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catgrowlB wrote: ↑Thu Mar 20, 2025 8:01 pm I don't really listen to orchestras these days for the reasons you mentioned above. I'm not crazy about how they sound so similar now.

Today's big orchestras:

-- F horns are brighter/thinner (like the Euro orchestras), which is fine for chamber playing, but I don't like that sound in larger groups.
-- Trombones are larger/rounder in sound -- almost like skinny baritone horns with edge.
-- Tubas are all Yorkaphones that sound nothing like Jacobs on his York. He got a sweetness and color from his York I do not hear today.
-- Trumpets are all Phil Smith wannabes.

I have and cherish my recordings of those orchestras from decades past

bloke wrote: ↑Fri Mar 21, 2025 7:37 am
I've posted incessantly about my big B-flat rotary tuba that Miraphone made perhaps 10 - 12 years ago. The bell is the same shape as all of the York knockoffs (certainly the same shape as the Holton 345 bells), but the rest of it is basically a German kaiser design with a German kaiser bore in the rotors... and - again - B flat.

Mr Jacobs had a certain style that everyone recognizes. Some people made light of it, but I think it served him pretty well. He would ping a large percentage of his attacks, back off, and then add vibrato. I don't know if the vibrato helped anything other than rare solo passages (which - admittedly - did make them more interesting), but the pings absolutely helped listeners hear his entrances, certainly in recordings. I have no idea whether he learned to do that from hearing all the recordings that were made of him and the orchestras he was in throughout his life, or whether it was just a style thing of his, but the trombones ended up taking up on it and held on to that "ping" style - perhaps to this day...though those players are all reaching retirement age.

It's good - of course - too not have to rely on a strong attack to enter, but when playing a big tuba in a large ensemble I've spent some time thinking about how tuba entrances are sort of difficult to hear because of the type of sound and I now often add more attack when playing an extra large tuba, and recordings of me tell me that I'm not overdoing it.

In contrast, if I'm playing (as an example) Brahms 2 on my F tuba and executing those delicate little segments of phrases (where the tuba ducks in and out on the slow movement), were I to do that "ping" thing on that instrument, I would probably be called out - if not by the music director, probably by the principal trumpet (during the rehearsal break).

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As far as wildly loud American orchestral brass is concerned, that began with the 1970s London Recording Company "FFRR" recordings, whereby they used a ton of microphones and produced recordings that were larger than life - particularly in regards to recordings with maestro Solti and the Chicago Symphony. There are several factors involved here, one of them being that American concert halls (certainly including the one in Chicago on Michigan Avenue) offer far less reverberation than most European halls, and more attack and volume is either helpful and/or required by the brass in such halls in America. Another factor is American brass players and orchestras as a whole trying to imitate the sound of those FFRR recordings from the 1970s in real life. It took off and has been the standard since that time. It has affected the timbre of American orchestras certainly...and - with the internet - probably orchestra's worldwide. With everyone imitating Mr Jacobs tuba via manufacturing and use, American orchestral tuba players are having to blow the crap out of really large tubas to obtain any presence, because most of them don't ping their attacks as did Mr Jacobs but just play really loud, and those tubas require being played really loud in order to be easily heard, in regards to being distinguishable from the corporate sound of the orchestra.
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As far as French horns are concerned in America - and then across the world in some other countries, a man named Geyer manufactured horns in Chicago and used a different rotor pattern which he had made in California for him - whereby the change valve was past the other valves instead of in front of it. This allowed for a smoother and less bent cylindrical tubing pattern in double horns. He also built his horns with smaller bell throats than the Conn horns which were mostly being used in America in other orchestras, which gave them a more blatant type of tone quality and also more easily heard, which is probably why the Chicago players were attracted to them. Just as with Mr Jacobs tuba (particularly after those London FFRR recordings came out), horn players across the country all wanted horns like that, and today they seem predominant - other than in the high school circuit, as band directors and orchestral musicians seem to sort of be disjunct for each other as far as trends go, though high school students' private teachers (at least those probably under age 60 or so) tend to steer their students towards the Geyer style instruments.

bloke wrote: ↑Fri Mar 21, 2025 10:03 am Are hard copies of recordings even sold in brick-and-mortar stores, today?

"Budget" classical recordings of decades ago...labels such as Angel and Seraphim, yes?

catgrowlB wrote: ↑Thu Mar 20, 2025 8:01 pm I
-- Trumpets are all Phil Smith wannabes.

catgrowlB wrote: ↑Mon Mar 24, 2025 4:42 pm Vince DeRosa actually made the Conn 8D popular in orchestras when he started using it in the LA film studios in the 1940s - 50s. He played it in the studios for many decades, and others followed. The last couple of decades the F horn sound has changed, and brightened considerably.