321-hell

[2nd tenor]

Did Yamaha make a YEB-201?

Absolutely and it’s still available: https://uk.yamaha.com/en/products/music ... specs.html
However it’s not listed on Yamaha’s USA site: https://usa.yamaha.com/products/musical ... index.html

I believe that Eb Tubas went out of favour in the USA - replaced with BBb - so maybe you don’t see them. I have a Besson Regent (Eb, three non-comp valves, model 677) and the YEB-201 looks like a bigger version of it. The Regent is a joy to play and easy to move about, it can can be surprisingly loud too. It’s not an old instrument (1982, according to the serial number) but judging by the battered state it was in and the shot lacquering it had had a brutal life before finding me … Sometimes I wonder about replacing it with something less worn and more pretty but maybe I’d be better just holding onto my money.

[bloke]

All three of these YBB – 321 instruments that belong to this middle school are now put back together and working well.

(There was a third one - that was just as bad - that I fixed several months ago.)

Thankfully, I was able to get all the valves on this third one working smoothly without getting out any tools…just coaxing slide knuckles and relieving tension, etc.

As much as I dislike these things, I guess they’re better than 3/4 gruntaphones.

They sure aren’t shiny - and they sure are scratched, but at least they look like (round shapes going outward, instead of inward) and function like tubas.

[MN_TimTuba]

Just tossing in my 2 cents worth (pre-inflation).
Back in '77 I decided that the pea shooter Couesnons my college supplied weren't enough. My tuba instructor, bass trombonist with the Chicago Lyric Opera Orchestra, put me in touch with a fellow musician selling a used MW or Miraphone CC 4 rotor horn for $1200. While talking on the phone he reduced to $1000 and offered a $50 monthly pay plan. I was hesitant about CC fingerings so let it pass. Soon a transfer student offered me a 321 for $800 and I took it. The poorer choice, but what did I know?? I used that Yamaha for the next 12 yrs, won a spot in 3 concerto contests, soloed on band tours, and started my teaching career. It sure wasn't the best tuba around, but it was the best tuba I had, so I just kept playing and people seemed to like it. I eventually sold it to a local old guy who played it with glee until he died. I didn't offer to buy it back from his widow because the Holton 345 had started it's 30 year career with me, and I knew I really had something there.
All that to say, I enjoyed my time with my 321. Whew.
Tim

[2nd tenor]

All three of these YBB – 321 instruments that belong to this middle school are now put back together and working well.

Being from the UK I might not understand some stuff that happens in the USA. As I understand it children in middle school are between 11 and say 14 years old. Maybe children in the USA are extra strong but at that age, and older again, I wouldn’t have had the strength to move a YBB - 321 sized BBb. I was say 14 when I started playing an small and old Besson(?) three valve Eb Bass and it was heavy enough for me, a stronger and older pal played a small three valve BBb. Asking such young people to play BBbs seems, to me, like setting the instruments up to be dropped by players who aren’t old enough to have the strength and co-ordination to manage them.

That my only point was that I don’t think a non-compensating fourth valve on an E flat instrument does much good. I’ve owned a few sousaphones and tubas like that. The 2-4 A and E were still sharp, low A-flat was no good, A random low G worked, but nothing else down low worked - until E-flat. I might’ve been able to do something with an extra long 4th circuit, but they were never long enough to pull out that far.

The issues with low note intonation are familiar to me from my Trombone playing days - where the slide needs to move to is different depending on which harmonic range you’re in - so a non-comp Tuba is pretty much destined to play sharp through the fourth valve plus any other valve. Indeed any three valve non-comp brass instrument will play sharp in some valve combinations, unless a slide trigger is used, and whilst they play I see (on YouTube) folk moving slides on front action non-comp tubas.

I can makes guesses - some might even give correct answers - but what’s not quite clear to me is why having four non-comp valves is OK on a BBb but not on an otherwise similar Eb, the problems must surely be common?

Apologies for this diversion.

[2nd tenor]

All that to say, I enjoyed my time with my 321.

Maybe I’m completely wrong but sometimes good enough is good enough. No doubt some reasonable instruments will cap or eventually cap what a very skilled player can do, but the great majority of other players may never reach that cap. To quite some extent I’ve also found that: ‘it ain’t what you’ve got that matters it’s what you do with it’.

[Rick Denney]

The 321 is not much different than the Besson Stratford I played for a year when coming back after grad school. I switched to a Cerveny-made Sanders cheapie and it was a breath of fresh air.

I played a borrowed 321 at a Christmas event in San Antonio pre-pandemic, and though I appreciated the use of it, it was hard to hold, had wonky-bad intonation on the Eb in the staff, and it made my tremor worse. It requires relaxation that is made impossible by the unbalanced and top-heavy ergonomics.

I admire anyone who can make it work, but why put all that effort into a 321?

Rick “not on the same planet as the 621 F tuba” Denney

[bloke]

I can makes guesses - some might even give correct answers - but what’s not quite clear to me is why having four non-comp valves is OK on a BBb but not on an otherwise similar Eb, the problems must surely be common?

The horribly-out-of-tune/not-useful low pitches on a NON-compensating four-valve E-FLAT tuba are several steps HIGHER in pitch than with a similarly-plumbed B-flat tuba...so the "useless" range of pitches (without frantic slide-pulling or hollow-sounding difficult-to-steer "false tones") on an E-FLAT tuba lie within the commonly-written pitch range of tuba music.

Still...with 4-valve NON-compensating B-flat tubas, the 2-4 pitches are "ugly" sharp...and (with many such B-flat tubas) aren't particularly easy to adjust (by pulling slides) "on-the-fly". Some players of these B-flat tubas "split the difference" (half-ugly C/F and half-ugly E-B), and some others epically pull the #1 slide for C/F and have the 4th circuit extended long enough (if enough available length...??) to tune the B/E. ...LOL...and some others just happily-or-unwittingly play the B/E "ugly".

[bloke]

The 321 is not much different than the Besson Stratford I played for a year when coming back after grad school. I switched to a Cerveny-made Sanders cheapie and it was a breath of fresh air.

I played a borrowed 321 at a Christmas event in San Antonio pre-pandemic, and though I appreciated the use of it, it was hard to hold, had wonky-bad intonation on the Eb in the staff, and it made my tremor worse. It requires relaxation that is made impossible by the unbalanced and top-heavy ergonomics.

I admire anyone who can make it work, but why put all that effort into a 321?

Rick “not on the same planet as the 621 F tuba” Denney

Another issue (though all tubas, soon, will likely be the victims of hyperinflation) is this pricing:
https://www.wwbw.com/Yamaha-YBB-321WC-S ... =TWWRAH4BD

Various retailers' mark-ups on all sorts of China tubas vastly vary, but I can think of some pretty easy (and happier) choices (if China) that are (currently) thousands lower in price (at least, from some of the more competitive vendors).

bloke "Thousands of band directors really need to be cured of being 'yama-bots'. No, it's not their money, but it's OURS...and they're taxpayers, too...yes? Dancing on the line of 'politics', a common theme of government seems to be that it buys - not necessarily the best, but - the most expensive of everything (yes, with bidding, but it's still the most expensive stuff), with the draconian-level-taxation private-sector citizens - then - scuffling - with make-do quality and/or bought-heavily-used possessions."

[2nd tenor]

I can makes guesses - some might even give correct answers - but what’s not quite clear to me is why having four non-comp valves is OK on a BBb but not on an otherwise similar Eb, the problems must surely be common?

The horribly-out-of-tune/not-useful low pitches on a NON-compensating four-valve E-FLAT tuba are several steps HIGHER in pitch than with a similarly-plumbed B-flat tuba...so the "useless" range of pitches (without frantic slide-pulling or hollow-sounding difficult-to-steer "false tones") on an E-FLAT tuba lie within the commonly-written pitch range of tuba music.

Still...with 4-valve NON-compensating B-flat tubas, the 2-4 pitches are "ugly" sharp...and (with many such B-flat tubas) aren't particularly easy to adjust (by pulling slides) "on-the-fly". Some players of these B-flat tubas "split the difference" (half-ugly C/F and half-ugly E-B), and some others epically pull the #1 slide for C/F and have the 4th circuit extended long enough (if enough available length...??) to tune the B/E. ...LOL...and some others just happily-or-unwittingly play the B/E "ugly".

Thank you, I guessed that that was the situation but IMHO it’s pointless guessing when you can ask someone who knows.

Traditionally Brass Band music was written for three valve instruments, there being some recognition of intonation issues with more valves … and I think that compensating valves were patented and relatively expensive. Going up the harmonics can throw intonation out too so I guess that’s one reason why we favour the use of higher and lower Eb and Bb instruments working together to (in tune) cover a range of pitches.

I’ve been wondering, in theory it’s possible to play the notes on an Eb Bass part (music) on a BBb Tuba. I can’t really recall being asked to play on the top line (A) of the Concert pitch stave but in practise I’d probably find that impracticably hard work to do so using a BBb - maybe more able people could and do ‘ace it’ when asked to.

[bloke]

I suspect (??) that latter-era brass band music (just as drum-and-bugle corps music slowly evolved from two-valve G bugle music to 3-and-4-valve B-flat-and-F instrument music) has evolved to consider the extended ranges offered by 4-valve compensating instruments...

Today, even some of the B-flat English baritones are 4-valve compensating.

I really do find it a bit silly that the E-flat tubas (in brass bands) often feature the "because-John-Fletcher-did-it" 19-inch (rather than traditional 15-inch) bells... How is a concert patron - then - supposed to aurally distinguish between a 19-inch-bell B-flat tuba and a 19-inch-bell E-flat tuba (particularly if everyone has a deep-cupped 24AW shoved into their instruments) ?

[bort2.0]

In high school, I used a YBB-201 (the 3-valve, BBb version). The school didn't have much (any) money for instruments and stuff, so this was "the tuba" and more-or-less the standard issue tuba for our 25(?) high-school county. Well, except for the rich schools. They got the 321 with their fancypants 4 valves.

I started playing tuba in 9th grade, and made all-county and a bunch of other "honor bands" and stuff with that YBB-201. Didn't make all-state, but didn't poop all over the audition either.

But... I absolutely HATED that tuba. Particularly, the incredibly awkward size of it. Very tall. Not particularly "big" (i.e., very 4/4) for the amount of physical size of the tuba. That enormous hard case was obnoxious.

I think I was in 12th grade before I ever was live and in-person with another "real" tuba. Once, I sat next to a Miraphone 186 player (who was blatting the hell out of it and proclaimed the tuba as a piece of Shirt). Another time, in the 6 tuba section, I was second chair, and the last two chairs were from the "rich" high school. One guy had a Ziess BBb, the other a Cerveny Piggy. They also both proclaimed their tubas as being pieces of Shirt. I didn't like any of those 3 guys.

I played my YBB-201 well, and at the limit of what I was able to do with it.

When I got to college, I was issued a school-owned B&S PT-3, and I used that throughout college. Not a perfect tuba but ergonomically a WORLD better, and sound was about 2 worlds better.

After college, I first used a Miraphone 188 when I was on a band tour in Austria. Ergonomics were perfect. Sound was perfect. Intonation was nearly perfect. I was -- and still am -- blown away by that tuba. So naturally, I *didn't* buy a 188 for another 7 or 8 years... and then once I found a great 188, I sold that and haven't gone back to it. Sometimes -- like today -- I'm questioning what in the heck I'm doing to NOT own a 188.

I am what I am... and luckily, they've made lots of 188's. But never in my life will I go back to one of these tall Yamaha tubas, I can't stand them.

[prairieboy1]

All that to say, I enjoyed my time with my 321.

Maybe I’m completely wrong but sometimes good enough is good enough. No doubt some reasonable instruments will cap or eventually cap what a very skilled player can do, but the great majority of other players may never reach that cap. To quite some extent I’ve also found that: ‘it ain’t what you’ve got that matters it’s what you do with it’.

Amen!

[prairieboy1]

In high school, I used a YBB-201 (the 3-valve, BBb version). The school didn't have much (any) money for instruments and stuff, so this was "the tuba" and more-or-less the standard issue tuba for our 25(?) high-school county. Well, except for the rich schools. They got the 321 with their fancypants 4 valves.

I started playing tuba in 9th grade, and made all-county and a bunch of other "honor bands" and stuff with that YBB-201. Didn't make all-state, but didn't poop all over the audition either.

But... I absolutely HATED that tuba. Particularly, the incredibly awkward size of it. Very tall. Not particularly "big" (i.e., very 4/4) for the amount of physical size of the tuba. That enormous hard case was obnoxious.

I think I was in 12th grade before I ever was live and in-person with another "real" tuba. Once, I sat next to a Miraphone 186 player (who was blatting the hell out of it and proclaimed the tuba as a piece of Shirt). Another time, in the 6 tuba section, I was second chair, and the last two chairs were from the "rich" high school. One guy had a Ziess BBb, the other a Cerveny Piggy. They also both proclaimed their tubas as being pieces of Shirt. I didn't like any of those 3 guys.

I played my YBB-201 well, and at the limit of what I was able to do with it.

When I got to college, I was issued a school-owned B&S PT-3, and I used that throughout college. Not a perfect tuba but ergonomically a WORLD better, and sound was about 2 worlds better.

After college, I first used a Miraphone 188 when I was on a band tour in Austria. Ergonomics were perfect. Sound was perfect. Intonation was nearly perfect. I was -- and still am -- blown away by that tuba. So naturally, I *didn't* buy a 188 for another 7 or 8 years... and then once I found a great 188, I sold that and haven't gone back to it. Sometimes -- like today -- I'm questioning what in the heck I'm doing to NOT own a 188.

I am what I am... and luckily, they've made lots of 188's. But never in my life will I go back to one of these tall Yamaha tubas, I can't stand them.

To each their own. I loved the first one I owned and now the second as well.

[bloke]

criticism:

JUST TO CLARIFY:

> These aren't the greatest, and tuning is wonky, but there are some REALLY EXPENSIVE tubas that offer MUCH WONKIER tuning.
> They sound OK...like a tuba.
> I'm NOT biased against top-action (I own THREE top-action instruments, albeit all "compensating".
> I just don't like FIXING these damn things. They get ALL TORN UP, and are DIFFICULT to straighten back out WHILE - at the same time - making all of the formerly-torn-up stuff fit back together and function.

Those who criticize the way they play:

They're mostly on their own.
I DON'T REALLY CARE "HOW" THEY PLAY...but (when I done) they're supposed to - well... - play.

[2nd tenor]

It’s interesting to hear the comments on how the 321’s and 201’s play and I’m reminded of a few experiences.

I’m not much of a player and never have been but as a youth I managed to join the County Youth Band, their were several million people living in the country at the time and it’s one of the UK’s larger counties. I played an old non comp three valve Tuba and my section mates played four valve comp Tubas, some played better than me and some didn’t; it never occurred to me that the instrument was holding me back ‘cause what I was doing was down to me.

In the Brass Band that I play in the Tuba players have a spread of ability, my section mates all have four valve compensating Tubas but if I turn up with my small Besson three non comp valve Tuba they’re just pleased to see me and we work at supporting each other … I usually give more support than I receive but couldn’t care less about that.

When I played Trombone I started with a Bb (only) Blessing Trombone, it wasn’t very good but it sounded a darn sight better when my teacher played it. It also sounded much better when I cleaned it out, got the slide mechanically sorted and put a better matching mouthpiece in it (a 6&1/2 AL). Simple changes can make a lot of difference to a basic instrument.

IIRC Doug Elliot won an important youth competition on a Yamaha YSL 354 student Trombone, it’s all about the player.
https://www.trombone.org/articles/view.php?id=30

There’s nearly always a time for a better Tuba but, honestly, mostly it don’t matter that much and it’s the driver not the instrument that by far makes the most difference. Would I have one of these Tubas in BBb or Eb form? I probably would and my guess is that - with skilful driving - a three valve BBb (like the 201) would cover virtually all of what’s asked of the bass section. I’m not a mental gymnast so I’d just need it to be asked in a suitable clef; and as both sound out is attenuated as you go up the harmonics and some higher pitched harmonics aren’t always perfectly in tune I’d have to hope that such factors don’t impact too much.

[bloke]

A common slogan (including today in another thread in another forum) is that the "player is everything".

The overwhelming majority of cars - sold new/stock at dealerships - would not win any automobile races (even with THE BEST driver against "pretty good" drivers).

I would not be deemed - by my colleagues nor my employers - to be the tuba player that I am (such as I am) WERE it that I was using stock/school-grade equipment.

[2nd tenor]

A common slogan (including today in another thread in another forum) is that the "player is everything".

The overwhelming majority of cars - sold new/stock at dealerships - would not win any automobile races (even with THE BEST driver against "pretty good" drivers).

I would not be deemed - by my colleagues nor my employers - to be the tuba player that I am (such as I am) WERE it that I was using stock/school-grade equipment.

I don’t know about the other forums and mine are just expressions of my own experiences.

With regard to the car analogy a UK TV Car Program (Top Gear IIRC) had a competition in which celebrity guests raced an ordinary car around a track in a timed event. The best time had already been set by a professional race car driver, no guest beat him and there was quite a spread of results. I do wonder how much quicker the guests could have got around the track with a faster car and how many of them would crash instead.

Whatever, the question really is does the player or the instrument limit what can be done? From my perspective either players have to be rather good before they are really limited (so professional or semi-pro level) or the instrument has to be particularly poor (an instrument shaped object). Many ordinary players blame their instruments when really it’s down to their lack of skills. Of course my perspective and observations could be different from those of other people’s.

[2nd tenor]

Duplicate post

[bloke]

These (along with another one - that I recently straightened out for the same school) are repaired and back at the school...

...so they now have three of these antiques that are playable, reasonably straight, and all stuck together.

[Mary Ann]

I think that the parents of the kid these are issued to, should sign an agreement that they will pay ALL charges to repair damages while in possession of said kid. I simply can't imagine how that kind of damage occurs if a kid is being even quasi-careful with the instrument. This is a good argument for those plastic tubas. Just glue them back together.

But I do have a question: Can those big bow dents mess with intonation of the open bugle?