TubaForum.net

In regards to this: viewtopic.php?f=19&t=2549 and viewtopic.php?f=6&t=2522 , I believe I may be forming a hypothesis, that

"Response quirks - in regards to individual pitches on particular tubas - have little to do with circuits' tubing wrap, and mostly have to do with the taper of the bugle itself."

I'm finding the the same ACTUAL pitches - whether I play orchestral excerpts on a "B tuba" or on a "C tuba" (same pitch level and same instrument - one with an extended bugle length, and adjusted circuit lengths) - remain those which are slightly "quirky" (ie. "need to be played a certain way to sound properly"), rather than these quirks moving over to "neighboring" (ie. "same valve combination / same partial") pitches.

I've never owned (nor played) an easier-to-play/easier-to-control larger C tuba than the one I currently own...but that has nothing to do with whether it could be additionally improved.

After all these years (posting about this possibility in the old forum), I still tend to wonder how a model 6450 (smaller-on-the-small-end) "dogleg" and a smaller (but hybrid) 6450 main slide (.5mm larger on the small side than a 6450 main slide, so as to avoid completely tearing a 5450 instrument apart) would change the playing characteristics of a model 5450 tuba.

I'm guessing it would cost me c. $300 - $400 (plus a small amount of darkened lacquer) to find out...

I really didn't mean to generate THREE threads on the same general topic...
I'm wondering if the monitors/administrators might-or-should combine them into one thread...?

bloke wrote: ↑Wed Aug 04, 2021 12:32 pm ...slide experimenting stuff...

I'm guessing it would cost me c. $300 - $400 (plus a small amount of darkened lacquer) to find out...

Save some piss-away dough, get your parts, and darken some lacquer. It might produce good results. Maybe the equivalent of putting a 45slp leadpipe on a 2155. If not, return the parts to normal config and do a spot buff/spray job.

Walter Lawson had that nailed; he was quite the scientist. When I put a Lawson bell on my Schmid, suddenly the "slipperiness" was gone and the notes locked in. Same result with a Lawson mouthpiece, and I presume if I had put a Lawson leadpipe on it, it would have played itself. I let someone who also had a Schmid try my bell, and CLEARLY he hit way more notes than he did with his own, Schmid bell. That is notes locking in, and I have to guess that intonation would be in the same ballpark of effects, but nodes could possibly have something to do with it? Remember that guy with the rotary F who dropped his mouthpiece on his tuba, there was a visible dent, and suddenly the low C he had had trouble with before, was easily present?