This particular horn has been through a lot! It started life as a sliver, 4 valve Eb tuba. Before the horn came into my possession, two things were done to it, but in what order I cannot say. First the bad: this horn was dented up pretty significantly. These were straightened out some, but cosmetically, there are definitely imperfections that I've tried to capture in the images at the end of this post. Luckily, the valves seem to have been spared, as the compression is very good, but the slide alignment for the third and second slides are not great, and they require a ton of force to move. Onto the good: a previous owner converted this into a Yamaha 381 using original parts (a long half step dependent rotor). Once the horn came into my possession, I had the instrument cleaned and had my repairman (at the time, John Thomas in Santa Cruz) add length to the fifth valve slide to make it a long whole step, which make this instrument fully chromatic.
As far as playing characteristics are concerned, this is a really fun Eb tuba! Intonation is really good. I use 1+2, 2+3, and 1+3 for G, Gb, and F at the top of the staff, and for whatever reason, 3 works better than 1+2 for bottom line G. I use no other alternate fingerings with this instrument. Tone quality is pretty typical for these English style instruments, a really nice, round, tubby sound. This has a 15 inch bell as opposed to a modern Besson / Jinbao Eb's 19 inch bell. The small bell give you the ability to add a bit of "Fist" to the sound when the occasion calls for it. But don't be fooled, the projection and sheer loudness of these tubas is no joke! I don't feel outgunned in a orchestra using this for louder pieces.
Since people usually ask about mouthpieces, the Sellmansberger Imperial is an AWESOME match, and a Helleberg 7b is pretty good too. However, this horn is truly awful when played with a small bowl shaped mouthpiece like a PT 64, be forewarned!
I can be contacted on this board, or at daktx2 at gmail dot com. Pics below, thanks for reading!
