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A tenor tuba in c. 4 piston/1 rotor. Maybe a main tuning slide gadget. Largest bell that would play up to pitch. Maybe made in china to keep cost down. For American style tuba players to use for high orchestra, teaching studio duties, etc.. with the idea of easiest possible transition from cc tuba. We already have f and c to keep in shape.Maybe slightly less curvy learning curve? Would conductors or colleagues be more accepting if it looked like an orchestral tuba? Maybe expand use to midsummer nights dream and petruska instead of just bydlo? Your thoughts?

Sounds a little like a french tuba with a rotor?

I have a King 2280 that I added a 5th rotor too. As a function of a fuill chromatic, it's amazing. It doesn't have the tone of my packer or Adams, so I dont use it much

But bell would face left and basically look like a small American style cc tuba. All valves right hand.

I've got one in the works. A project thread on it will be started in the Fall…

Awesome! If any of you doctor Frankensteins are out there, we could discuss a commissioned project. It being in c is not an absolute requirement , if that makes it drastically harder. I would also prefer non compensating. I know there is something similar for sale out there now, but I believe it’s small bore/bell/receiver. Part of my thought was, if someone like Jonathan from Wessex or Tom Mcgrady might be listening… if enough people wanted one, may they could pursue through jinbao

I’ll pass.
So far the only 8 foot C instrument that I’ve ever encountered - that offered manageable tuning - is that goofball ballad horn that I have sitting up on the landing that most people mistake for an E-flat mellophone.
All of the 9-foot (B-flat) valved instruments have some issues, but some of them are manageable.
It would be really easy for me to shorten my King Flugabone to C, but they play so damn nice in B-flat – and I would lose two pitches off of the bottom of the range – that I just can’t bring myself to start cutting on it – simply to find out what would happen.
I know I’m coming off sounding like Eeyore here, but if I’m going to invest as much time as it requires to put together something like that (typically: weeks, and always more than two), I would like some sort of hint ahead of time that it’s going to be functional, and I would also like to be able to come up with a place where I might use it to make money - and where it would make money for me more easily than something that I already have.

bloke “an old grump and a kill-joy, yet, I’ve built myself some usable equipment… but it’s really good to hear from Mike“

MikeMason wrote: ↑Sun May 01, 2022 5:20 pm Awesome! If any of you doctor Frankensteins are out there, we could discuss a commissioned project. It being in c is not an absolute requirement , if that makes it drastically harder. I would also prefer non compensating. I know there is something similar for sale out there now, but I believe it’s small bore/bell/receiver. Part of my thought was, if someone like Jonathan from Wessex or Tom Mcgrady might be listening… if enough people wanted one, may they could pursue through jinbao

A King 2268 with a fifth rotor wouldn’t be terribly hard and 2268’s exist in decent shape. Cutting one to C would require a lot of smart thinking (and something like 9 one inch cuts with retapering).

There’s also something like this:

https://reverb.com/item/54169971-conn-5 ... gI1M_D_BwE

First valve is already configured for top pull. The branch after the cluster looks like an easy spot to mount a fifth valve.

@bloke, yep, I’m sure it wouldn’t be easy or maybe work at all. I’m kind of hoping the Jinbao folks would give it a go if enough tuba players might want one. Doesn’t jinbao already have a euphonium in c? Maybe it could be modified without starting from scratch. Or maybe the Festivo could be modified. I will probably give a Festivo a try, since it’s close and actually exists.

@Matt, I think those are small bore,bell, receiver . There is a similar one to that for sale now in the Midwest. Small bell and bore don’t really fit my idea. Maybe my mind would change if I played it.

Keep the ideas coming.

Also @Bloke, sympony s shank, orchestra grand cup, 33.2 medium profundo rim really helped me grab those low e’s in fountains last night. Thanks for all the options! Going back to sympony cup for a little more color starting tomorrow. Nothing like fountains on the near horizon.

I understand all of the top action hate and the C instrument thing, but – again – as goofy as they might be, B-flat 3+1 compensating euphoniums do work.

I’m actually having an extremely easy time with a German-made one that has been berated nearly across the board, and I only had to change two things about it to convert it from horrible to sublime. They just made two epically stupid mistakes when building those things.

Combining two things:
- it not only being a berated model, but also
- being cloaked as a store-brand stencil of that model,

I picked this one up for hundreds of dollars (rather than even “a” thousand) in gleaming new condition…
… and you know that I don’t tolerate difficult-to-play crappy instruments (regardless of the country of origin). Even if they are popular, I have a hard time getting myself to buy them – even at really low prices – and selling such instruments (ie. “boat anchors“, etc.) to others.

… so yeah, it may seem cool to have something that’s 8 feet long instead of 9 feet long, with valves on the front and a fifth thumb valve and all that jazz, but there’s already something pretty similar with one less valve and a foot longer that works darn well.

No