I am even at the point of considering just giving up on BBb. Every day when I sit down to play, it is the exact same thing -- burble burble burble and it takes 20-30 minutes of fine-tuning to play notes.
My tuba-playing career has only just started, and I should be a bit careful with doing the ...

It is surprising to me how little variation in facial physiognomy is catered for by some mouthpiece manufacturers. Many has nothing to offer for players wanting sub-31 mm for the inner diameter (Laskey, Perantucci, Marcinkiewicz, Schilke and many more), whereas others do have pieces to offer, but ...

Not that anyone cares, but... Much better

(My local go-to repair guy had an almost correct top cap lying around, hooray! The valve is now quiet )

On my quest for a mouthpiece for this tuba, I discovered that the specs of Wick 5 have changed from 30.0 mm inner diameter to 30.4 mm. It is probably not noticable, but as I needed to buy online anyway, I sent a request to Klier and asked for advice on a T9 (nominally 30.0 mm) with a custom small ...

A few additional comments on this exercise:

1. No, it is not going to be very accurate. It is limited by the accuracy of a kitchen balance, and as mentioned, determining what is actually the bottom of the cup. However, In the scale of things, due to the cups being so large relative to the volume ...

I am an engineer. I like to measure *stuff*. To my surprise, actual measurements of tuba mouthpiece cup volumes are nowhere to be found. We are only left with vague descriptors ("medium shallow", "deep"...). To measure the volume with decent accuracy isn't that difficult to do: fill the mouthpiece ...

Really nice score. Now you need the Bb version to have a complimentary set. Very cool. Glad to hear it plays great too.

Funny thing is... The seller also had the 3-valve Bb compensating horn for sale in similar condition :smilie8:

Main use will be for marching and playing with my daughter's ...

Thanks for all helpful responses regarding the instrument and its particular quirks. Regarding the top cap, unfortunately the ebay seller does not ship to my location (somewhere in Europe), but I have reached out to Dawkes Music in the UK, and asked if they have the correct part. Based on my ...

This one came up in a local listing, and after testing it for only a few minutes I concluded that I should buy it. Besson New Standard E flat, 3-valve compensating. Serial number puts it at the beginning of the 70's. As I had never played on a 3-valve compensating design before, only a 4-valve (and ...

Finke was a pretty well known horn maker a couple decades ago; they had very light valves made of some kind of plastic. They never really caught on though and didn't manage a distribution network.

As far as I know Johannes Finke is the 2nd generation hornbuilder of Finke Horns, and they are ...

Could "Get Back" by the Beatles be done in Dixieland style?

...which reminds me about the one time at a church gig where we played Britney Spears' "Sometimes" in a disguised version during the collect...

"Oops!...I did it again" should work quite well in Dixieland style, I would think?

Go tell it on the mountain
Nobody knows the trouble I've seen
Amen
Every time I feel the spirit

More spirituals than gospel, maybe?

1. You own one?
2. You are Spanish?
3. None of the above?

What did I win? :smilie8:

After more googling I've also read that there exists a small number of custom-made Besson 3-valve compensating C-tubas, but so far I have not come over any photographic evidence. But I would certainly liked to ...

I have always been inclined to look for simple solutions... In my very short career as an E flat tubist, I have attained no ambitions for playing anything lower than an A flat (1+4 on a compensated horn), but simultaneously I am not too keen on the stuffy feeling of a compensated horn. That made me ...

While researching potential tubas to buy for tuba beginners in our school band, I have been collecting specs of potential candidates (such as Wessex "Elf", John Packer JP077 and the like). However, there is also the option of servicing older stuff in the band basement, so I have been testing out our ...

For a "Northern European" perspective: we start our low-brass youngsters out on 3-valve, non-compensating, top-action baritone horns (British brass-band (BBB) style, like YBH-301), and shift them to Euphoniums (and bigger) as they grow. In some bands they are even started out on alto horns in E flat ...

After a week with the Bach 25 mouthpiece clone:
- Practice works wonders. And thanks to MaryAnn for helpful hints for getting more control in the low register. The 1+4 A flat natural is however still the lowest I can hope to hit somewhat cleanly.
- There seems to be some synergy effects to horn ...

Because I am not a pro but a reasonably intelligent and successful self-taught -- I will PM you what I suggest you do for the low register, which has worked gangbusters for me once I figured it out (and it works on all brass for me; it's just that with a horn-sized cup, it is far less obvious what ...

Thank you all for your input. As mentioned: getting the lips to vibrate with the proper aperture size for the instrument is somewhat important for proper sound production. Coming from French horn (and also cornet and tenor horn in my brass band past), learning to relax a few of those muscles that ...

One variant I've used in the past, which I quite liked, did not use the strap rings at all:

https://blaasmomusikk.no/produkter/unica-bandolaer-kryss-spesial-til-tuba-euphonium-baryton/

There's an adjustable part of it that you tighten around the bottom bow. This part has its own strap ring ...