Opinions on the YEB-321?

[Raven]

I think this guy is playing a YEB-321..his attribution starts at 2.15

https://youtu.be/nMI35v20AiM

[bloke]

The 321 E-flat tubas are consistently fine players, because they are copies of consistently good instruments: the old 15-inch-bell Besson's.
Soloing in the middle and upper range is always going to be great on those instruments... I just keep (yes: annoyingly) pointing out that they sort of run out of notes at B-flat below the staff, with a usable-but-sharp 2–4 A, a good 234 G, and with the low range resuming - again - at the double low E-flat.
A missing A-flat, G-flat, F, and E can prove to present quite a stumbling block, as all of those pitches are in the written range of the tuba. I picked up one at a great price quite a few years ago, REALLY enjoyed it, but soon sold it - because of the missing pitches.

[cjk]

Another video containing the model in question.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mONpTyhWF70

[bloke]

off topic:
(a question about that just-previously-linked drill - a drill with which I'm not familiar...)
When reaching the "fundamental" pitch - each time, are the sound and air supposed to stop prior to sounding that pitch?

[edfirth]

Just thought I'd toss this out there. I've played mostly four valved tubas, the exceptions were MW 2155, Mirafone 186, Sam Gnagey C, and a Marzan 4+1 Bb. And I played more or less full time from 70' to 2016 usually in full time (5 day a week) situations. Over that time I evolved into a set of fingerings. In particular for Eb ...Ab, 1+4 with the first slide pulled to pitch. G, 1 2 +4 with first valve slide pilled to pitch. Gb, 1 3 4 , and F1 2 3 4 with first slide pulled to pitch. E is a false tone but if there's a stomping low E in the tune I'm probably using the Bb horn anyway. On the Bb's I've never run across a low B natural on a job but my horns all have great false tones. If Eb was my only horn I'd definitely want the fifth valve but I used it as an extension of my various Bb's. It seems that some are not on board with slide pulling which is quite understandable given that manufacturers have made fifth valves available for quite awhile now but I found it very doable.Just my 2cents. Ed

[bloke]

Just thought I'd toss this out there. I've played mostly four valved tubas, the exceptions were MW 2155, Mirafone 186, Sam Gnagey C, and a Marzan 4+1 Bb. And I played more or less full time from 70' to 2016 usually in full time (5 day a week) situations. Over that time I evolved into a set of fingerings. In particular for Eb ...Ab, 1+4 with the first slide pulled to pitch. G, 1 2 +4 with first valve slide pilled to pitch. Gb, 1 3 4 , and F1 2 3 4 with first slide pulled to pitch. E is a false tone but if there's a stomping low E in the tune I'm probably using the Bb horn anyway. On the Bb's I've never run across a low B natural on a job but my horns all have great false tones. If Eb was my only horn I'd definitely want the fifth valve but I used it as an extension of my various Bb's. It seems that some are not on board with slide pulling which is quite understandable given that manufacturers have made fifth valves available for quite awhile now but I found it very doable.Just my 2cents. Ed

bravo...
It's all do-able, when one is determined.
My first C tuba was a 186 with four rotors (with an adviser rhetorically asking, "Why would you ever need five valves?")
I was told to play F with 1-2-4, which stunk - unless fff (read: riding so sharp that it was in tune)
I got tired of that mess, realized that the FOURTH slide (on the C version) is LONG, and TILTED OUTWARD, well-aligned at the factory, and that there MIGHT POSSIBLY be a purpose for it being designed that way...
...so (duh...) I realized that I could pull 4 for a 1-4 F, I could (of course) play 2-3-4 for E, I could pull the 4th slide BACK out, were it that I was actually asked to play a (1-3-4) E-flat, and 1-2-3-4) D...and - further, I found that no one ever seemed to ask me to play much of anything below E or (maybe...??) E-flat, and that I certainly had no need for a double-low C-sharp (which would have required "pulling out all the stops").
>> All of that having been said (and I've expressed this preference all too often, so as most everyone has become weary of hearing it expressed), I much prefer mashing on buttons to - suddenly, and in the midst of things - pulling and pushing on things.
a final word: That same "run out of in-tune fingerings range" (on a bass tuba - vs. a contrabass tuba) is a range whereby one is geometrically more likely to find those pitches requested on a piece of paper.

[Casca Grossa]

I played on a borrowed one for about 2 years in a British Brass Band. Yamaha supplied us with the instruments as a co-sponsor of the band. I really liked it. Good intonation. Nice low end. Good, solid horn. No complaints from me.

[MikeMason]

I had one for a while. Really liked it. Easy to play every note and a compelling,resonant sound. I never played it with an ensemble, so not really sure how micro intonation was. I just couldn’t or didn’t want to take the time to master the fingerings. I even considered having the 30-40 excerpts or solos I might ever play on a bass tuba transposed and bound, but decided to sell and keep seeking an f. I’m happy with my yam 621f with larger bell and main tuning slide stick. It did cost over 3X as much as the 321 E flat.

[the elephant]

A lot of folks will disagree with me, but I like that horn much better than the "nicer" compensating horn they made for decades before becoming a force in the brass banding world. I dislike compensating systems pretty much universally.

I feel that if you can get one with the extra in-slide 5th valve with the nifty lever then you have a very solid tuba. I would like to own one of these tubas someday, but I am not much of an Eb guy, either. So it is probably not in the cards for me.

I think that, while very elusive, the removable 4th slide (with the 5th valve and slide within it and a nice linkage and lever) is still available, perhaps not new. Photos are available, so someone can build you one, and, there is a spot where I would not be afraid to build in a permanent, independent 5th valve section. Others will disagree about the viability of that, and it would not be easy, but a 5th ROTOR could be designed into the horn. However, I would not try to add a vertical piston, at all, ever.

[LeMark]

A lot of folks will disagree with me, but I like that horn much better than the "nicer" compensating horn they made for decades before becoming a force in the brass banding world. I dislike compensating systems pretty much universally.

I feel that if you can get one with the extra in-slide 5th valve with the nifty lever then you have a very solid tuba. I would like to own one of these tubas someday, but I am not much of an Eb guy, either. So it is probably not in the cards for me.

I think that, while very elusive, the removable 4th slide (with the 5th valve and slide within it and a nice linkage and lever) is still available, perhaps not new. Photos are available, so someone can build you one, and, there is a spot where I would not be afraid to build in a permanent, independent 5th valve section. Others will disagree about the viability of that, and it would not be easy, but a 5th ROTOR could be designed into the horn. However, I would not try to add a vertical piston, at all, ever.

I think you're confusing the 381 with the euphonium. the 5th valve on the 381 was always built into the instrument.

[the elephant]

No, the 321 (not 381) had an optional 5th rotor that was in a replacement 4th slide. Within the 4th slide were the rotor, the 5th slide, and the lever. Neat package, and very handy. I have only seen one, and it was at Bob Giardinelli's old store on West 46th in Manhattan. Bob told me that Yamaha offered if only on special order. At the time it was an outrageous $500 (laughably cheap for today.)

[LeMark]

That's odd if that was an option why they would even make the 381. Wasn't the 381 a dependent system too?

[the elephant]

Wasn't the 381 compensating, like a completely different horn from the 321? I recall it being taller with a larger bell. The horns I trialed (with old Bob G. trying to get me to buy a set for my Army band - something I could not do but was comfortable allowing him to think I could) were made in 1986 or 1987.

[LeMark]

Nope, the 381 was a 321 with a 5th valve, like the photo I posted earlier

[the elephant]

Oh, I got it now. The ONLY Eb tubs they made back then were the 321 and the 632. That was the one I was thinking was the nicer one. There was no 381 at that time. The optional dependent 5th was probably made into a fixed valve to create the 381 later on down the road.

[bloke]

I bought a mildly-abused YEB-381 (maybe, it was three years ago)...met the tuba's owner in Helena, Arkansas to buy it, slicked it out, and then discovered that the 5th circuit didn't "compensate" for use with the 4th valve depressed...so I had to lengthen the 5th circuit...considerably...so that it was useful.

Once I prettied it up (and rendered the 5th circuit useful), I sold it to a young lady (at the urging of her teacher) at one of the Army Conferences.

What I'm attempting to inform anyone reading this is that the somewhat-rare 4+1 version (again: the YEB-381) - even in mint condition - is not "play-ready"...A buyer will feel compelled to take it to some repair-person, to remedy the 5th circuit length issue.

[donn]

Since the valve combinations thing is interesting with Eb tubas, and I've been sort of casually learning a web programming language, I wrote up a program primarily for my own amusement, and here it is perhaps for yours as well: Valve Lab. I expect it will also steal all your passwords, empty your bank account and scratch your hard disk; use at your own risk.



Should be somewhat self explanatory, once explained a few times. You can select whatever key of tuba you like, as long as it's one of the four common keys; it doesn't make much real difference, since most of the parameters are relative, but of course the names of the notes will change.

The controls at the top allow you to select valve size, in half steps, so the default for the 1st is "2", etc. You get up to seven valves, and they're just in right to left order - remember, the number at the top is the number of half steps, not the ordinal number of the valve.

The slide adjustments, and the pull adjustments, are way oversized. I have a "kicker" slide on my BBb tuba that's probably about 6 cm, so to observe the potential effect I just use about a 6th of the slider. What's interesting, I think, is the way a change in valve tuning affects various combinations.

The main caveat is that in the low register, in my experience anyway the actual pitches aren't predicted by this analysis. The closer the tuning is to center, the better the notes may sound, but they'll come out more or less the same pitch anyway. When I want to test the setup, I use a note in the upper bass clef, which will be more tied to the valve length.

[2nd tenor]

I played on a borrowed one for about 2 years in a British Brass Band. Yamaha supplied us with the instruments as a co-sponsor of the band. I really liked it. Good intonation. Nice low end. Good, solid horn. No complaints from me.

Thank you. I could envisage the YEB-321 being very well suited for that purpose. The two Eb Basses (in a British style Brass Band) sometimes have a split pitch part and additionally the BBb’s are there to provide the low notes - bass chords are not infrequently produced by the Bass section. In my Brass Band experience I’m very rarely asked to play so low that I need a fourth valve. The YEB-632 (Eb with compensation) would be more the norm in a Brass Band than the 321, but I recon that most people would get by just fine with the (much) cheaper 321. The Brass Band norm is a Besson Sovereign, or the older Imperial four valve compensator on which the Sovereign was based.

[bloke]

If if the goal is to have something for brass band… and if E-flat parts are rarely if ever written below A-natural (??), I’m thinking I might actually prefer a 3-valve compensating over a 4-valve non-compensating. Though the Yamaha 321 would be just as good of an instrument - playing/sounding-wise, the A and E (1-2-3) be more in tune on the 3-valve compensating than (2-4) on the 4-valve non-compensating, and with four valves, there really isn’t much of anything useful (without frantic slide pulling) below A-natural, anyway.
(preface: only referring to modern pitch instruments)
Unlike the 3+1 compensating E-flats with 15-inch bells (which are rare on eBay - if in good condition), the 3-valve compensating E-flats with 15-inch bells in good condition are fairly common, and sell for considerably lower prices. It’s not uncommon to see them either not sell, or sell for sub-$1000 prices.
===========
I’ve personally never been lucky enough to have had an opportunity to rehearse and perform with a brass band, but – since the late 1970s - E-flat instruments have been my instruments-of-choice to use in jazz combos. The low range is important in those combos, and whenever I’ve had a three or four valve NON-compensating E-flat instrument, I’ve ended up selling them - because they frustrated me...and I actually added a fifth valve to one of them that was rotary… (It was a small bore 4-valve East German E-flat helicon.)
Again, I’m ignorant about brass band part-writing, but if the E-flat parts never are written below A (??), the low range really isn’t an issue, I suppose.

[2nd tenor]

The situation I referred to with Brass Bands is very variable, has historic roots and depends on the standard to which you play; Wind/Concert Bands (of which there are relatively few) and Armed Services Bands add an extra dimension.

Now and historically Brass Bands had two Eb Basses and two Bb Basses, if you go back far enough both would be three valve non compensating instruments. Compensating four valve Eb Basses have been about for a bit over 100 years but they were and are expensive so the original three valve instruments continued to be used alongside and instead of more expensive instruments. That causes a problem for music publishers so historically they tended to stick to making sure that their publications could be played on three valve instruments. Time has passed and four valve compensating is the norm for Brass Bands so some composers take advantage of the lower range, but most Bands have music libraries full of (older) pieces that were written without four valve instruments in mind.

Armed Forces Bands in the U.K. are now different and this is my understanding of things. BBb Basses are heavy and above what is now considered to be an acceptable weight for marching. Our Forces have changed to using Eb Basses with four compensating valves and they seem sufficient.

Brass Bands play in transposed Treble Clef and whilst I ‘can’ play in Bass Clef I’m not as hot on the note names as I should be. A three valve instruments range would be Concert Eb above the stave to Concert Eb below the stave plus wherever the depressed 1+2+3 takes you to (Eb-> Dd ->C ->A?). In theory a four valve instrument adds an octave below that but for a reasonable tone the peddle Concert C is the limit of my chops. It’s academic anyway cause I really can’t recall anything ever calling for more than the 4+1+2 valve (Eb ->Bb ->Ab -> G?) so just a tone below what the three valve instrument will deliver. Of course that’s my experience and much better players might well have had more demanding experiences. Also the four valve compensated instrument plays pretty much in tune whereas a three valve non comp instrument will play sharp on the Concert E, etc.

Of course an Eb Bass in a Brass Band and an Eb Bass in the wider context are two different things and so if someone wants to use an Eb Tuba in Orchestral and Wind Band settings then the range below Concert A might well be required and that requires a fourth valve.