R&M Kaisertuba is Finally Home!

[Three Valves]

Wow, that thing is HUGE!

That’s what she said.

[gnimoyw]

Awesome looking tuba!

[Alebeard]

I have to say, she cleaned up very well!! Polished, all slide grease cleaned off and replaced, valves and joints all lubed. Now I need to get myself to play as decent as she looks!

[Three Valves]

That wide throated bell….

[cjk]

I’m curious about height, bell diameter, and bore size.

[Alebeard]

I’m curious about height, bell diameter, and bore size.

Not sure on bore but height is 43.3in and bell is 16.5in.

[Grumpikins]

Amazing what soap and water and elbow grease can do. That thing is beautiful!

Sent from my SM-J327VPP using Tapatalk

[Kontrabasstuba]

VERY bad joke:

You should put a Chinese York 6/4 bell on there, a shorter mouthpipe, a horizontal main slide, and shorten it to C - so someone could use it in college.

[Alebeard]

Got a good couple hours of practice in today. First impressions; it seems forgiving when it comes to tone but it does take a lot of air to make solid notes. I very much enjoyed practice today and how well it plays! I am still working out what mouthpiece are going to work well for me. Between the Olka CB1 and the Megatone 22, the CB1 seemed a bit easier to hit consistent tone with. Not sure what other mouthpieces to try.
I do feel like my tone and playability improved considerably today with getting in a couple hours of practice. I am finding that I am relearning how to read key signatures and the associated fingerings. Hopefully a good couple of weeks of practice will get me most of the way back to where I was when I stopped playing.

Cheers,
Jared

[Alebeard]

A lot of the “it takes a lot of air” feeling is your chops being inefficient. That should come around.

[Alebeard]

A lot of the “it takes a lot of air” feeling is your chops being inefficient. That should come around.

I think so. I plan on practicing every day. I have orchestra practice every Thursday evening as well. Looking forward to seeing what they are playing.

Cheers,
Jared

[arpthark]

A lot of the “it takes a lot of air” feeling is your chops being inefficient. That should come around.

I think so. I plan on practicing every day. I have orchestra practice every Thursday evening as well. Looking forward to seeing what they are playing.

Cheers,
Jared

Keep us updated!

[bloke]

yep...' interesting how "the more constructive practice, the less air required"...and I don't believe it has much of anything to do with "developing one's lungs".

[Yorkboy]

That bell means BUSINESS!

[Alebeard]

Finally got the stand for it today. This thing is surprisingly solid and sturdy!

[Oedipoes]

Nice kaiser tuba!

[Rick Denney]

This tuba begs me to do some digging. The only other Reichel I've seen that has a good picture is on the Brass and Pipes blog.



This kaiser is different in just about every way (I mean, beyond being a kaiser contrabass instead of a dainty little 4-valve F tuba). The solder-ons are diamond-shaped on the F, and round on this one. The bows are squared off on the F and circular on this kaiser. The 45-degree entry and exit from the valves were pretty common up until the 60's, I guess, but they are vertical on the F.

Hornucopia shows a couple of Reichel's but without detailed photos.

https://www.horn-u-copia.net/show.php?s ... eichel+%22

Notice the lovely wire-type S-links on the F. Of course, the linkages have been replaced on the kaiser. But both have wide finger buttons that I don't usually see on East German instruments older than the 70's or so.

Most interestingly to me, the F has classic B&S braces from the 60's and maybe early 70's--wire bases filed to a point and machined spindles with a double-ended taper and a groove in the middle where the fat ends meet. This F tuba was overhauled in the 90's, so maybe that stuff was replaced then, but I rather suspect (read: guess, because I certainly didn't don't have a source) that by the 50's, Reichel had been absorbed into VEB Sachsiche Musikinstrumentenfabrik, the general Saxony-area state-owned conglomerate.

Apparently, the last Reichel passed away in 1962, and B&P reports (citing the museum in Markneukirchen as a source) that he was "the last owner". But what did ownership mean in East Germany in the 50's? Certainly, by the early 50's, most of the old Markneukirchen and Klingenthal companies had been rolled up into VEB Sachsiche Musikinstrumentenfabrik, which was later known simply as VEB. "VEB" is just East German for "the people's enterprise" in Communist lingo, and means roughly the same thing as "corporation" in the West except that it is state-owned (given that the "people" weren't really allowed to own much of anything in the "means of production" category). So, I'm supposing that instruments made in the early 50's and labeled "VEB" were simply left without a brand while the notion of branding was in hiding. The old Hess factory portion of that conglomerate became B&S with its many labels, but those labels didn't appear until the 60's.

Hess was a retailer who started making instruments in the late 30's (which is when they hired away leading instrument makers from other companies, e.g. Andreas Crönlein, previously from Alexander and the reason why instruments such as the B&Setc. 101 and 104 are so Alexander-like). But Reichel had always made brass instruments in Markneukirchen since the late 1800's, and they also traded staff with lots of big-name makers of that era.

But it may also be that by the 50's, the Reichel factory, though part of the VEB conglomerate, was still doing its own thing, but traded parts or worked with other makers in the conglomerate to obtain parts for some instruments. Maybe this kaiser was a standard product in their catalog and didn't need outside parts, but the F pictured above was a special and used a lot of parts acquired from sister factories.

Rick "wondering what the tuba landscape would be like if Germany had never been divided" Denney

[Alebeard]

This tuba begs me to do some digging. The only other Reichel I've seen that has a good picture is on the Brass and Pipes blog.



This kaiser is different in just about every way (I mean, beyond being a kaiser contrabass instead of a dainty little 4-valve F tuba). The solder-ons are diamond-shaped on the F, and round on this one. The bows are squared off on the F and circular on this kaiser. The 45-degree entry and exit from the valves were pretty common up until the 60's, I guess, but they are vertical on the F.

Hornucopia shows a couple of Reichel's but without detailed photos.

https://www.horn-u-copia.net/show.php?s ... eichel+%22

Notice the lovely wire-type S-links on the F. Of course, the linkages have been replaced on the kaiser. But both have wide finger buttons that I don't usually see on East German instruments older than the 70's or so.

Most interestingly to me, the F has classic B&S braces from the 60's and maybe early 70's--wire bases filed to a point and machined spindles with a double-ended taper and a groove in the middle where the fat ends meet. This F tuba was overhauled in the 90's, so maybe that stuff was replaced then, but I rather suspect (read: guess, because I certainly didn't don't have a source) that by the 50's, Reichel had been absorbed into VEB Sachsiche Musikinstrumentenfabrik, the general Saxony-area state-owned conglomerate.

Apparently, the last Reichel passed away in 1962, and B&P reports (citing the museum in Markneukirchen as a source) that he was "the last owner". But what did ownership mean in East Germany in the 50's? Certainly, by the early 50's, most of the old Markneukirchen and Klingenthal companies had been rolled up into VEB Sachsiche Musikinstrumentenfabrik, which was later known simply as VEB. "VEB" is just East German for "the people's enterprise" in Communist lingo, and means roughly the same thing as "corporation" in the West except that it is state-owned (given that the "people" weren't really allowed to own much of anything in the "means of production" category). So, I'm supposing that instruments made in the early 50's and labeled "VEB" were simply left without a brand while the notion of branding was in hiding. The old Hess factory portion of that conglomerate became B&S with its many labels, but those labels didn't appear until the 60's.

Hess was a retailer who started making instruments in the late 30's (which is when they hired away leading instrument makers from other companies, e.g. Andreas Crönlein, previously from Alexander and the reason why instruments such as the B&Setc. 101 and 104 are so Alexander-like). But Reichel had always made brass instruments in Markneukirchen since the late 1800's, and they also traded staff with lots of big-name makers of that era.

But it may also be that by the 50's, the Reichel factory, though part of the VEB conglomerate, was still doing its own thing, but traded parts or worked with other makers in the conglomerate to obtain parts for some instruments. Maybe this kaiser was a standard product in their catalog and didn't need outside parts, but the F pictured above was a special and used a lot of parts acquired from sister factories.

Rick "wondering what the tuba landscape would be like if Germany had never been divided" Denney

Wow, thank you for all this info! I have been wondering the same thing, the origins and history on this survivor of a beautiful horn.

Cheers,
Jared

[bloke]

Oddly, putting Germany back together defined that eastern German standard tuba models were no longer handmade, and that more automated production versions were made "strong like bull".

[Alebeard]

Had my first practice with the orchestra. It went very well, I played better with the group than any of my previous practices so far. I am pretty rusty still with sight reading so I got some work to do with that. Overall, I am extremely happy and excited to be back playing with a group again!

Cheers,
Jared