Observations — YamaYork and Adams F

[the elephant]

FOLLOW-UP REPORT

1. Wheels

Great addition! This case is stupid-heavy. I have only used it once and was pleased to have that sort of protection for this super-spendy tuba.

But it will be a long time before I use it again.

It is simply too heavy for me, and the padding is too rigid for such a thin tuba. I was worried that — because we use a truck for our equipment — very little rides under the bus. Most of the riders play instruments that are small and carried aboard, leaving the tuba to roll around in the mostly empty bay (if the bus driver likes to fantasize about being an F1 driver).

So, as I pulled up to the bus loading area, I decided to keep rolling and make the three-hour drive in my POV. The tuba in its hard case was perfectly happy in the back of my Jeep Wrangler, and I did not want to anger it with the possibility of damage in the hard case due to rolling around loose in that huge, empty luggage bay. No way.

To address the cheap padding in the case I intend to re-block the shell with the same ATA-approved stuff used in genuine Anvil cases if I ever have the disposable income… and the disposable time. I will add a folder pocket like my Kurath case has, too. Very handy…

The new wheels worked much better than the stock ones. I rolled this case from Dillon Music out to my car three times (when I bought the Eastman, when I returned it, and when I carried the YamaYork out to the car) and it was like the case was on steel roller skate wheels from the 1960s; the new ones are quiet and cushy with very good traction.

2. Mouthpieces

I have commented before on the odd duck receiver on the Yamaha. It is a copy of the original York one, at least externally, so it climbs further up the mouthpiece shank than what is normal today. Usually, a mouthpiece and shank pair up so that the mouthpiece end is seated properly when the shank is inserted to a depth of about one inch. There are some notable exceptions to this, and some folks have a hard time wrapping their brains around this.

HOWEVER, *this* shank seems to perhaps be one of those… or not. I have found that all my mouthpieces fit without any sort of wobble whatsoever. All of them. Every Am or Eu shank I have fits perfectly, but ALL of them fit more deeply than is normal. All the Euro shanks fit in about 1.25 or 1.5 inches and all my American shanks fit in up to the top of the shanks — again, without any sort of wobble at either end. I have to talk with the Yamaha guy about this oddity because it is genuinely strange.

So this tuba can natively use all my mouthpieces. Just to make sure, I dropped a lot of coin to have both shanks in several models I wanted to try. This cost me thousands extra. Some of these will be up for sale soon. They are mint (some only played on for ten minutes) and are unmarked. Prices will be reasonable.

So what I liked best were the Euro-shanked Warburton TG1-L and the Schilke SHII-CLE. (I think it too is a Euro. I did not note the depth of its fit. Sorry. I can check if anyone G.A.S. about it.) I tried 33 mouthpieces in this tuba and immediately narrowed it down to five that I liked. It was all about intonation and low-range response after that, and these two won. (The Warburton is what I have been using on it all this time so that ended up being a good choice on my part. Ah, validation…)

I did the same with the Adams F and ended up with the Schilke SHII-CLE, a 1979 Mirafone Rose Solo, and a 2024 Miraphone TU-27 Rose Solo (which are slightly different in the throats and rims, as far as I can tell) with the new Rose being favored over the old, but the Schilke being the winner. This tuba has a notably sharp second space C as most modern F tubas seem to be cursed with, but with these mouthpieces that is not the case. The low Bb replaces the low C for being the "stinky" note, and these all minimize this effect and produce a very easy-to-render low Bb. The sound of the Schilke is more round with less color, the Rose produces a more euph-like tone with more bark, which I can use for some things. But for basic quintet playing the Schilke is the more well-rounded package.

3. Oddities

Not many; these are a pair of very solid, consistently well-playing tubas with few faults. I recommend both to anyone for any reason… if they have the needed funds. I have played F tubas as good as this, but they always were exceptional examples of models I did not normally care for. However, the Adams seems to be this good consistently. It is *almost* a tuba you could buy sight-unseen, but I would never do that. At this price point, I would insist on testing it pretty heavily simply due to the potential for buyer's remorse.

The Yamaha 826 is just a really big Yamaha copy of a unicorn. But it plays surprisingly well for such a large tuba. We are so programmed to accept mediocre tubas today that when we find something that does not suck we say it is excellent "for a BAT", "for a rotary F", "for a Chinese knockoff" or whatever we want to hide the truth behind.

We need to stop doing this. We need to stop saying dishonest things like "more band for the buck" and honestly describe the things we buy. If it sucks it sucks. If it plays out of tune it is not more bang for the buck. It just isn't. Even if YOU can't detect how doggy your tuba sounds everyone else can. You are not fooling anyone but yourself with such descriptive lies. Further, if you are okay with playing a crap tuba that is YOUR business. You do not need to get our validation by lying about what a bargain you got for your musical cuspidor. BE HONEST. This will help our community more easily weed out horns to be avoided and the ones to save up for rather than being impatient and buying some shiny, new POS.

That being said, the Yamaha is not good "for a BAT", These have been fairly inconsistent, with people talking about them using mythical language about each one having its own voice, or descriptive nonsense like that. This has gone on to create a lot of silliness and unrealistic ideas about these tubas.

They are not consistently built. I don't give a rat's a$$ about the price. I do not care about how each is crafted by hand like some magical confection. To quote Monty Python from "Crunchy Frog"…

We use only the finest baby frogs, dew picked and flown from Iraq, cleansed in finest quality spring water, lightly killed, and then sealed in a succulent Swiss quintuple smooth treble cream milk chocolate envelope and lovingly frosted with glucose.

BULL COOKIES!

I used to compete in NORBA mountain biking races when I was much younger, and I remember the boys at Huffy getting pretty irate with the several MB magazines' reviewers constantly laughing at Huffy's criminally unsafe and ridiculously poorly made bikes, so they hired a "R&D Team" to build a set of Huffy bikes for the professional downhill circuit and then formed a professional team of Huffy riders to compete on them. The bikes were great, too. They did well. And not a damn thing changed on the garbage bikes they sold at Western Auto and Walmart. These pro bikes were created to help increase sales of the crap bikes.

I do not generally like Yamaha instruments, but their 8xx series instruments include a few that are other-worldly good. However, the 826 — IMHO — is like the Huffy Pro competition bikes. They never intended to mass produce them. They never intended to sell them through music stores or to schools. They intended to use them to create brand recognition and brand hype. And they succeeded. However, because they cost so freaking much no one, and I mean NO ONE will admit to receiving a dud, and there have been a few of those, from what I hear. After wading through lots of prosaic language, I clearly hear that "someone" was displeased with theirs… perhaps several someones…

In my case, I received a very solid musical instrument. Not "good for a 6/4 tuba," not "good for a York copy," and certainly not "good for the price"!!!!!



What I *did* get for my money is a tuba with extremely good intonation and a response that is surprisingly even from the pedal range up to well above the staff. I received a tuba that has a very large tone that seems to weirdly grow with the size of the room. It feels like a 4/4 in my bedroom or studio, is much more commanding in our rehearsal space, is large in our concert hall, and has shocked me in several halls we perform in on occasion. It just keeps getting fatter and louder as the room becomes a "space". My wife was shocked at how it sounded in this one exceptional hall in our state, probably the best acoustic space we have. She said it was commanding, but not dominating. She said it made the whole orchestra sound larger. My Holton does this, too. It is amazing. But this tuba is just a tad better in every imaginable way, and that adds up to the Holton being up for sale. I never thought I would sell my baby, but this Yamaha is that good. It does not need descriptive prepositional phrases attached to the statement "It's a great tuba…" All it needs at the end of that statement is a period. It's a great tuba. Full stop.

But I still have to play E in the staff 12.

Just sayin'…

[the elephant]

By the way, the YamaYork is not as large as the actual CSO Yorks. They are an excellent copy that started as a blueprinted "fantasy" perfect version of one of the two horns. Then Yamaha started tweaking the bugle in an attempt to dial in the controllability of the instrument, and I suspect that this is what Joe is speaking about when he says that Yamaha sent Mr. Pokorny the same valve section pasted onto different bugles. I have read and been told repeatedly that the 826 is smaller than the original horn, and that the "bigness" was dialed down a few notches.

The Eastman started out as an exact copy of the YamaYork that they had measured, and since then they have done their own tweaking to the horn. However, I have been told on the phone by a higher-up in that company that the bell and outer branches have not been altered at all, dimentionally. A number of changes have been made to the horn over time, but the overall size is the same. So, in essence, the Eatsman is a same-size "tribute" to the Yamaha, and the Yamaha is a slightly smaller "tribute" to the shorter of the two CSO Yorks. (If I am understanding all this correctly.)

The Holton 34x series was that company's attempt to get Jake to sign on to playing a Holton-built, Holton-provided instrument in the Holton-underwritten CSO tours. It was developed from pre-existing bells and outer branches from very old BBb tubas that were from the same era as the Yorks, and happened to look very similar, and the 345 was an "eyeballed" instrument, set up to share the wrap/layout of the Yorks, without staying particularly faithful to the design of the other brand's work. again, based on a lot of reading and some phone calls… if I have understood everyone correctly. So the Holton was always bigger/fatter than the two CSO Yorks, due to the use of preexisting parts.

Here is a comparison that shows the differences between my smaller-than-stock "cut" Holton 345 and my smaller-than-the-original Yamaha 826. It is a striking comparison, I think. The differences are certainly not what one would expect…

From my inquiries and measurements, my 345 is about an inch or two shorter than a BBb or factory CC (345s can vary quite a bit), and the top bow is about two inches lower when it sits in the player's lap. Most of the 24" chopped from the horn came out of the 3rd and 4th branches.)

[matt g]

It would be interesting to see a YCB-826 lined up next to a 2165.

The 2165 retains all of those Holton dimensions of bows, branches, and bell while being ‘cut’ with a bit more consideration than either the Holton factory C versions or the post-processed ones. It’s easier to do a clean reconfiguration when a manufacturer is truly involved.

Your observations about size are indeed interesting. This implies that the closest ‘true copy’ of the better* of the two Yorks is the Nirschl. I played a couple of those some 25+ years ago and was quite smitten. They also play noticeably different copy to copy, not necessarily in a bad way. I’m glad these are still being made as well.

*as recalled from York lore.

[the elephant]

This Holton matches the 2165 just about exactly.

[bloke]

I was studying with Gene around a time that they kept sending him 826 prototypes. He kept sending them back and telling them that they were too big and tubby. Eventually, he ended up with one that's like what they are selling now and I got to hear him play it back-to-back with the York (practically, a complete audition's worth of excerpts) in a pre-concert lecture-demonstration while Mrs. bloka and I were sitting in the mezzanine at the hall. Mrs. bloke preferred the Yamaha to the York. I think Gene does too.

I heard him play one of the "too big and tubby" ones at Ravinia, and - yeah - it was probably too big and tubby...
...but he was using TB&T#X to play "Til" - and I would probably play that on F, but whatever.