What's the worst tuba you've ever played?

[windshieldbug]

What's the worst tuba you've ever played?

[Rick Denney]

Everyone likes to complain, don't they?

Not everyone. But I do.

When I graduated from high school, my band director allowed me to provide the trash can for the Besson Stratford Bb tuba he was throwing away.

When I started playing again 9 years later, it was all I had. It was just dreadful, even after I had it repaired to playable condition. Intonation was terrible, the sound wasn't compatible with my abiliities, and so on. The Cerveny rotary tuba I bought to replace it was a breath of fresh air.

That said, the guy I sold it to could play the heck out of it.

Rick "thinking 3-valve Bessons were common boat anchors in a lot of schools in the days before Miraphone dominance" Denney

[Chuck(G)]

Too many with a way-off 3rd partial to count.

A few notables where the octaves weren't in tune (e.g. on a BBb tuba, the 2nd partial is out of tune with the 4th).

Several with "no way to get there with alternate fingerings or slide pulling" notes.

The list is endless...

[windshieldbug]

... and the end is listless!

[Chuck(G)]

... and the end is listless!

I'd compile a list, but I'm feeling a bit listless myself....

[quinterbourne]

A Portuguese made Eb marching tuba - I don't know the name or model. The Ab to Bb near the bottom of the staff sounded like crap - like a pillow had been stuffed in there. The real small "shallower-than-a-trombone-mouthpiece" didn't make it any easier.

[windshieldbug]

I'd compile a list, but I'm feeling a bit listless myself...

I'll bet you say that to all the ends...

[Pure Sound]

A leaky Fiberglass Conn Sousa,with Dead mice in it

[windshieldbug]

A leaky Fiberglass Conn Sousa,with Dead mice in it

Is that any worse than a leaky fiberglass Conn sousaphone with live mice in it??

[ThomasP]

I can't recall the worst tuba I've played.

But, a former teacher of mine once said. "The best tuba I've ever played and the worst tuba I've ever played were both Cerveny Piggy's"

I thought that was worth including.

[UTTuba_09]

My worst experience came with an old Conn Sousaphone, with a ball of yarn and a brick in it...[/quote]

[imperialbari]

The worst experience ever:

An Amati BBb sousaphone with ugly sound and way-off intonation.

An experience, which did not end up too badly, when the code was cracked:

The small British non-compensating Eb tubas with 3 top pistons. Playing them as-is challenges ones ears, but the secret is, that their 3rd valve slides are made too short on purpose. They will not fit in their cases, if the 3rd slides are pulled just to lower the instruments a plain minor third. It makes the 3rd slide somewhat vulnerable, but an appropriate pulling makes these tiny ones relevant beginner instruments.

Klaus Smedegaard Bjerre

[Wyvern]

An almost new Besson BBb (I believe model 994) belonging to a brass band which produced (for me) a sound out of the bell like playing into a bucket (and caused me back ache contorting to reach the 4th valve and mouthpiece at the same time).

I admire those in the top brass bands that somehow get a reasonably decent sound from them - although, like John Fletcher, I think how much better they might sound on a decent BBb!

[Tom Holtz]

Is this a tombstone now? Kick ***.

[tubatooter1940]

While in Vladivostok, Siberia, we asked our tour guide to take us to a music store so I could purchase a set of balilika (spelling?) strings for my wife's friend, The strings cost three one hundreths of a U.S. penny apiece.
At that price I suggested, "Aw hell, let's get him two sets."
I played some Russian 6-string guitars that were so bad that I lack the profanity to describe them and then my eye fell on two tubas. Cool!
They were Russian Army issue Eb upright, rotary tubas in what looked like new condition. The store was out of valve oil but I could bugle on the thing and tell that it might be playable. Intonation was so-so. No name on the bell. Price, 10,000 Rubles ($10 U.S.with no case-they put it in a canvass sack) Why not?
Alaska Airlines badly rumpled the bell after I let them talk me into checking it but it sounded the same so I oiled it up and the slow, clanky rotors would work only after I warmed the horn up fo 30 minutes or more.
I played the thing while my wife held a telephone down the bell and I won a prize on the John Boy and Billy Big Show on the radio.
A couple of years later I played along with John Reno's guitar/vocals and he enjoyed it so we began gigging together. Parts would suddenly fall off the rotary valves and John and I would be down on our knees on the band stand looking for some tiny bolt that had to be metric or carving up wine corks and using Gorrila Glue to make new stoppers. The brass was thin as paper and the rotors were so slow, we decided another tuba was the answer.
I lucked up on my 1940 King Eb recording tuba on E-bay and I have been as happy as a pig in poop ever since.
I gave the Russian p.o.s to John to hang on his wall after making him promise to warn anybody who may want to play it how crummy it is.

[Karl H.]

... I'd tell what the worst horn ever made was, but then I'd lose the six-figure endorsement deal the manufacturer's sure to offer me any day now.

Karl "this space for rent" Hovey

[Steve Inman]

Leading candidates, amusingly, all in the key of Eb (for some reason):

1. Little (and I do mean little) Besson 220 student model Eb -- intonation was "problematic". I think the bell was 12". I wanted a euph substitute, but it couldn't be played well enough to ever use in a solo situation.

2. Cerveny 641 Eb -- ok until you hit the low BBb. From there to pedal Eb, it was virtually unplayable. Fortunately, I found it on the shelf of an area music store, which is where I left it.

3. Before MW fixed the 2141 intonation issues, I had a chance to try one of the first ones to show up at Brasswind. I **REALLY** wanted it to work for me, as I wasn't thrilled with the low register response of the compensating Eb tubas. It sounded great, but had some serious intonation issues -- even the octave Eb's weren't in tune. I also left this one on the shelf. (Note -- by all recent accounts, the 2141 Eb has been greatly improved, and for the past many years is a great Eb choice. The first ones had issues.)

4. Honorable mention was a small, rotary F with both a challenging low CC and challenging upper register intonation. I probably simply didn't have the right mouthpiece ....

Cheers,

[GC]

A Conn 10J that leaked like a seive and had a half-flattened leadpipe. It wasn't much better than buzzing into a wrapping-paper tube (a la "the windbreaker").

[Tubanese]

Few yeard ago, I found a Conn 3XJ Symphonic Model (Front action 4v) at store in Boston.
Someone tried to convert it into C. However, the tuba played like D tuba...

[Dan Schultz]

I've had my fair share of worthless tubas but the worst as far as intonation goes was a DePrinz (Belgian, I think) 3 upright piston BBb. Apparently this thing was built to some sort of low-pitch specification. I cut the main tuning slide AND all three valve circuits and the darned thing still wasn't playable!