Eastman buys Willson

[ChuckLevinsWMC]

Maybe there was no next generation that wanted to continue the business?

So I got all of this directly from the upper echelon of Eastman and Willie.
Switzerland has a mandatory retirement age of 65 and Willie is only a few years off. Willie does not have anyone to take the business over he was looking to sell it rather than close the business and leave his employees jobless. He was impressed with how close Shires/Eastman got to the 2900 with their euphoniums, as well as their manufacturing and aims to better their quality. He even took some of their improvements and adopted them in some silent revisions to the 29XX series of euphs.

Qian(owner of Eastman) and Willie came to an understanding that they would keep the proprietary process that make Willson unique, while also modernizing some products to better suit the tastes of players. They are also going to release a Q or K Series Euph with a one piece, hot spun bell like the handmade euphs. If you have been to shows recently you have probably seen the prototypes.

They also brought some of the Willson pricing back to a reasonable figure that the market will bear and the euphoniums are really starting to sell again. Even the tubas are back to somewhat reasonable, instead of nearly $20k. It really helps that Eastman has really pushed some significant sales volume to Willson that they were not getting from Getzen.

Eastman is a great company to work with as a dealer and they have a real passion for what they are doing. I think that this is ultimately a good move for the company and I am really interested to see some of the new horns they come out with.

P.S. I've never really had a problem with Rotax tuba valves and really like the way they play in their stock configuration.

[MiBrassFS]

Your quote attribute is incorrect.

[ChuckLevinsWMC]

Your quote attribute is incorrect.

Must've been because I pulled it from that users use of your post. It's fixed now.

[bloke]

Rotax valves work just as most all rotors work, but any rotor that has a diameter of less than two times the bore yet has circular ports that are the diameter of the bore are going to take away from the bore from the porting through the rotors rather than add to. If there is an attempt here to add resistance, then fine, but I don't see how it could possibly reduce resistance. That having been said, resistance is often helpful... but I don't know what the goal is.

The other thing about valves such as those is that the extra material is located around the circumference, and when we're swinging something circular around, that's where added weight is noticed the most.

I'm fine with them, and I'm particularly fine with them because I don't own or use them.

[MiBrassFS]

I understand Eastman makes it very attractive for dealers to sell their products. They sound very friendly. I briefly owned two Eastman tubas.

Sell rather take a loss is a “no brainer.” Being impressed how another company closely copied your product and then selling your company to them? Well, that’s just something else!

[bloke]

Being impressed how another company closely copied your product and then selling your company to them? Well, that’s just something else!

Yep. I believe that skeptics such as myself tend to annoy people, because so many people just prefer to read and absorb. After all, people are taught to read and absorb for as many as 17 years before they go out into the world on their own, and those who stay in the read-and-absorb industry never actually do go out into the world. I tend to read and question for a good while prior to absorbing.

I tend to go along with the first thing that you said as being a plenty good reason to sell without adding on the second one, which seems dubious.

throw an off-topic paragraph into this post to see if I can derail the thread?

For an embarrassingly long number of years, I've had a original era Hirsbrunner euphonium just sitting that really doesn't need all that much work in order to be playable. It isn't really even damaged. It just needed some parts that were missing - and which I acquired - fitted to it. As much as people seem to ooh and ahh over Adams euphoniums, I really ought to get this thing going and see what I think of it.

[Sousaswag]

re: rotax valves

I don’t have an issue with how the horn plays, not at all. The issue is, as bloke said, the weight.

They’re just heavier than regular rotors, and that SUCKS for extended periods of playing. The hand gets tired.

I’m one of the (few?) who really likes a lot of Willson’s stuff. I just wish that they weren’t so over-engineered in the wrong places.

[ChuckLevinsWMC]

I understand Eastman makes it very attractive for dealers to sell their products. They sound very friendly. I briefly owned two Eastman tubas.

Sell rather take a loss is a “no brainer.” Being impressed how another company closely copied your product and then selling your company to them? Well, that’s just something else!

Shires' people were the driving force there and they relied heavily on Hiram Diaz's feedback on what he liked/disliked about his 2900 throughout development. (That's a discussion for another thread really.)

The big thing for Willie was continuing the business without moving it from Flums, like other potential buyers sought to do, and retaining the unique things that make Willson special. Despite Eastman's failings over the years they have really grown to become a good company. Also, it's still a relatively young and small company when compared to others in this market.

We sell a lot of product and a lot of it is not made attractive to deal. It's true that Eastman does make their product attractive for dealers, but it is not just about margins. Their after sales support has been excellent since they've expanded. We would not carry them if they were hard to work with or had difficult to support products that were always coming back attached to an angry customer.

Edit* fixed a small clarity issue.

[ChuckLevinsWMC]

They’re just heavier than regular rotors, and that SUCKS for extended periods of playing. The hand gets tired.

I’m one of the (few?) who really likes a lot of Willson’s stuff. I just wish that they weren’t so over-engineered in the wrong places.

They are not light for sure, but I've never found them to be much more problematic than YBB-641 rotors or some of the MW "big valves" for extended practice. I can certainly agree that the ergonomics of the rotary models are sometimes questionable though.

A larger Caidex valve would have probably alleviated several of the issues with the valve weight and features. But since the Caidex valve is in a weird limbo of patents and IP rights that did not belong to Willson, they are working on a "gen II" Rotax. Some of the changes were inspired by Greenhoe's valve, Getzen's AR valve, and what Shires has done with some of their valve options. Based on what I saw both in 3D models and in person, it should be a good change.

[bloke]

Again, I'm fine with people mashing hard to depress the valves on their instruments, because their instruments are not my instruments.

Many decades ago, Selmer in France named their newest model "balanced action", because they redesigned levers and springs in order to make things easier to depress. I believe that was a good thing, and that basic system has followed all the way through and is now copied by most other saxophone makers. I also believe that it's a good thing to not have to mash hard in order to depress any sort of finger lever on a musical instrument. I tend to believe that having to do hard work to play an instrument transfers to how the music sounds, and maybe not in a particularly good way.

There's been a lot of discussion about ergonomics in regards to how instruments sit against our bodies and how our arms and hands reach levers, but almost none about the difficulty and depressing those levers, which I view is the most basic part of ergonomics.

I owned a 2900 for quite a few years, and the original springs were stored away in my sock drawer. I've heard people criticize their intonation characteristics, yet they play other makes which offer equally curious intonation characteristics. I found that if I didn't consider any particular pitch to be "THE tuning note", I could play mine in tune pretty easily. In other words, why is the middle range B flat considered to be "the tuning note"? When I allowed that pitch (and the A just below it) to fall a little bit flat - whereby they were easy to favor up to pitch, a whole bunch of other pitches (on an online chart) drop down much closer to in tune, once that is done.

Recently, I've moved to a compensating euphonium which - in the past - was maligned by many and only endorsed by a very few. The major criticism was intonation. After playing it analytically for a short time, I realized that - unlike most makes and models - the slides were built shorter, allowing for a good bit of pull (more like the way that many tubas are built). Another glaring flaw was that the #3 compensating slide was several inches too short. Even though that was an unexcusable flaw, it was easily remedied. After understanding the slide pulls and remedying the #3 comp slide flaw, it's quite easy to play in tune. I've chosen it over the Willson, because the bell (top to bottom) is huge, and (being a doubler) I find it more useful than a typical compensating euphonium for covering things like French tuba parts, ophicleide, and other such parts (including bass trombone parts - which may go quite above the staff, and which are encountered at quite a few church jobs). I keep an old ugly Yama-321 for playing tenor tuba parts (which tend to be high), and I don't have a typical "bucket" euphonium mouthpiece in the case with the 321, either.

[Coltasaurus]

Only conjecture, but I have to imagine they were purchased with ME’s suggestion/influences and then then sat unused as the “new kids” were F players.

I had the same thought about ME after I learned about his background/connection. The mouthpiece that came in the case did not have any indicators of ever being used. May not mean much, but I can totally see the horn arriving, them opening the case and saying "that looks like a nice horn", closing the case and putting in the closet to sit for the next 15-20 years. Who knows.

[bloke]

one person's not-based-on-any-sort-of-logic views (a post intended to support the previous post's conjecture)

The Willson NON-comp E-flat is one of the few good non-comp E-flat's (ok..."in my opinion")...but (me?) if I'm to play an E-flat, I'm only interested in playing a compensating one.

If a NON-comp bass tuba, I'm a F instrument person.

again: no logic, here, but (maybe...??) others are like me...Who knows...??

bloke "not interested in a Kurath/Willson F, but not going into why...Politics are banned, here."

[bort2.0]

After I had the Rotax valves cut down and totally replaced the linkages, they were good.

Ergonomics was still a mess.

I considered ripping the whole valve block off and starting over...

And at that point, it just sucked to keep spending money to make the tuba what it should have been to begin with. Fun for a while, but not very long. Too hard to be the only one that cares, so it was time to move on.

And I'm glad I did, because if I still owned it when Willson sold to Eastman, I would have bailed on the tuba then and for that exact reason.

[MiBrassFS]

…so it was time to move on.

And I'm glad I did, because if I still owned it when Willson sold to Eastman, I would have bailed on the tuba then and for that exact reason.

I completely get that. I probably wouldn’t buy a new 3400 today. I’m glad mine is from era it is. Because there’s nothing to iron out, it plays just so well, and is ergonomically very comfortable, I’m probably not selling it anytime soon.

“It got in well under the wire…”

[bloke]

I can't remember: is there an upper #4 slide on the 3400? Low G is a pretty commonly written tuba pitch, and 5234 is always going to be too short for that combination with the fifth valve setup as it commonly is on 4 + 1 instruments of any length.

With the extra everything that's required (for me these days, effort-wise) playing B-flat, one thing that I have found to be a blessing is that the 5234 pitch is pushed down in the pitch range to double low C (which almost never appears in written music), and - otherwise - isn't terrible with third valve alone on a big fat B flat tuba. Even with the C instrument, I was reaching over there frantically for the 4th slide (more often than I cared to) to play those D's down there.

I sold a couple of 3400's through DEG - over the years, and was impressed with them. During those years, Marty was about the only person keeping E-flat tuba playing promoted and alive in the United States.

Going off on another bloke stream of consciousness tangent, I remember the first time I heard anyone play a (beautiful) solo on an E flat tuba which was (a young) James Gourlay at one of the international tuba shindigs. I had blown through one of those instruments very briefly one time, couldn't make heads nor tails of it, but his playing immediately convinced me that I wasn't doing it right, have since owned a compensating E-flat for quite some time, and love it.

[MiBrassFS]

There is, indeed, an upper 4th. For me, it’s a comfortable instrument to operate. Pitch is VERY easy. Ergonomically, it feels “right.” Below is a picture of my actual instrument from when I acquired it. I’m neither an instrument critic nor defender. If I like it, I like it.

[Coltasaurus]

I cannot post a pic, but mine appears identical except for silver.

[Sousaswag]

I don’t understand why they didn’t route the slide in the same way for the piston 3200.

Not that it affects how the horn plays at all, but to me, it made pulling 4 for low stuff awkward and annoying. It bothers me that it was DESIGNED that way. These, and the PT-606 do that, and it bothers me. That is all.

That’s another point for the rotor 3200. Everything is mostly accessible.

[MiBrassFS]

Only a guess, but the routing on the 3200 is very “York.” The B&S GR41 carries similar configuration which was carried over from the original 4/4 that was copied. The York crazy was all the rage.

The 3400 I have here is configured similar to other ones, so no surprises there. The differences that stand out to me are the obvious lacquer finish (never seen another in person) and leadpipe isn’t yellow brass or nickel, it looks to be some sort of grade of gold brass. Another oddity is how the first valve is vented. I’ll see if I can post a picture. Very different than the first one I owned years ago. (That one was actually vented through the casing like a rotary valve…)

[Billy M.]

have since owned a compensating E-flat for quite some time, and love it.

I decided to go to Eb to buck the F trend… I love playing Eb as well; it’s the best quintet and brass ensemble horn. I own an F and do more with it because of how some solos fall with fingerings but I am definitely holding on to the Eb I bought from you, Bloke.

Staying with topic, I’ve played a few Willson tubas but never understood the glamour. It played well and had a nice sound but rather generic and like everyone has said: HEAVY. I get the feeling that some of the horns were real winners and others were just ‘ok’. Perhaps the new ownership has ideas about what can make the line more appealing. I had heard some good things about the Merlin.