1919 Conn Professional Eb Bass - worth messing with?

[opus37]

I have a 1912 Martin Eb with roughly the same size dimensions as your 1919 Conn. My Martin has the tuning slide after the valves. It was a high/low pitch. Meaning it had the tuning slide extension that allowed both ranges. The problem was, if pushed the low pitch configuration all the way in or pulled the high pitch confirmation as far out as possible, I could just make it be in tune at 440. If there was any temperature change, I was out of tune. I had Lee Stofer re-plate the valves, align them, and shorten the tuning slide so I could tune at 440 and have some adjustment room. The horn is now a player. It tunes well with a great tone and the false tones below low A are easy to control and in tune (at least the first 3 are). I tell this story to encourage you to get the valves done. I think there is a good chance you will end up with what you want. I suggest you take it to a good tech for an evaluation before you do anything. He/she might have some suggestions based on experience that make answer your questions. As for mouthpieces, I've found that my Martin likes the Sellmansberg Imperial or the Stofer Geib. My Eb below the staff does require some lipping up and the F in the staff plays better with 13 versus 1, but everything else is very close. I wish you good fortune with your Conn.

[roweenie]

Sounds just like my Pan American Eb Giant Bass (a.k.a. Conn.) My guess would be that mine was built flat, like A=435 (I'm making up that number, but have the impression that while "low pitch" is often taken to mean modern standard A=440 "not high pitch", some say there was a lower pitch standard too.) Bb and A are no fun at all.

Yes - I suspect that pitch is slowly creeping up, little by little. I have the theory that the "low pitch" moniker that is found on the horns of the early 1900s is in fact a pitch that is lower than we have today. For example, my Buescher bass saxophone from 1924 is stamped "low pitch", and it plays on the low side of "modern" pitch.

Who knows, maybe in about 100 years or so, our useless "high pitch" horns may be useable again.....hold onto them!

[Arthur]

MotorHoney.png

Click and Clack say it fixes valve problems in old beaters..

[TheGoyWonder]

Got home today and tried a WIck 2 with plumbers tape around the shank - the thing woke up! I don't even like that mouthpiece. Helleberg 7B wasn't a help. Could have just hit the right receiver gap, if that matters for tuba, but I think everybody was right about needing cup-style mouthpieces. Wick 2 is marketed as equivalent to Bach 18, so I guess cup-style.

Made some crude recordings and the sound is a lot like a sousaphone: a nice woof and fundamental, a little thin in the core, and a nice crunch from higher harmonics/noise. Works for me. Low Bb and false tones came across better than from under the bell, just not very strong.

Found one broken brace on 3rd valve possibly explaining the Bb-A deadzone, although I use 3rd alone on a lot of notes which are fine. I'm sure it's not the only broken brace, finding and fixing all broken braces could change a lot. Is B-A a dead zone on Standard (small w/ 14"-16" bell) basses? Professional is not Giant: Standard weighted 12 pounds, Professional weighted 14.5 pounds, Giant weighed 17 pounds. It might share some problems, but I don't think it shares the design flaw of a disproportionately large bottom bow or expanding to fat tubing right out of the valves.

[iiipopes]

My repairman had a formula for horns that were suspected of having leaky valves. To see how it would play with tight valves we'd put Thick(3+1 to 30weight) oil on them. It usually completely seals everything. If you pull the slides you'll get a good pop. Of course they'll be too slow to use but you will know where the horn would be at with tight valves.I use a 1935 Martin Mammoth with very worn valves and have found a happy medium while waiting to do valve job, and it's sewing machine oil.Also, you want to make sure they are aligned correctly as that can cause them to leak. Good luck with it. Ed

With this in mind, the last time I had a horn with valves that were worn enough to consider replating, but would still play, I took an empty small valve oil bottle, filled it about half full with a conventional valve oil - in my case Roche-Thomas, and the added one drop at a time of pharmaceutical grade mineral oil until I got a balance of viscous enough to seal the valve, but not so thick as to impede valve travel. By starting half full, if you add a drop or two too much mineral oil, you add a splash of valve oil to rebalance the mixture.

[bwhitney916]

I don't mean to derail the thread here, but I've been looking for one of these horns for a while. If you decide you just don't want to put the work into this instrument and would rather just sell it, please drop me a line.

Thanks,
-Bill

[MikeW]

Got home today and tried a WIck 2 with plumbers tape around the shank - the thing woke up! I don't even like that mouthpiece. Helleberg 7B wasn't a help. Could have just hit the right receiver gap, if that matters for tuba, but I think everybody was right about needing cup-style mouthpieces. Wick 2 is marketed as equivalent to Bach 18, so I guess cup-style.

Steven Wick described the DW2 as a deep funnel, based on the EZ-tone tuba mp:

" A deep mouthpiece, slightly more funnel-shaped and smaller than the 1L, gives a rich tone and great
flexibility, like a huge French Horn. Originally based on an old E-Z Tone model. In the high register it
really sings, without the tendency to flatness and ‘hootiness’ that you get from some more cup-shaped
mouthpieces. Recommended for the E flat tuba and 4/4 CCs. Quite a sharp inner edge to the rim, giving a
good grip and great stability and security in the high register. This is the mouthpiece I used for many
soundtracks including Star Wars, Alien, and The Pink Panther Strikes Again."

The Denis Wick website describes it as "comparable with" the Bach 18, not as "equivalent to". For what it's worth, the DW2 gives my 19" Eb Imperial a lot darker sound - more like a BBb (exactly right for community band).

A lot of Tubenetters have recommended the DW3L for Eb (described on the Wick website as "a deep well rounded bowl"); to me it sounds lighter and more colorful, but lacks gravitas in the low end.

[Donn]

I know it's sometimes described over there as funnel shaped, but for me it's nothing like the 7B, exactly because it isn't funnel shaped.

Of course there are no precisely funnel shaped mouthpieces on the market, so they're all somewhere in between. Not only wrt how much curve in the cup profile, but also where the curve inflects at the throat and rim. I'd say the 2L leans more towards straight sides than flat bottom, so insofar as the bottom matters, one could say it's somewhat funnel shaped.