Discussion of tuba sizing

[lost]

Jonathan from Wessex originally posted these sizes. He has considerable experience studying tubas and I see no reason to doubt his measurements based on his years of experience studying tuba design. 18.5 is a common size for tubas that we now consider 6/4 by convention (i.e. big conns).
I added to his list with 3/4 tubas I have measured.

Measure above the tuba bell's tenon to get these measurements.

3/4 10 to 11 inches
4/4 14 to 15 inches (full size)
5/4 16 to17 inches (kaisers)
6/4 18.5 to 20 inches

Yes companies can call their instruments whatever size they want. Nobody is debating that. Except they usually don't.

Yes none of this is official. If people in other parts of the world want to refer to a tuba as a different size, so be it.

[pjv]

Once again, a very lovely recording.

Kaisers are most often referred to as 5/4 in the US. Big piston York like tubas with a bell throat over 18.5 inches are known as 6/4 horns. Bell size doesn't really factor.

6/4 isn't a trade marked expression and has often enough been used when referring to rotary Kaisers in the US tuba community. (the largest Rudy Meinl, though listed as a 6/4, has even been referred to as 7/4!).

German style tuba's seem to mostly fall into the 4/4 or 6/4 category.

Indeed it is very subjective expression. I see these fractions myself as a general reference to sound/usage.
3/4 unusually small (often junior tubas)
4/4 normal small (quintet stuff, etc)
5/4 in-between (ask Goldilocks)
6/4 large (orchestra stuff)
7/4 huge (it's complicated)

Cheers

[peterbas]

Kaisers are most often referred to as 5/4 in the US. Big piston York like tubas with a bell throat over 18.5 inches are known as 6/4 horns. Bell size doesn't really factor.

Nice playing!

Where do you measure the bell throat?
A kaiser is longer from bell to first bow then a York.
Isn't the size determined by the total volume.

[lost]

Once again, a very lovely recording.

6/4 isn't a trade marked expression and has often enough been used when referring to rotary Kaisers in the US tuba community.

Never said it was trademarked and I disagree. I've played many kaisers, including the rudy 6/4, and in comparison to american style 6/4 tubas they are 5/4. Yes of course the big Rudy Meinl is a 6/4, but that's why I qualified my statement with "most" kaisers.

German style tuba's seem to mostly fall into the 4/4 or 6/4 category.

No. The tuba in the recording would not be considered a 6/4 by any standard, and most kaisers are 5/4 when compared to american style 6/4's by the length of the lead pipe and the more gradual taper.

Indeed it is very subjective expression.

I actually don't think it's subjective at all. Rick Denney had a great sit for measuring and comparing horns. If we as tuba players label any big horn as 6/4 because we think it's big, that is kind of sad and makes sizing horns lose meaning. We can do things like measure and come to a consensus.


Cheers
[/quote]

[KingTuba1241X]

most kaisers are 5/4 when compared to american style 6/4's

If you're just talking about the diameter girth of the bugle itself (mid-lower bell stack at the first ferrule, bottom bow, and 1st branch) you'd be correct. I know Uwe Schneider mistakenly calls a St. Petersburg tuba a "6/4" because it simply has a large (.835'' bore) size which is also incorrect. Height, Bell Diameter, & Bore have nothing to do with how a horn is classified fractionally.

[lost]

most kaisers are 5/4 when compared to american style 6/4's

If you're just talking about the diameter girth of the bugle itself (mid-lower bell stack at the first ferrule, bottom bow, and 1st branch) you'd be correct. I know Uwe Schneider mistakenly calls a St. Petersburg tuba a "6/4" because it simply has a large (.835'' bore) size which is also incorrect. Height, Bell Diameter, & Bore have nothing to do with how a horn is classified fractionally.

Facts.

[donn]

If there's a set of parameters that I can measure that define size category, I have a tuba I want to measure.

I don't see it on that "Rick Denney" page (Tubas Compared), it's just an interesting bunch of side by side photos. He acknowledges the ill defined nature of the categories - he thinks a Conn 24J and a Cerveny 601 are 6/4, but reports that not everyone does.

The only really scientific measure I recall anyone has proposed, is the beer test. But I'm going to wait for a more comprehensive data set from that, before I do it myself.

I have a Holton 109 that I think we can safely agree is 6/4, and thought I might measure the diameter ca. 30 inches from the bell end, to get to the basic conical dimension without getting thrown off by different geometries of bell expansion. Unfortunately, it's a bell front. And the bell flare is quite wide, which I believe adds to effective length, though I don't know how much.

[lost]

It's 2021. We tuba players have figured this out by now. 18.5 inch circumference or more at the bottom of your bell before the tenon will result in something we can most likely agree is a 6/4 tuba. That is the best method I know of. Yes there may be an oddball exception.

The Holtons, Conns, Yorks, and Martin's were technically 5/4 horns because there were only historically 3 size horns from these companies. It's not til we started comparing kaisers with piston horns that the scale had to slide to making the larger American horns 6/4 and the big German horns 5/4 because the American horns were larger than the kaisers in girth.

[pjv]

.

[peterbas]

most kaisers are 5/4 when compared to american style 6/4's

If you're just talking about the diameter girth of the bugle itself (mid-lower bell stack at the first ferrule, bottom bow, and 1st branch) you'd be correct. I know Uwe Schneider mistakenly calls a St. Petersburg tuba a "6/4" because it simply has a large (.835'' bore) size which is also incorrect. Height, Bell Diameter, & Bore have nothing to do with how a horn is classified fractionally.

Seems rather odd that Uwe would call the St.Pete a 6/4 since on his site you can read that the standard measurement was the Voight-weite that would go from 1 to 16, With 16 the biggest tuba that was playable. And biggest meant total volume of air inside the tuba.
He also meantioned being at the factory of Cerveny and seeing there that the biggest kaiser tuba the build was a size 13.
So as suggested above, the beer test is the only correct way to measure correctly.

Im direkten Vergleich ganz deutlich: Bei Bohland und Fuchs ist eine 6/4 Kontrabaßtuba (linke Seite) noch kein Kaiserbaß (rechte Seite).

[KingTuba1241X]

Seems rather odd that Uwe would call the St.Pete a 6/4 since on his site you can read that the standard measurement was the Voight-weite that would go from 1 to 16, With 16 the biggest tuba that was playable. And biggest meant total volume of air inside the tuba.
He also meantioned being at the factory of Cerveny and seeing there that the biggest kaiser tuba the build was a size 13.
So as suggested above, the beer test is the only correct way to measure correctly.

Well sure does, he was selling a St.Petersburg a couple years ago on his website and I remember the debate very distinctly. Perhaps you can invite him here to defend his position and provide his opinion.

[peterbas]

It's 2021. We tuba players have figured this out by now. 18.5 inch circumference or more at the bottom of your bell before the tenon will result in something we can most likely agree is a 6/4 tuba. That is the best method I know of. Yes there may be an oddball exception.

The Holtons, Conns, Yorks, and Martin's were technically 5/4 horns because there were only historically 3 size horns from these companies. It's not til we started comparing kaisers with piston horns that the scale had to slide to making the larger American horns 6/4 and the big German horns 5/4 because the American horns were larger than the kaisers in girth.

On Rick his site you can clearly see that the tennons are at the same height, so that is not a good place to measure.
There is like about nothing standard when you look at the different brands, not even between tubas from one manufacturer on one specific line.
Otherwise we would not have to try out tubas of the same model to get the one we want, since they should all be the same.

[peterbas]

Seems rather odd that Uwe would call the St.Pete a 6/4 since on his site you can read that the standard measurement was the Voight-weite that would go from 1 to 16, With 16 the biggest tuba that was playable. And biggest meant total volume of air inside the tuba.
He also meantioned being at the factory of Cerveny and seeing there that the biggest kaiser tuba the build was a size 13.
So as suggested above, the beer test is the only correct way to measure correctly.

Well sure does, he was selling a St.Petersburg a couple years ago on his website and I remember the debate very distinctly. Perhaps you can invite him here to defend his position and provide his opinion.

Maybe you could point out the thread with this debate.

[KingTuba1241X]

Seems rather odd that Uwe would call the St.Pete a 6/4 since on his site you can read that the standard measurement was the Voight-weite that would go from 1 to 16, With 16 the biggest tuba that was playable. And biggest meant total volume of air inside the tuba.
He also meantioned being at the factory of Cerveny and seeing there that the biggest kaiser tuba the build was a size 13.
So as suggested above, the beer test is the only correct way to measure correctly.

Well sure does, he was selling a St.Petersburg a couple years ago on his website and I remember the debate very distinctly. Perhaps you can invite him here to defend his position and provide his opinion.

Maybe you could point out the thread with this debate.

Well as they say "The Burden of Proof lay with the claimant"..he's definitely incorrect on his definition and if he wants to defend it with an explanation of why he can. The standards are fairly clear how to determine this.

[donn]

Yes, the length from the bell end to that first joint can vary, and it can make a difference. The tuba I wanted to measure, a BBb Kalison 2000, turned out to be only 18 inches the first time I measured, but measuring a little closer to the large end of the tenon boosted it to 18½ inches!

Is it 6/4? I guess I'd say not really, but someone else could say it is. These are far from precise terms.

[peterbas]

Well sure does, he was selling a St.Petersburg a couple years ago on his website and I remember the debate very distinctly. Perhaps you can invite him here to defend his position and provide his opinion.

Maybe you could point out the thread with this debate.

Well as they say "The Burden of Proof lay with the claimant"..he's definitely incorrect on his definition and if he wants to defend it with an explanation of why he can. The standards are fairly clear how to determine this.

Well you claimed the debate and what he said in it so...

But that wasn´t my point, my point is that the biggest tubas on the voight scale aren´t build nowadays.
You can see that on the old cerveny site, there is no tuba listed as a 6/4 not even a 601 or 696. A compact model like a 793 is even listed as an 4/4.
On the new site they adapted to the fasion with marketing the 696 and 793 as a 6/4 size.

By the way if a 6/4 means 18,5 inch what is the lenght of the other sizes 5/4, 4/4...?

[peterbas]

Yes, the length from the bell end to that first joint can vary, and it can make a difference. The tuba I wanted to measure, a BBb Kalison 2000, turned out to be only 18 inches the first time I measured, but measuring a little closer to the large end of the tenon boosted it to 18½ inches!

Is it 6/4? I guess I'd say not really, but someone else could say it is. These are far from precise terms.

So true.
A 191 has a difference of two incht between the bottom and top of the tennon so I guess taking the middle between the two to be more correct since it takes away the difference of the size of the tennon.

[lost]

Yes, the length from the bell end to that first joint can vary, and it can make a difference. The tuba I wanted to measure, a BBb Kalison 2000, turned out to be only 18 inches the first time I measured, but measuring a little closer to the large end of the tenon boosted it to 18½ inches!

Is it 6/4? I guess I'd say not really, but someone else could say it is. These are far from precise terms.

Donn, a Kalison 2000 would most definitely be called a 6/4 in most parts of the world. But it would be okay if someone called it a 5/4 too. The large end of the tenon is where we measure it from... so you confirmed it.

[lost]

Maybe you could point out the thread with this debate.

Well as they say "The Burden of Proof lay with the claimant"..he's definitely incorrect on his definition and if he wants to defend it with an explanation of why he can. The standards are fairly clear how to determine this.

Well you claimed the debate and what he said in it so...

But that wasn´t my point, my point is that the biggest tubas on the voight scale aren´t build nowadays.
You can see that on the old cerveny site, there is no tuba listed as a 6/4 not even a 601 or 696. A compact model like a 793 is even listed as an 4/4.
On the new site they adapted to the fasion with marketing the 696 and 793 as a 6/4 size.

By the way if a 6/4 means 18,5 inch what is the lenght of the other sizes 5/4, 4/4...?

I guess you missed my above post. 6/4 is a new term. We only pull that out when we start comparing them to rotary horns and kaisers. The US manufacturing companies in their catalogs referred to horns we now agree are 6/4 horns as 5/4. Kaisers take a long time to fully expand their tapers.

See my original post to answer your other question.

[KingTuba1241X]

Maybe you could point out the thread with this debate.

Well as they say "The Burden of Proof lay with the claimant"..he's definitely incorrect on his definition and if he wants to defend it with an explanation of why he can. The standards are fairly clear how to determine this.

Well you claimed the debate and what he said in it so...

But that wasn´t my point, my point is that the biggest tubas on the voight scale aren´t build nowadays.
You can see that on the old cerveny site, there is no tuba listed as a 6/4 not even a 601 or 696. A compact model like a 793 is even listed as an 4/4.
On the new site they adapted to the fasion with marketing the 696 and 793 as a 6/4 size.

By the way if a 6/4 means 18,5 inch what is the lenght of the other sizes 5/4, 4/4...?

HE originally claimed in his "FOR SALE" posting that the St. Pete was a 6/4. Not me, I made mention of it here ..there's a HUGE difference. I would agree on the fact none of the Rotary horns made in modern history (except the one at Baltimore Brass right now true 6/4 Rudy) are 6/4 size horns and indeed 5/4. The one that comes to mind that has changed model numbers and shrunk by 6 inches in length was the Mirafone Kaiser 189 (proceeded by the 190 which was smaller). I was not the one who mentioned 18.5'', that was Lost.