I have actually played electric bass in public, but I'm admittedly fairly awful at it for reasons that have little to do with tone.

That said, if I could coax a tone from an electric bass that came anywhere near Jack Casady's, I guess I'd be inclined to leave all my other instruments on the shelf ...

Also ... I've seen guys dissatisfied with their sousaphones for issues that no one else perceived, because the sousaphone player is in the worst place to hear what's going on.

I've wondered whether the single thing that separates a sousaphone acoustically from its other tuba relatives, is the ...

(oops)

So thermal cycling creates interfacial stresses.


It's worth asking them about this joint, if anyone's thinking about dropping $10K on one. (I'm not, but I'm not a sousaphone playing pro.) In this image from their facebook page, I can convince myself that they have accounted for it with a sort ...

Even guys on bell-front baritones can sound cool.


And they might have done it just for yucks, but more likely the internal profile of those instruments, or something, makes them better for that particular piece. Slurs, hard blowing, etc. Like the top Chicago York copy might be a suboptimal tuba ...

My favorite brass ensemble video Concert de François Thuillier Elephant Tuba Horde, le 27 août 2016 aux Rendez-Vous de L'Erdre , includes a bell front baritone quartet at 42:56. They use them for a meaty, overdriven sound, that probably wouldn't have been quite the same with the bass saxhorns they ...

One thing that I can say about Lilypond, it's transparent. Most alternatives are WSIWYG - what you see, is what you get.

With Lilypond, no, you don't see the output musical notation while you're working on it. But you do see what you did. A graphical editor can be a little ambiguous about that ...

I tried Dorico briefly. It made a very bad impression. Currently I'd be using Lilypond, if I were writing something.

I don't think I've ever heard of anyone discovering a true gap - if you define it as I do,
a space in the receiver
between the end of the mouthpiece shank, and the beginning of the leadpipe
where the diameter of the space is larger than the leadpipe and shank interior diameters.


As illustrated ...

It's hard to say for sure how much shank is in there, but it looks to me like that shank might be a little large for "American".

That sure happens. My amateur caliper measurements make some common American mouthpieces, like Schilke, closer to .530 inch - conventionally held to be "European", though ...

I sure wish those hand held XRF analyzers weren't so damned expensive. I'd get one to see if there's really tin in the bell. Not that it would matter a lot.

humBell wrote: Mon Mar 09, 2026 7:06 am Where's mini-me?

If I may ...

Any opinion on this tuba ?


I don't have a strong basis for comparison, but I like mine.

The valve section has some down sides, principally that it doesn't drain well. It's short a water key or two, but the main thing seems to be an upward bend in the tubing near the valves, where water pools ...

This is not only not the same tuba, but an entirely different model - a BBb "Professional" - but for what it's worth, it seems more comfortable with a couple of mouthpieces that sit lower than average in the receiver.

Yeah, "on steroids" usually indicates robust strength, but the reality of steroid abuse isn't always desired outcomes. The story of the F tuba.

There's always the Bass Saxhorn, though cost might be an issue.

For something conceptually like the Conn 7b, Schilke 66 seems to be a hair bigger at the throat, maybe a little deeper, and the more rounded rim feels a hair narrower though the published inside diameter is the same. Another excellent rim option in this format is the old Conn 2.

The end-on view of a rim is naturally a little ambiguous. What we need (along with better topic titles) is for you to saw one in half, a là Mike Finn, whose mouthpieces I believe mostly follow similar rim contours.
MF234Cut-Away---web.jpg

Others I like with rounded rims, though possibly not as ...

If it could be stretched out to 3 1/2 minutes, this could serve for a soundtrack: The Music Goes 'Round And 'Round - Tommy Dorsey - Edythe Wright - 1935

Thattubaguy345 wrote: Sun Jan 11, 2026 10:20 pm brass band

British Brass Band?

If particles of a more solid nature would help, you could mix sand into the resin. That could be a cool look. With a high enough sand content, might not matter if it's polycarbonate - possibly worth a try with hardware store two part epoxy. (I would think about making the cup that way and using ...