1971 Mirafone 186 (Cut to CC)

[the elephant]

I keep saying I will get to this, but my summer dance card has been full (and still is); however, my early Autumn and post-Christmas are looking pleasantly open. (I am on sabbatical.)

I have this formerly trashed bottom bow that is period-correct (more or less) that Joe had in his giant attic of stuff, and he kindly slicked it out for me and donated it to the cause. (Thank you, sir!)

I have a brand new •FULLY ENGRAVED• bell garland, and just enough experience putting them on to make a hilarious video of me FUBARing the whole process. (No, I will not be making that video.)

I am excited to get to work.

Today I spent about four hours with a tuner, drones, and etude books.

I think this tuba may be a little better than the very good one I used for years and recently sold. I *hated* to have to sell it, but sometimes "thems the breaks". I had put this experimental "homebrewed" tuba so far on the back burner that I had almost forgotten about it. I recalled using it in a quintet rehearsal and having a lot of issues with the intonation.

Not so today, though. This tuba is very good. I plugged in one of Joe's OG Ultimates and the horn sings. The pitch was much easier to hear, so setting the slide and deciding on fingerings was easy. I was so certain that my ears were tricking me (because of that rehearsal a few years ago) that I kept on playing for half the day. It is solid. In fact, I cannot believe it was a destroyed BBb 186-4U filled with holes and long cracks in the bell and outer branches. It came out so good!

So now I am ready to start tearing it apart.

BUT…

I have my second cataract remocal/lens replacement surgery tomorrow and then have to recover. (The first eye is doing GREAT!) Then I am snowed in with doctor's appointments and freelance work until September 14th. So watch for a post around that time.

[the elephant]

I only posted this because I am so excited that this BBb-to-CC cut tuba turned out so good.

Sorry to eat up bandwidth for this.

[York-aholic]

I’m very happy that your eye issue was cataracts. I know you’ve had eye trouble for a while. I’m sorry you had any issue, but if you had to have one cataracts is fairly easy to fix. It was an amazing improvement for my dad years ago. Literally night and day difference!

And glad your BBb to CC is a player. I’m supposed to mail you a couple of parts aren’t I.

Whoops!

[bloke]

Wade and I live about as close to each other as many of us live to each other, but our paths don't overlap very often, and round trips to see each other involve a bare minimum of 5 hours of driving.

Wade, if your travels take you up as far north as Senatobia, Hernando, Southaven, etc. decide whether you can use that tuba on that particular set of jobs,, bring it up if you can, and I would like to meet you and play on it.

Hey,... Whether or not the bell kranz is mounted perfectly or just pretty good, I won't be judgin'. That's hard as hell. It's not as hard with a brand new bell and a brand new kranz, but - if either one is used and straightened back out - it's hard. (Remember the "kranzplant" thread?)

[prodigal]

I think the tuba looks GREAT!!!

[prodigal]

BTW: what is the distance on the 5th valve slide?

[the elephant]

Added a poll.

[Casca Grossa]

A ittle parakeet told me that if it works great the way it is, leave it. On a side note, I'd like to see this horn become the primary orchestra horn so you can be included in the 4/4 tuba orchestral thread. viewtopic.php?t=14870

[the elephant]

I am having a lot of issues with my chops (hence my requested one-year unpaid sabbatical and possible retirement), and it is causing me a lot of issues with an uncontrollable "wobble" in my tone, which is very worrisome, as I fought off FD about 15 years ago… this seems like a return of that terrifying issue. One of the issues is that my ability to consistently play in tune with myself is evaporating.

The other day this tuba played marvelously. Yesterday there wasn't a mouthpiece I owned that would allow the octaves and 5ths to line up, or the high Ab and Bb up to within 40¢ of the correct pitch.

Baffling…

I will hit it today for an hour or so, but if this is my FD returning, I cannot practice very much, or it will get seriously worse very quickly. So maybe this tuba is trash after all. That makes more sense to me. But then why was it so good on some days? I did not oil the rotors over the last week. Perhaps my water and the remaining 3-in-one/lamp oil sealed up leaking rotors enough, but it has since dried out to the point that they now do not seal?

I need to get this tuba on the bench for several reasons, so a leak check will be added to that list. The rotors all seemed to seal up when dry pretty darn well when compared with brand new ones from Miraphone, so it is probably just my chops.

How disappointing.

Eventually… someday… I'll know more.

[prodigal]

Take it easy, brother. We worry about you!

[the elephant]

Enbouchure issues still pretty bad. But it gets better in most registers after playing for some time. When I support better, it also mostly clears up. I have most issues between F and C under the staff. The first note is terrible, and then it gets much better within a few counts.

Used this Mirafone tonight on a big gig. It went more or less pretty well, with a lot of wobbly notes — some well disguised, and some not so well disguised…

The horn plays very well, and I had zero intonation challenges using a PT-88. That is what I used on the UNT Miraphone 188 at my MSO audition about a million years ago. (I loved that tuba.) So it working well in a 186 makes sense to me.

In Peter Wilhousky’s arrangement of "Battle Hymn of the Republic," the tuba fairly rocked the house. My issues with this horn using the smaller leadpipe were that the open Gs were flat, the Eb below the staff was sharp by a long way, and the 5th partial was its normal, low self. Tonight, with the PT-88, it was nails in the pitch department, save for low A natural, which was weirdly sharp. Of course, to have 23 in tune, it is flat to play that A 3rd, so I will have to figure that out. The slide pull was sort of long…

Overall, this tuba is really solid, or at least it is for me. Everyone else might hate it. Bully for them.

[bloke]

Of course we all hope that things get better for you, Mr Wade.

I haven't cut a tuba to C in a long time. I wonder if Plexaderm would work.

[the elephant]

Plexaderm

Works great on saggy moobs!

[bloke]

Plexaderm

Works great on saggy moobs!

yeah...maybe...

I saw where someone typed the word "antinode" on this site recently (those mysterious things about which we know and can do nothing).
I was sorta wondering if it might work on those (to do to them "whatever might be beneficial"

bloke "feigning an understanding as well...We all want to appear to be the smartest person in the room, yes?...Where's my POCKET-ROCKET® when I REALLY need it?"