suckumentary

[Steve Inman]

Blokey-Bloke asked for the WORST of each (limit 3 per category, please)...

- BBb tubas
pick any 3/4 "student" model you find in typical Jr. High school. Some of these are hard to tell from the "baritones" at a glance . . . and they sound anemic as well.

(oh, sorry . . . . pick any THREE 3/4 "student" models . . . .)

- CC tubas
Haven't played any dogs, personally

- Eb tubas
my old, well-used Besson 220 Eb. Scarcely larger than a euph (12" bell). Less than stellar intonation

original MW2141 incarnation, before they tweaked the design. the one I played at WWBW had octave Eb's noticeably out of tune.

every compensating Eb I've ever played. Many sound great. Low register is NOT fun for me to play -- slow response, too much resistance. With apologies to those who have learned to master and enjoy these.


- F tubas
upper register in the 4/4 rotary F Amati-Cerveny tubas I've tried have had unpleasant intonation. IIRC, lots of things were flat.

- euphoniums
Bah!

- mouthpiece
"I never met a mouthpiece I didn't like!"

Cheers,

[Alex C]

Worst BBb tuba:

A Courtois - it made noise like the notes were coming from another room.


Worst CC tuba:

A 6/4 B&M with no socially redeeming qualities at all. Maybe the worst playing tuba I have ever touched. The sound was thin yet retained an insipid quality.


Worst EEb tuba:

A Miraphone (183?) - the pitch was so far out that you couldn't guess what was going to be wrong next and the low register sucked.


Worst F tuba:

An Alexander with a no low notes at all and six valves (It needed 12 more valves to play in tune).


Worst Euph/Baritone:

A Courtois with a 3-3 configuration. It barked, yipped and growled worse than any cimbasso ever could.


There. I feel better now. Thanks for the opportunity to vent.

[punk_tuba]

conn BBb figerglass sousaphone

[Uncle Buck]

I've only played one horn I really hated - a BBb 3 valve Conn convertable on-the-shoulder/concert tuba.
Very possibly the worst-tuba-idea-ever. Crap as both a marching tuba and a concert tuba. In both configurations, the leadpipe is like rubber, jiggling all over the place. And it was just too small a tuba to get a decent sound for marching band.

[windshieldbug]

[Chuck(G)]

Are to infer by this list that Jinbao and Cuesnon tubas aren't all that bad? Wow, who'da thunk it?





http://www.hakamdin.com/products.html

I hated the rim on this mouthpiece:

[smurphius]

As others have said, these are my opinions, so don't hunt me down and turn my tuba into a flower pot. I like my tuba too much for that!! lol..

BBb tubas: ANY "professional" tuba made by CONN

CC tubas: I once played a Hirsbrunner HB-2 that I absolutely despised.

Again, ANY "professional" tuba made by CONN

And there is this silver MW 2145 at Baltimore brass that was TERRIBLE. Just that one horn though, as I play a brass MW2145. I think it was just a lemon for a tuba, which is still there I do believe.

F tubas: MW 45 (The 4/4 one)

Euphonium: What does Besson honestly think when they make non-comp Euphers?

Mouthpiece: I absolutely hate all Dennis Wick mouthpieces. Rims are highly uncomfortable.

[Ed Jones]

BBb tuba: King 1135 student model horn. A local dealer sold one to a school and after they returned it, the dealer asked me to play it to determine what was wrong. I decided everything was wrong.

CC tuba: The same Boehm and Meinl CC that Alex C, speaks of. A freshman student of mine bought it without consulting me. It was hands down the worst horn in any key that I have ever played. I thought that maybe it was me so I asked Alex to play on it. His response tells the rest of of the story. The kid was able to send it back to the seller who sold it to Bob Rusk for parts.

Eb tuba: An old King 1235 (fixed recording bell) that I dug out of a basement during my undergrad days. OK sound, horrible pitch

F tuba: Probably goes to a Cerveny F helicon that was hanging on a back wall of a music store in Lucerne, Switzerland. A good looker but not a player.

Euphonium: Some no-name beater that I bought from the bone pile at a music store. Sold it for $25 at a yard sale.

Mouthpiece: Rudy Muck Cushion Rim. This was the mouthpiece that my grandfather used on his King double bell euphonium. His choice of mouthpiece probably explains why he never became a world reknowned euphonium player.

The best instrument that I ever played was Carl Vail's 1957 Boosey and Hawkes euphonium. It nearly played itself. Alex C probably remembers that horn as well.

[Uncle Buck]

I would be very interested to know how many of the responses relate to horns the responders played for an extended period of time, compared to horns that were simply play tested for a day.

[ken k]

I hated the rim on this mouthpiece:



[/quote]

That rim was designed to make you use less pressure.

ken k

[windshieldbug]

http://www.hakamdin.com/products.html

There is something intrinsically wrong about a company that thinks the most important thing it produces are bagpipes...

I would be very interested to know how many of the responses relate to horns the responders played for an extended period of time

Well I don't know about anyone else, but I, for one, quit playin' the suckers as soon as I could!

[Alex C]

[quote="Uncle Buck"]I would be very interested to know how many of the responses relate to horns the responders played for an extended period of time, compared to horns that were simply play tested for a day.[/quote]

If I'd played any of those instruments one more minute, I would have been diminished as a brass player, a musician and a human being.

Sometimes you gotta know... it's time to stop.

[windshieldbug]

Eb: I once played on a small, four valve Eb that had been through a fire. It's pitch was almost right up to E natural. It looked as though it might have been a fairly decent tuba, once upon a time.

It was just old enough to be a high pitch horn

Notes on Early 20th Century Pitch Standards

[adam0408]

BBb- Accent rotary- ISH. I think this horn was basically a copy of the miraphone 186 done badly.

The thing was cheaply made, had a decent sound on SOME notes, had intonation problems that seemed like phantoms. I really wanted to like this horn, but it wasnt to be. I couldnt control volume very well and its tone cracked at low levels. It was supposed to be accent's professional model and "really pretty good" and to me it played like a beginner model and sounded "really bad"

Yamaha 321. a couple that my school has are just beaters that play like they have a sock stuffed in the bell....gross.

I havent had enough experience with tubas of other keys, but I didnt like that one MW 2145 I played at wwbw.

mouthpiece: yamaha 65 I played on for way too long.

[bigboom]

BBb's: I really don't like the yamaha 321 or the yamaha sousaphones, the valve guides wear out really fast in a maching setting.

MP's: The UMI 2 was not a good mouthpiece for me, it was a really small mouthpiece for a BBb sousaphone I thought.

[MartyNeilan]

ANY horn I haven't played in a while (CC, BBb, F, bass trombone), inlcuding my own. Same goes for mouthpieces. Intonation and response are terrible. After practing on it anywhere from 30 minutes to 2 days, everything amazingly falls into place.

I found this again when I went to Jordan. The school there had an old 4/4 BBb Holton with 3 .689ish front action pistons (looked like a Conn Monster.) The first night I grabbed it, it was horribly out of tune. Once I sent the main slide out about 3 inches (receiver was replaced with wrong one) and learned the intonation tendencies (including some serious 1st slide pulling on notes you would not expect) - the horn sounded great. I also used that modified Conn mouthpiece I am selling to open up what would otherwise been a stuffy response.

To ME that was one of the worst tubas I ever played, yet what came out of the bell after a couple of days sounded fine and in tune. I had many complements including how I "made the horn sing" by their band director. My point is not to complement myself but that ANY horn not broken or seriously misaligned can be made to sound good given the effort.

[oldbandnerd]

The worst euph I have ever played was this P.O.S thing I bought from a company in India. It is about the size on a large tenor horn ,not nearly as big as a bent bell baritone. It is almost impossible to play below anything below F ( in the staff ). It doenst play in tune at all . I never could get it tuned well enought to actually play with other instruments.

It is for sale. Anybody interested?


The worst mouthpiece I ever played was the one that came with that horn. Very small an had a flat rim. Sounded like crap.

[TheChiefofStaph]

Worst:

BBb - Yamaha 321? (Upright 3v)

CC- Hirsbrunner HB21 (very stuffy)

Eb - No name / small 3v eefer

F - PT 10P

I wish a Hirsbrunner was the worst CC I've ever played on.....

[windshieldbug]

I thought all of these horns were too flat, no matter what the pitch was

[smurphius]

I swear to goodness that silver MW 2145 that they had at Baltimore Brass was the WORST, MOST AWFUL tuba I had ever played. The only thing that could possibly have been wrong with it that I was unaware was that maybe someone had accidentally lost several socks in it... or a cat crawled in it and died maybe.... maybe....

Otherwise, if those two things weren't the case, that horn was just TERRIBLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!