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Yamaha YCB-826S

Intonation — Almost, but not quite, point-and-shoot. Bottom line G is dead on. The Cs all line up. In fact, the entire open series is really excellent.

Problem 23 combo — Not bad at all, with bottom space Ab and the Eb below the staff tending toward their normal flaws, but being better than on any CC tuba I have ever played. Ab is like 5¢ flat, and the low one is about the same. The problem Eb is dead on, and the 3rd space Eb is fine played 2nd.

!st — 4th line F is in tune WITH 3rd line D being played in tune using 1st. Amazing. How did they do that??????

Above the staff — Top line A is sharp. It is the same with the G on their BBb tubas — always use 3rd and things will never upset you. Everything else (for me) up to double high C is nicely in tune and responds clearly with no weird tendencies to fall off or chip.

Low Range — This is why I spent all of this money. Holy crap! It is mouthpiece sensitive to a certain degree, in that things differ greatly between deep and shallow cups. For the most part, everywhere else on this tuba, the mouthpiece choice does not seem to matter, but way down low both intonation and response are wildly affected by this one mouthpiece aspect. In *ALL* cases, a deep mouthpiece gives the tuba a slightly sluggish response and *normal* 5-valve pitch issues, with 234 low E being pretty flat and no available alternates that do not include a slide pull or push, and a nebulous low G that can be played fairly well with great solidity using either 13 or 4. But plug in a more soloistic mouthpiece and WOW! The response becomes absolutely nimble, with that Thor-like-low-G on EVERY note. Instant low F. Instant low G. Instant low E and D. Again — WOW!

With a smaller mouthpiece in the receiver (read: Miraphone Rose Solo, Sellmansberger Solo, Doug Elliott P cup, JK Exclusive 2C, Miraphone old C4, etc.) and several slide adjustments, the low range has a clarity that makes hearing/matching pitch amazingly easy and fast for me. And the tuning becomes much more like a 6-valved instrument in that now the sharp 245 is in tune for low E (no more 234 sagginess), low D is dead in tune played 2345, Db is 1345, leaving me 12345 with a pull on 1st as a viable "super-soft" pedal CC. The *only* issue is that Eb 1245 is a bit flat, but if you lay into it it rides up enough. It is only an issue for me when I have to sustain it at soft dynamics. In that case, 1345 and a pull to 1st works very well, but it is a long pull.

The horn lacks the *sparkle* in the sound that my Eastman had, but after a few months on that tuba, it just sounded like me. Likewise, the Yamaha now sounds like me. I like it. It is not as massive or loud as the Holton I have, but it can be played louder and softer with ease.

In short: I love this tuba and think the money was well spent.

I have the hard case that came with my Eastman 836 as well as a spiffy leather Cronkhite bag. I am currently using a Doug Elliott P cup, P5 shank, and 4N 132 rim. Wooooo-sexy…
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Adams F

Not as unicorn-y as I had hoped; it is still an F and has F tuba issues. My Kurath is almost as good but is just too BIG for my main use. The intonation is very good, but not perfect. The low register is excellent, but not perfect (nor is it point-and-shoot). The learning curve has been very small, though. I bought it last summer, and by Christmas Eve was nailing stuff to the wall in quintet. For me, mouthpiece selection fairly was tiresome. (I went through about 35 of the dang paperweights!) I ended up with something I would never have used on an F, but it works so dang well that I won't be experimenting with anything else in this tuba. I ended up with a Schilke SHII-CLE that I had intended to try on the YamaYork. I hate it in that tuba but it is magical in the Adams.

Intonation is really excellent once the slides have been dialed in and some alternates. Now that I have it dialed in where I like it my life has become so easy in the quintet.

Some caveats: The assembly was not as spiffy as I had been led to believe. In fact, there are several joints that look suspiciously like Chinese work to me. Also, these come with two leadpipes, but the large one was missing from this horn. Also, I'm not pointing fingers anywhere, but someone polished it with silver-bearing polish (so-called re-plating polish) to make it look like new, This is freaking dishonest as hell! If you do this, GREAT! BUT TELL THE BUYER EXACTLY WHERE THE FAKE SILVER IS, AND GIVE THEM THE WHOLE BOTTLE OF THIS EXPENSIVE POLISH… or do not try to cover up damage to the finish dishonesty. I am very pissed about this. There are many bare patches on this tuba that became bare after I had used the horn for about a month. NOT COOL!

I loved this tuba when I got it. started to have buyer's remorse shortly after I got it home and discovered the manufacturing flaws and the shitty plating issues, then hated it until I worked through the mouthpiece situation.

Now I love it. But caveat emptor, y'all…

It came with a Chinese hard case that I don't want, as it does not fit that well, and an Adams-branded gig bag that is junk. I would *never* carry a horn that I like in that bag. I won't even sell it. I took it to the dump recently. I have this tuba in a new cordura Cronkhite bag, but it does not fit all that well, as they have an HB-10 bag and an HB-18 bag, but the Adams is the smaller horn with the larger bell, so I had to get the bag for the 12, which is rather loose at the bottom. Oh, well. I will eventually get a hard case from Adams, or one of those Eastman cases that can be modified to fit this tuba. It is worth it to me.
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I am happy with both of these tubas and think I actually got a fair deal on the prices. They both are with their high prices. But both were USED TUBAS when I got them, so neither was perfect. The Yamaha is missing a lot of silver, for instance, and both needed minor work to the valves and slides. (I think the Yamaha is 15 years old.)

Happy Easter, hope you are well.

The previous 826 owner would smile at your review - and choice of mouthpiece for that instrument. He wasn't afraid to try new things and landing on that 826 for as long as he did is telling as to how good a horn it is.

Curious about that 3rd valve high A on the Yamaha. On my students who play the 641, I have them play the problematic G 2nd valve. Just as in tune, less tubing to blow through, and a clearer note. Did you experiment with that?

Also, my new Eastman 534 has the same 234 flatness. I might try a shallow MP and see what happens. Thanks for the tip

kingrob76 wrote: ↑Mon Apr 01, 2024 8:21 am The previous 826 owner would smile at your review - and choice of mouthpiece for that instrument. He wasn't afraid to try new things and landing on that 826 for as long as he did is telling as to how good a horn it is.

What did he use on it? And how different is my experience with it compared with his? (As far as you know, of course…)

Yes, it is a tuba worth the price. I have rooted on several of these now, and the first few all left me *uninspired* (best word for a hard-to-define feeling). I loved all of them, but the first three did not light my candle at all; they were excellent tubas - perhaps better than this one. But this one spoke to me, as people are wont to say. Once that happens the price is irrelevant. It becomes more of an exercise in gathering the money needed, rather than one of considering how much is needed. There is no question; you just do it without much thought as to the amount. For me, this tuba is worth every penny. I already had an excellent Eastman, paid in full, that I really enjoyed playing. Yet this 826 was worth the additional 20K — again — to me. I can't explain it.

LeMark wrote: ↑Mon Apr 01, 2024 8:45 am Curious about that 3rd valve high A on the Yamaha. On my students who play the 641, I have them play the problematic G 2nd valve. Just as in tune, less tubing to blow through, and a clearer note. Did you experiment with that?

Also, my new Eastman 534 has the same 234 flatness. I might try a shallow MP and see what happens. Thanks for the tip

I had a fantastic 641 (original version, not the same as the one that came out in the late 1980s that they still sell (so-called 641-II on the parts lists). It was fantastic. I usually avoid alternates that are on the wrong partial, like high G 2nd on a BBb tuba. These tend to confuse me, and I have never found one that was truly stable-feeling. I have not, therefore, tried that on this tuba, and again, probably won't, as 3rd is bang-on in tune.

For me, that low 234 pitch is always flat. Low A on my Yamaha 621 F, 234 low E on my 186, 345, etc. all are flat. However, the alternate of 245 is too sharp to use. On this 826 it is right there. (On a 6-valved tuba this would be 456, and is one of the reasons there is a 6th value in the first place, to correctly flatten the half-step in the low range where 5th is needed.)

For me, the smaller mouthpiece does more for articulation and response in the low register than overall pitch improvement.

Just heard back from the fellow who handles this instrument (amongst many other things, of course) for Yamaha. He has agreed to give me information regarding the history of this model, so I plan on writing up a sort of interview to see how much I can learn. I also *might* try to do a Zoom interview with him along with some players who know the development history. If I do this I will post the final product to YouTube and link it here.

Here is a quote from the email I received. I will not identify this man as yet because I do not have permission to attribute him in quotes. Also, I am not sure how the seller would feel about his name appearing here, so that is redacted from the quote.

A very kind Yamaha executive (who shall remain nameless for now) wrote:RE the age of the instrument. I can confirm that this tuba was made in May of 2011 in the Custom Shop of the Saitama factory in the Tokyo area in Japan. The Saitama factory was closed in 2013 and all that production, which would include brass custom shop items like the YamaYork, Bobo F, triple and descant horns, and at that time, all background brass was moved to the main factory in the Hamamatsu area of Japan, or more specifically the Toyooka factory.

In the US, this tuba was originally shown at the first National Brass Symposium in Atlanta in June of 2011 and later that month sold to Dillon Music, which is where I believe XXXXXX bought it.

The mouthpiece I am using for most stuff on the 826 is an old (1979) MIRAFONE ROSE MODEL SOLO That I bought alongside a MIRAFONE ROSE MODEL ORCHESTRA. I got the larger one from my mom as a "stocking stuffer" for Christmas 1979. I used some Christmas gift $$$ to pick up the Solo that the music store had put on layaway for me a couple of months prior. (I can't believe I still have these old beaters; I got them when I was 14 years old!)

The Solo wobbles in the Yamaha's receiver, which is longer than normal, much like the Kurath/Willson receiver I removed from my F tuba. The taper works out to be an American one, but when inserted to the correct depth it climbs up the shank an additional .50" to .75", which is a cosmetic nod to the old York receivers, which were very large on the big tubas, like the old Alexander receivers… or so I have been told. However, Yamaha had the good sense to use the normal American taper, internally.

This was a bit of a conundrum for me at first, as a Euro shank fits in about 1.25" deep, but it wobbles a tiny bit. Mouthpieces with a Euro shank also make the tuba play pretty flat because the piece is not inserted to the depth that was intended. I used my favorite pieces, all with the American shank, to work out which mouthpiece seemed to work best as an interface between my teeth and the tuba. But, due to the weird receiver depth, I assumed that it must be a Euro receiver. So I dumped a pile of money into brand new Euro versions of six pieces that I wanted to try. This was wasted $$$$ as I ended up with one I have had since 1979… go figure.

The Mirafone piece wobbles a lot at the top and fits in too deeply, so I have to pull the very short main slide more than I want. So I did some research and bought *another* mouthpiece, which is a Miraphone TU27. There has been some discussion in this community over the years as to whether the TU27/C10/Rose Solo are all three identical or whether there have been some adjustments made by JK over the years.

I received the new TU27 (MIRAPHONE ROSE SOLO TU27) about two hours ago, and it fits the shank of the YamaYork perfectly, actually sits about 5mm farther out (thankfully) and is IDENTICAL in the rim profile, opening diameter, cup shape and depth, and throat diameter. Identical. I took a casting of the old piece a month or so ago and it fits the new piece flawlessly. I used Prussian Blue paint (used to set up ring-and-pinion gears in differentials) that gives you a clear contact pattern as to how the gear teeth mesh and where pressure points are. My casting fit into the new piece perfectly with pretty much perfectly equal pressure all over.

I would call that an exact match. (Now I have to wash the crappy, blue paint off the new mouthpiece, heh, heh…)

I suppose I should have taken photos of the process for all the mouthpiece spec wonks.

I tried it in the tuba and it plays just the same, but I have to push in about 3/8" — which is a good thing. I will test out the scale and response at work tonight on Shostakovich 5.

I intend to have this copied in stainless with a slightly different rim, and needed a very clean copy for the maker to scan. (The one I am using is dinged up enough to likely cause inaccuracies in the scan.) I also wanted to have a shank to copy that fits the receiver the way I want.

the elephant wrote: ↑Tue Apr 09, 2024 9:35 am
I would call that an exact match. (Now I have to wash the crappy, blue paint off the new mouthpiece, heh, heh…)

Don't worry, an adult male can eat 10 grams of Prussian blue per day without harm, and it's good for you if you've been getting too much thallium or radioactive cesium. According to the internet.

donn wrote: ↑Tue Apr 09, 2024 12:26 pm Don't worry, an adult male can eat 10 grams of Prussian blue per day without harm, and it's good for you if you've been getting too much thallium or radioactive cesium. According to the internet.

I tried marking mine (for demonstration purposes only), but I couldn't find the mark...(??)

again...

I'm really glad Wade was able to get that.

That's probably the only C-bugle tuba that (had I snagged one) I might not have continued to look for what I had looked-for/waited-around-for...for the better part of a decade...

...ok...other than (maybe) a (runner-up choice) 195-P5 (4+1 piston Fafner).

The place where we drove to look at the eclipse (can you believe this...!?!? ie. cktuba's town) has TWO high-school-owned 195-P5's there...I was going to play one of them (while up there), but the band director wasn't at the school, yesterday. cktuba's SON gets to play one of those in HIGH SCHOOL !!!!!

LOL...and has a pretty girlfriend, and drives a sharp-lookin' Mustang.

oh yeah...and the kid's "home-practice/personally-owned/back-up" tuba is a 186.

Okay, testing mouthpieces in your home on big tubas can give you “garbage data”. I knew this, but became temporarily stupid in this case.

The Rose Solo would be a super choice if I needed to use the above-middle-C register on this tuba, or the pedal range when in a quintet or other chamber setting. It makes this tuba "fit" better into a more 4/4-esque environment.

However, using this mouthpiece that makes the tuba sing and play super-nicely at home — I was fairly disappointed with *my* results on Shosty 5 in the orchestra in our hall. It seems to put a hard cap on what I can get out of the tuba.
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EDIT:

Tonight I am using the Warburton TG1 and HOLY CRAP! My world has been rocked! I have to work on long tones to use this mouthpiece as it requires STRONG chops, which I have not currently got. I have strong chops, but this requires gorilla-strong chops. (Think: 25 years old and actively flogging the audition circuit.)

This is the original AJ mouthpiece that CB used to sell before all the ugliness. It is huge, and the mouthpiece that was copied had been drilled out at some point. I am not sure whether anyone alive knows the full details of this original, but I am pretty sure that Mr. Jacobs was the one who had it opened up, and that he actually did use it in the orchestra quite a bit. As to when in his career he used it… I don't know.

It is certainly different from anything I have ever used, and (initially) I hated it. It was this ridiculous paperweight that cost me close to 3 C-notes.

I know my playing quite well and understand some of my personal oddities that ought not to exist, but — honestly — they do. And they happen to dovetail nicely with this mouthpiece and tuba combo. It works VERY WELL for how I play. I could not get anything decent out of it at home, but it is fantastic in the hall. I won't say why, but after some reflection, it dawned on me that this might be the case, so I took it to the hall and gave it a go, fully expecting it to be a bad experience. Well, in this one case, I guessed correctly and it is probably the best mouthpiece I have used in the orchestra for how I play.

The tuba roars to life with this in the receiver — again, for ME and how *I* play — and I will not be fooling with other pieces save for the Rose Solo when I might need what it offers.

It is an air hog, though, so again… lots of long tones and loud, low playing are on the menu at my house for the next few months.

I owned one of those Warburton mouthpieces when he was making the first run. Mine was labeled “AJ1” or whatever he called it. It’s certainly a massive mouthpiece. I think I kinda liked it paired with a Besson 994 I once owned, but not much else.

I wonder if Terry could cut one with a slightly smaller throat?

matt g wrote: ↑Sat Apr 13, 2024 4:16 pm I owned one of those Warburton mouthpieces when he was making the first run. Mine was labeled “AJ1” or whatever he called it. It’s certainly a massive mouthpiece. I think I kinda liked it paired with a Besson 994 I once owned, but not much else.

I wonder if Terry could cut one with a slightly smaller throat?

I'm pretty ignorant regarding a whole lot of makes/models of mouthpieces, but if (?) it's any sort of Helleberg 2 type of mouthpiece (Helleberg, but smaller than 120) that's what I think is (hopefully) the last thing that needs to be done to the one that I've been working on: a smaller throat. I think I've got just enough people interested in the second version to ask my machine shop guy to make a run of them with that alteration...
... I'd given up on Helleberg mouthpieces, but now I guess I'm messing around to see if I can come up with one that I like playing on some instruments. Something tells me that large throats and large rims are what I don't like about a whole bunch of mouthpieces. ' don't seem to mind different cup shapes and depths or even different cup widths. I wonder if any of the rest of think you might be like me in these regards.
I guess if that Warburton mouthpiece that you remember with AJ something isn't any sort of Helleberg, this reply doesn't have much of anything to do with anything.

The AJ model was a pretty deep Helleberg style cup iirc.

Years (like 30) ago, Terry had copied one of Jacobs’ mouthpieces for some local players. I think they had on loan from Rex Martin or Brian F. I’m guessing he still had the specs/stencils laying around a decade or so later when he made the CB line.

After Yamaha snatched everything away from Getzen and Warburton, they had some stuff left over and I bought one of those Warburton-made B1 mouthpieces that's basically a helleberg-shaped bass trombone mouthpiece. It's interesting, but I don't think I've ever found an instrument (of mine) that it suits.
Back when I knew even less than I know now, I thought it might be a wonderful mouthpiece to mate up with a kaiser bariton.. (you know: big rotary) but it was probably the worst possible choice. When I owned that instrument, the more I played it the more I discovered that something like a 6-1/2AL or 5G was about the largest thing that should be stuck into its receiver.

This thing is stupid-big, like Holton Revelation 52 big. But it works well.

Shostakovich 5 went pretty dang well Saturday night.

It’s great to see you posting again Mr. @the elephant because it means you must be feeling a bit better!

One thing that seems curious to me is that only a few each are made of the very best models of tubas. Far more (of the best) are made of other types of wind instruments. One thing that I've never liked is putting everyone in a pigeonhole or grouping people as stereotypes, but - even so - does that say something about us?

So a bit of a technical question:
Wade said

"It is an air hog, though, so again… lots of long tones and loud, low playing are on the menu at my house for the next few months."

So what would happen if the cup were exactly the same and the throat were smaller? It would cease to be an air hog, but would the playing characteristics change due to that? What does sheer quantity of air have to do with response? What I see out there is a pattern that cup depth and throat size go hand in hand, and the bigger/deeper the cup, the larger the throat -- what is that based on? "We've always done it this way, so it must be right?"