable. Jonathan would be the authority in this since he apparently gets around a lot in China, bringing us an ever-growing list of wonderful instruments.

Ace

[Ulli]

Congratulations to your Dalyan Ensemble-5 (in Germany) or Neptune (rest of the world)
I also have one of these most expensive Dalyan tubas.
It is a Miraclone F80 (38 cm bell diameter and red brass lead pipe)
I am very pleased with this little horn.

[Roger Lewis]

Early on the Brasswind ordered a bunch of these horns. We received 5 of the 189 F tuba clones. All of them had the fifth valve in backwards so it was a Db tuba until you pushed the fifth valve down. Then it became an F tuba. A lot of man hours went into correcting this.

Personally I was not impressed with the construction and the valve mechanism was rather fragile. A number of the Dalyan tubas were dumpsters when they closed. Some of their student models didn't have a Western scale on them anywhere.

Roger

[Ulli]

. All of them had the fifth valve in backwards so it was a Db tuba until you pushed the fifth valve down.

Yes, my too. That was a funny mistake. My seller came to me at my home and changed the tuba to a corrected one.

[PaulMaybery]

Sure - Why not. We had Db piccolos that made playing in those 4 and 5 flat band keys a snap for a flutist. Somehow we threw the baby out with the bath water on that one. The old piccolos were small embouchure hole, high pitch and shreeky. They were simply not upgradalbe to modern standards and so were abandoned. I'm glad to at least see good Eb tubas being produced and utilized today. Somewhere it was thought worthwhile to make modern Ebs that were good players. In the very old days (1840-50s) there were Ab basses (saxhorns), as step lower than the old Bb Bass (basically modern euph size)
Eb cornets were crooked in Db too as of course were trumpets and Horns. I have one of those cornets with Eb and Db crooks and also a concert mellophone with crooks that include Dd))
Of course today we don't really need to crook, as so many 'hot shot' young 'whipper snappers' have no trouble in any key and of course our 'state of the art' horns are fully chromatic and some with even quarter tone valves. Plus what modern publisher is gonna print parts for Db bass. Whaddaya Know!!!! But its still a challenge to play a western scale (as Roger put it) in tune even on a great horn. If that wasn't the case there would really not be much market for chromatic tuners. "Just sayin'..."

[PaulMaybery]

Yes a 5 valver for us mentally challenged Yankees such as myself who would much rather be pulling half a dozen slides and getting lost in the music, than using another finger. Just think of all the techs who still have jobs because of 5 valve tuba dudes wanting their valves vented.

So correct me if I am wrong. On a D flat tuba, you read the note and finger it a half step lower than on a C tuba. So you play a C scale like a C flat scale. C is then fingered 2. Wow!!!

Just one more brain fart. Take the D flat tuba and add a half step valve to lower it to C and use it as an ascending valve.
Just think of all the possible trill fingerings.

[PaulMaybery]

Diverting or stealing this thread yet again: How about just a natural low EEb (no valves) TUBE for the opening of "Das Rheingold." With about 14 feet of tubing, the bell end could be engineered to come up right next to the 8th horn player and even face to the rear. I forget and am Too lazy to count, but something like 70 some bars of EEb, while all those sexy German water sprites (sorry Rheinmaidens) "schwim" in "der wasser" singing German words that all begin with "W." Then the D flat tuba could be picked up for some of the following episodes.

Paul (who likes to quote Mark Twain on Wagner: "I hear it on good authority that Wagner's music is really much better than it sounds.") Maybery.

PS. "Der Ritt" works nice on a FIVE valve CC. Just saying. 5 VALVES. Thought it did take me 40 years to get it.