American tuba questions

[prodigal]

Happy Independence Day everyone!

I was thinking last night about my dearth of knowledge about American tubas. I started on an O-99, which was fine until the 184 BBb showed up. Since then I've definitely been a Teutonic tuba user.

Other than using recording bell Kings in college marching band, I don't know the Good from the Bad, let alone the Ugly.

I know of the differences in sound between German.and American tubas, and the intermediate levels like my PT-1, but which American tubas are great?

[gocsick]

I don't know about great.. but I think the old style King 2341 is a fantastic tuba for the casual player. The 0.687" bore is so easy without feeling constructive. They can put out a good amount of sound and have really good low register.

[Sousaswag]

Depends on how you define “great.”

Many of us love the old American 6/4 tubas, but also recognize that they require extensive work to be done in order to be “great” in today’s modern world.

Many American makes also suck. No different than any other country who manufactures many different things, some are great, some suck.

I think the Holton 345 is great, AFTER re-working its shortcomings from the factory.

[Grumpikins]

When I was in hs we had a 60s vintage all brass conn sousaphone that was fantastic. No one liked it ( except me), but it was the best tuba our school owned. I dont know what happened to it since then but I would love to get my hands on it again. I did get my hands on a fiberglass one similar vintage that needs some repair. I think it has the same valve set and I think it will be very good too. I dont recall ever playing a king sousa. I know you asked about tubas rather than sousa's but to me they count.

[bloke]

This doesn't exist (and never will), but if every high school owned nothing more than King brass sousaphones with three compensating valves, that's all any high school would need supplied to them by their local government.

They would feature all the intonation and sonic benefits of the design of the King sousaphone combined with a machine which eliminates most of the intonation issues involved with both a three valve and a four-valve non-compensating system. Below E natural, the King false tones are strong and easy to center.

I'm referring to marching, concert music, competitive high school honor band auditions, and everything. I've toyed with the idea of building one, but I play sousaphone so seldom anymore that I wouldn't get enough use out of it to justify the time it would require to build one. (I've owned two or three King sousaphones, and ended up selling them - when I decided I wanted to buy something without taking money out of the bank. I have a "parts" one sitting in a box that's a mix and match of various old King sousaphone parts. It's not going to be three valve compensating, but the third circuit is going to be shortened quite a bit as will the first, and the first circuit is going to feature a generous pull upper #1 slide.)

If an individual school or person wanted something else to play, they could fund those purchases privately.

Again, this is totally theoretical, and combines English mechanical technology with American sonic technology.

I'm an old man (and this sounds completely like one of those ridiculous "he-man" boasts), but (theoretically speaking) give me one of these non-existent instruments - along the tryout music - for ten days, and stick me behind a curtain at any high school all-state audition. I may not be a place ahead of your prodigy son - nor someone's else prodigy son - but I'd make the band. (Were I also high school-aged and actually eligible, I'd like to see the looks on the faces of some of the anti-sousaphone band director snoots.... Of course, W-A-Y back when I was in high school, we sat in front of the Meinl-Westons, Miraphones, and Marzans with our Conn 36k fiberglass sousaphones at all-state.)

Sousaphones are tubas, and fiberglass is capable of containing a column of air.

[prodigal]

I like King Souzys too, I've only lugged around the fiberglass versions, though. I don't like Jupiter, they seem to be weak.

I'm enjoying your feedback friends.

(Don't worry, my prodigy son is just starting 3rd grade and he sometimes listens to Dad. )

We're the prodigals, not the prodigies!

Is the King 1241 that I found a decent horn? Perhaps better than a YBB-321?

[bloke]

The differences between the two-piece King 1241 and the two-piece King 2341 are as follows:

- With the 2341, they changed the first piston to be like the third piston to save money. This necessarily widened the upper #1 circuit bow.

- At the same time they made the upper #1 return bow (as with some pre-war excellent models that they had formerly made) into a accessible slide which can be tuned on the fly.
This added slide doesn't need to be manipulated very much on this model, but pushing it all the way in for second space C and neighboring B natural is quite helpful.

- They narrowed the detachable bell diameter from 22 inches to 19 inches (neither here nor there).

They shortened the #3 circuit on the four-valve (XXX1) model, whereby they embraced the mentality of a four-valve instrument, as opposed to a "three valve instrument plus a fourth 'low range' valve".

Jupiter sousaphones are (in my personal view) mediocre copies of King. Comparing brass Jupiter to (even) the thin-wall King sousaphones made over the last few decades until recent production shuttering, the King always played better, even though the last few decades of King production has produced sousaphones which were easier to dent.

It may or may not have saved King much money to make their instruments thinner. (Realize that they were not only easier to dent in consumer use, but easier to dent during production, which defines a production hazard.) I honestly believe that when they decided to do this, it was in response to complaints of excessive weight, as they had previously weighed a full (no exaggeration) 30 lbs. - heavier then Elkhart production larger 6/4-size Conn 20K sousaphones. When they brought the 20K instruments back into production, they also made them out of the same thinner sheet metal.

[catgrowlB]

I have to agree that the old US sousaphones (in good working order) are pretty great. The vintage King and Conn BBb sousas are generally fantastic, and I'm sure Martin, York, etc sousas are also fantastic.

The little King 1140 is great for what it is, as is the old Conn 10j and its earlier derivatives. Smaller 3v BBb tubas like those can be great for smaller bands, strolling gigs, and great for middle schools.

York, Holton and others made tubas other than the huge 6/4 ones. Last year, I serviced an old silver 4/4+ York BBb with 4 top action pistons. It was an old US Navy band tuba, probably made in the 1920s-1930s. I thought it was a great old tuba -- but I don't think the current owner appreciates it like I do though He is an amateur who plays in community ensembles and always takes his super generic/boring Miraphone 186 BBb because it still looks new and shiny
That old silver USN York BBb is the only tuba he owns that I'm kinda jealous about, and he doesn't even use it.

Conn made many models back then that some say are great. A lot of these vintage tubas can be great if in good playing shape. I'd love to try an old Conn 'Donatelli' and an old Conn 'Orchestra Grand' and some others. I'm sure some of those are great

[bloke]

@catgrowlB

Having played one genuine so-called Donatelli Conn C instrument and a couple that were cut down from same-size Conn sister B-flat instruments, I was pleasantly surprised at how well in tune all of those played for me.
We hear some (likely) made-up stories about Mr Donatelli and why he sold that one-off 6/4 C York that young student named Jacobs. These are my thoughts:

- (original York 6/4 C) wonky intonation, compared to the Conn instrument that he reportedly ended up playing (and pardon my blasphemy, here)

- As with all of the modern-day copies, the extra short mouthpipe tube (struggling to shorten the instrument enough to play in C) defined holding these gigantic instruments at a 45° angle across one's legs which is not particularly comfortable at all (uncomfortable?), and (possibly?) this widely copied model single-handedly prompted the invention of the "tuba playing stand".

Generally, when I think of many of the old Conn B-flat and E-flat "concert" tubas, the first thing that pops into my head is not "great intonation". The tiny little Conn E-flat tubas with the 14-inch bells and .625" bore size played pretty well in tune, but I don't have much use for those instruments.

Oddly, some of the really old Conn tubas (pre-Elkhart - Worcester Massachusetts) seem to "out-intonation" some of the later models. (Risking hate from the Grand Orchestra and 2XJ lovers, Conn never figured out how to build a 6/4 B-flat concert tuba with usable intonation.)

10J (same as the previous "Pan American" badged tuba) - an amazing tuba... I've been tempted to flip one of those around and put a King four-valve front action valve section on one of them along with a fifth rotor...but whatever on that. (With their wide pancake bells, it's sort of hard to find one that doesn't have a trashed bell.)

After doing some cutting here and there, I can obtain satisfactory (good) intonation characteristics out of the Conn 28K four-valve E-flat sousaphones - particularly if their pistons aren't worn out.

Were it not that I had this rare and sort of amazing four-valve compensating Besson E-flat tuba with its detachable 22" recording bell (along with a detachable 19-in upright bell that I devised for it), I would probably own a 28K sousaphone, but - as far as having a sousaphone on hand (with all of the praise I've bestowed on King B flats) - they obviously put out more sound, which is sort of the purpose of a sousaphone these days (as we tend to mostly use them outdoors).

[catgrowlB]

^ I had thought you had one of those big old 6/4 ish Conn
'Orchestra Grand' BBb tubas you worked on like a year or so ago, and thought it pretty great? I'd probably love owning/playing one of those

The 10j & it's earlier versions (Pan American, Elkhart Band Inst.) are easy to play, make a nice sound, and all open pitches are smack-on, aside from the limitations/compromises with 3 valves. I'd personally just love a 4th valve, all in line, top action. Then -- Ultimate 7/8 BBb tuba

I played one of those Rusk-cut silver 6/4 York CC tubas many years ago. Maybe it was the room, or maybe the tuba -- but I put it back down after about 5 minutes. Just didn't have the depth/fundamental I was looking for in such a huge tuba. That original York BBb I worked on and had here for about 2 months last year impressed me much more than that cut 6/4 York CC from many years ago.

[bloke]

The York 6/4 B flats (me: having finally played one that wasn't cut to C) are really larger than 6/4. I've played a couple of sousaphones that are that are also larger than 6/4 size, and I'm not sure that those instruments are just about too large to really focus well...(??)

The bore size on the Pan American /10J is larger than the bore size of most anything else in that size range (even larger than the bore size of a King tuba) and I suspect that really helps. (.695")

I'd like to see more instruments with bore sizes around .709", .728", etc. ... and sure: .695" (vs. 687" or 17.5mm)

When Hirsbrunner got Walter Nirschl to build them a 19mm front action piston section for their (attempt at a) CSO York copy (as he already had the basic tooling from building the York Master and some of those B&M and Marzan instruments), they decided to then paste that valve section their other tuba bodies (throwing _ _ _ _ against the wall to see if it would stick). Americans started buying them like crazy (literally, a front action 19mm bore piston craze which seems to have been sustained to this day), and - since then - 19mm bore piston valve sections have been shoved down (all of) our throats.

[Bob Kolada]

This doesn't exist (and never will), but if every high school owned nothing more than King brass sousaphones with three compensating valves, that's all any high school would need supplied to them by their local government.

They would feature all the intonation and sonic benefits of the design of the King sousaphone combined with a machine which eliminates most of the intonation issues involved with both a three valve and a four-valve non-compensating system. Below E natural, the King false tones are strong and easy to center.

I'm referring to marching, concert music, competitive high school honor band auditions, and everything. I've toyed with the idea of building one, but I play sousaphone so seldom anymore that I wouldn't get enough use out of it to justify the time it would require to build one. (I've owned two or three King sousaphones, and ended up selling them - when I decided I wanted to buy something without taking money out of the bank. I have a "parts" one sitting in a box that's a mix and match of various old King sousaphone parts. It's not going to be three valve compensating, but the third circuit is going to be shortened quite a bit as will the first, and the first circuit is going to feature a generous pull upper #1 slide.)

If an individual school or person wanted something else to play, they could fund those purchases privately.

Again, this is totally theoretical, and combines English mechanical technology with American sonic technology.

I'm an old man (and this sounds completely like one of those ridiculous "he-man" boasts), but (theoretically speaking) give me one of these non-existent instruments - along the tryout music - for ten days, and stick me behind a curtain at any high school all-state audition. I may not be a place ahead of your prodigy son - nor someone's else prodigy son - but I'd make the band. (Were I also high school-aged and actually eligible, I'd like to see the looks on the faces of some of the anti-sousaphone band director snoots.... Of course, W-A-Y back when I was in high school, we sat in front of the Meinl-Westons, Miraphones, and Marzans with our Conn 36k fiberglass sousaphones at all-state.)

Sousaphones are tubas, and fiberglass is capable of containing a column of air.

A HS kid subbed in some of our groups twenty odd years ago. Nice kid, good player, had a Kalison DS, PT F, expensive chainsaw, was getting a PT 6, had lessons down at IU,... Got beat out for the top All State spot by a rocker kid playing a school owned 2341. iirc the highest score in the state got AS orchestra and the couple below that got into the top band so the band kid played in the orchestra and the orchestra kid played in a band.

Personally I'd rather march with a 3 valve King tuba than play a sousaphone full time. We had a fiberglass horn in HS, brass Conns in the Army, I played a King sousa in Alaska and it was a little smaller and noticeably lighter, still... We had one King Bb tuba in HS and the only reason we ever marched with any tuba was my brother and I pulled two old fiberglass sousaphones off a shelf and put together one functioning instrument.

[bloke]

re: "stuff that @Bob Kolada just posted":

When I was in 12th grade, I took the emergency spare brass King sousaphone (30 lb instrument) off the high shelf in the instrument room, and put its good-condition pistons into the 1240 that the school owned. The problem was that some hack at the board of education repair shop (they hired ignoramus band directors to "help" during the summers) not only destroyed the pistons (they buffed the freaking hell out of them through the nickel plating and then some), but they also polished the holy $h!t out of the valve casings, and those good condition transplant sousaphone pistons still rattled somewhat in the 1240 tuba casings.

Thinking back, I probably should have just played the King sousaphone everywhere (with good pistons and casings) but I had been offered a position in the local youth symphony, was interested in auditioning for their full scholarship to go to National Music Camp (now: Interlochen Arts Camp) and decided that I needed something that was tuba shaped to play in that orchestra.

If I had the skills then that I have now, I could have transplanted the sousaphone valve block onto the tuba's slide system, though that - even today - would be a bit of a chore.

Had I been a girl, my dad might have bought me a tuba (or some sort of nice-quality "girl" instrument - please consider that this was 50 years ago whereby instrument assignments were more sexually segregated, but - back then - fathers didn't buy stuff for their sons, and expected their sons to earn their own money and buy their own things. (Within a year, I did earn enough of my own money and bought a new 186, and earned more money and bought myself a three-year-old four-speed manual Toyota six months later.)

[Bflatbass]

Here's two that I think are pretty great, but I'm a little biased.

A 1924 Holton helicon:


A 6/4 Martin with Buescher valve set:


Absolute joy to play both.