Rudy Meinl 4/4 at Tuba Exchange

[ASTuba]

I went there this morning to drop off a repair with Mike Morse, and took a couple of mouthpieces to check out the Rudy, as well as a few other things. I didn't spend a ton of time on anything, but I'm happy to share with all what I played and how it played:

The Rudy 4/4 plays very well, really consistent across the range of the instrument. The leadpipe has been floated off of the bell, as well as the 2nd valve slide kicker removed. Pitch is good, had to do a bit of manipulation on the 1st valve, but nothing extreme and out of the ordinary. Looks well taken care of, even though there's some signs that the bell has been repaired over the years. Having not played many 4/4 Rudy's, this instrument was fun to play and easily a great all-around tuba.

There's also a great PCK in there, again with the leadpipe floated off of the bell, a nice example of a 2155, and a few more great CC tubas. There are a few F tubas as well, an older Meinl 46 that really surprised me with how well it played. Additionally, there is a YFB-821, which I had not seen one of those in ages. It took a lot for me to put that one back down and not take it home with me.

Please note, I am not in any way affiliated with the Tuba Exchange, but I have really enjoyed the fact that the new group working in there is much more easy to deal with, and they are not very pushy at all towards certain brands.

[bort]

I called and talked to them a few months ago about the tuba. Nothing that really disagrees with what Andy said, but I remember them saying it had been owned by a professional player (didn't say who). Stretching my memory, but I believe they gave the usual line with tubas like these -- they don't play themselves, but you get out what you put in. It's not exactly point and shoot, until you learn exactly how to point and shoot it.

That's what I found with my Rudy 4/4 as well... when I played regularly, everything was great. If I had periods of off-time, it took a while to get back into it after picking it up. Or as I like to say, "better players will get better results." As a guy with a lot of off-time... I did better selling the tuba.

[ASTuba]

It was interesting, as I always thought the 5/4 was too big and not my sound concept. I also thought the 3/4 was a bit small to do everything on as well. This might be my favorite Rudy model that I’ve tried.