Using sousaphone clusters on tubas

[the elephant]

HEY! That's right! Just what are you trying to pull, buddy? HAHAHA!!!

[LargeTuba]

Tubajug, you might want to talk to Norm Epley about re-porting. He did this with 20k valves and it looks pretty good.

I think I remember him saying it wasn't too hard.



Matt walters also did this with 20k valves.



I don't think sousa valves being too wide is a problem unless you have weird porting coming out of the fourth like on my beuscer project.

Whatever you end up doing please post a lot of pictures!

[iiipopes]

As a related thought of rhetoric (because we all know the chances of it actually happening are slim to none), I really wish the Cyborg would use the .734 valve block on a main-line 4/4 size 4-valve @18 inch bell tuba. Two tubas of reknown, the Besson and the Miraphone, use .730 and .770 valve blocks, respectively. The Besson lead pipe is shorter than, say a Conn souzy; the Miraphone is longer from the receiver to the block. So I maintain the proportions are essentially the same. The Jupiter 582 does exactly this with its .732 bore block. Why can't the cyborg?

[the elephant]

I have measured some of these horns, and yes, the bore of the horns are essentially the same at the same locations along the length of the bugle (old 2341 vs 186 and some Conn or other), with the rotary valves being larger because they fall later in the taper. The net effect is the same, with the main tonal difference being the taper of the bell and its flare shape/type.

[bloke]

A whole bunch of attention goes towards mouthpieces, mouthpipes, and valvesets. This is completely natural, because this is the only portion a tuba (the capillary portion) that we physically engage, when playing.

Mouthpieces, mouthpipes, and the valvesets - mostly - have an effect on response quickness, ease of response in various pitch ranges, subtle effects on sonority (treble/bass), and the way the instrument feels to the player. Of course, absurdly large/small dimensions - in this capillary portion of a tuba - can begin to noticeably affect intonation characteristics, but I'm (for the sake of discussion, and not attempting to open up this general statement to anecdotal exceptions) generally speaking in terms of "mouthpieces between TU23 and PT50", "mouthpipe tubes that originate between 1/2-inch and 5/8-inch", and "valveset bore sizes between 5/8-inch and - say - 27/32-inch".

The taper characteristics and particulars of an instrument - past the mouthpiece, mouthpipe, and valveset - is primarily responsible for intonation characteristics. (Curiously, the most odd-appearing - in particular - 6/4 tuba taper is found on Martin instruments, which perform the best of any of them, in the intonation department.)