Altieri

[aarongsmith]

I was under the impression Donna retired a couple years ago and just closed down the business. Did somebody buy it?...

Altieri was purchased by JL Smith, a repair materials supplier. They haven't mentioned anything about tuba bags in a while and don't list them on their sitehttps://www.jlsmithco.com/product-categ ... ment-bags/, but that does not mean something is not in the works.

[Mary Ann]

Well, it won't fit in either the Altieri or the Protec bag I have --- height is not a problem but girth is. Ha, like so many tuba players!! (sorry I could not resist.)
So I'm thinking I need to ask the vendor what bag will fit it, and/or just get a garden cart and use a sleeping bag / padding of some type.

Physically, it is clearly at the limit of what I can do, but I can do it. Fits on the chair, valves in the right place, leadpipe angle ok, --- j u s t able to rock it over my knee onto the chair.

Doc told me these like a cup mouthpiece, and it was simply not working until I went back to the PT64, which is the only cup-like I have. I couldn't even get the F an octave below the staff to sound due to resistance; but -- if I "play it like a pedal tone" it is fine.
Very likely keeping it, but it is going to take some work to meld with it. It sounds like a great big NStar as opposed to a great big 184. i was hoping for that very dark sweet sound of the older Mphones, but I guess if I want that, and not the brighter NStar type sound, I'll have to find an old stovepipe one. I guess if I can have two Eb tubas, I can also have two BBb tubas, one new and one old.

The D in the staff, BTW is right on the money. With the 443 tuning slide pulled 3/16 of an inch, tuning is excellent. It is 64 degrees in here, so in summer it might get interesting with the tuning slide pull. At least it's not all the way in. I pretty much have the slides set but probably some fine adjustments to go. I can barely reach the spit valve.

[Rick Denney]

Re: Dents.

Dents depend on the instrument. Hand-hammered brass, if not overly annealed, has work-hardened well enough to resist some bumps that would easily dent annealed brass. And hand-hammered instruments are often thin, because of the sanding needed to remove the handwork marks.

Machine-made tubas often have quite a bit of residual stress in the brass, and a bump that piles on top of residual stress might make an ugly dent, while bumps that oppose the residual stress might simply unload that stress briefly to no ill effect. Machine-made tubas are often thicker, and often left work-hardened from the forming process. Some machine-made tubas (ahem! Cerveny ahem! Amati ahem!) are seemingly in the full annealed state when delivered, making them dent magnets in my personal experience.

Bell edges are weak, and the wider the pancake, the weaker they are. A dent bag over the shoulder puts the bell on the leading edge of the person/tuba unit, and the first thing that runs into an obstacle like a door jamb (building or car). The fold-over stress added to the bell by a top-loading back with a drawstring brings the damage threshold closer.

Protec bags are the worst for shoulder-strap positioning, in terms of the bottom of the back banging the back of the legs. The large Protec bag I used for a while was simply unusable with the shoulder straps, and I'm about a foot and a half taller than MA :)

My Götz Supersac does not have comfortable backpack straps as supplied, but I replaced them with straps for a military backpack, which helped. I still prefer the shoulder strap, but I didn't trust the supplied strap and replaced it with a high-strength strap from Red Ox. The bag is pretty high with respect to the straps--much better than the Protec--but not necessarily high enough for MA. The back leaves the bell unloaded but protects it quite well, given that it is a side-opening bag but with the side panel going around the bell just under the rim rather than across the bell as with the Cronkhite clamshell design. Top-loaders are a no-go for me, especially with a drawstring.

I think I would find a bag that works otherwise and then sew on strap anchors (D-rings) where they needed to be. Then, just use standard backpack straps from the camping store.

I owned an Altieri bag for my Cerveny and used it later for my Miraphone 186. The shoulder straps were in the right place vertically, but the structure of the bag was so loose that the whole package swayed side to side with poor control. Same with the luggage handle. And the tails of the shoulder straps could never be kept dressed well enough not to risk being stepped on when carrying the back by the luggage handle. The drawstring was a problem for reasons mentioned above. I traded it with a guy for his Brasswind-branded RB (Cronkhite) bag, which I still have and use over 30 years later. The Götz bag doesn't suffer from those deficiencies. And the heavy Cordura shell and three layers of padding provide far better protection from abrasions and glancing blows than the ripstop nylon Altieri used with quilted lightweight foam padding. But it's still no hard case.

Donna was great to work with and she can take credit for popularizing proper shoulder straps. But her bags were barely better than unpadded sacks for protection.

Rick "whose Hirsbrunner is more subject to dents from an overcrowded school band room than from the bag" Denney

[bloke]

What science/technology dictates isn't necessarily my experience, though I'm not pooh-poohing science/technology.

Thin metal dents more easily, and thick metal dents less easily, in my experience - regardless of fill-in-the-blank (annealing/hammering/hydraulic forming methods/temper/etc.)

.5mm is often about the thickness of many European tubas made of sheet metal, and .6mm or thicker is often the thickness of old American tubas made of sheet metal. Hydraulically-formed vary in thickness (but not as much as some people tend to believe, as the forming methods tend to do a pretty good job of keeping the thickness reasonably consistent).

My compact 4/4 Holton B-flat (very similar in design to those made on the other side of the Lake by York) was made of seamed sheet metal, is thicker and (when I've bumped it a couple of times) it didn't dent very deeply at all.
My Miraphone 98 (made of thinner sheet metal, and the same weight instrument - even though much larger) got mushed-in pretty badly (on the front side of the bell below the thumb ring) one time - when I was pushing it down into its tight-fitting Jakob Winter case. (Fortunately, I know someone who can fix stuff like that not leaving a trace, but I'll never make that miscalculation again.)

Another thing that has an effect is the size-vs.-thickness factor.
Over the years, things have happened to my F tuba (such as sliding off a church pew - EVEN THOUGH - the church pew slanted towards the back). It's probably another example of a .5mm thick tuba (as - even though it sports 6 rotors - it weighs little more than 17 lbs.), but it has never been seriously dented, and I know that - were the same mishaps to have happened to larger .5mm thick tubas - the consequences of some of those mishaps would have been much worse.

Again...Don't ask me to build a bridge across a river, lake, or oceanic inlet, but I've had enough experience (with various types of one-person work) to be able to predict what's strong enough to support itself in various ways (at least, in regards to the types of jobs I've undertaken).

[tofu]

[

[bloke]

Someone tell me where I'm wrong:

Isn't 443 hz (vs. 440 hz.) only about 12 hundredths of a semitone sharper?

With an F or E-flat tuba, I don't believe I have to pull all that much to lower the open tuba's pitch 12 c.

I don't know whether Miraphone means that 443 hz. A-tuning is with the main slide pushed all the way in...at what temperature, or what...
...but even if it's with the slide out 5/8th of an inch - I suspect I will still have enough available pull (with a typical Miraphone main slide) to reach A = 440 hz. and probably a good bit lower (at c. 68 - 72 F. air temperature)...but tubas tend to warm up to the same temperature (after a while) with me holding them close to myself and me blowing into them.

something else:
My Miraphone 98 tuba specs claim A=443 tuning, but I had to shorten the main slide ferrules (avoiding shortening the slide bow or the slide tubes) to get be able to EASILY reach A=440, and I suspect that it would be a bit difficult (even now) for me to play the instrument much above (on average, obviously) A=441.5 or so, without allowing myself to "blow sharp". LOL...as I have to do - occasionally - depending upon with whom I'm hired to play. Do Miraphone's testers play with a pinched/closed-down sound...or with TU-23 mouthpieces, or in a 75 F. heated room, or something like that?

[Mary Ann]

The D in the staff, BTW is right on the money. With the 443 tuning slide pulled 3/16 of an inch, tuning is excellent. It is 64 degrees in here, so in summer it might get interesting with the tuning slide pull. At least it's not all the way in. I pretty much have the slides set but probably some fine adjustments to go. I can barely reach the spit valve.

Was this horn made for the European market or did you request this?

It just came this way from a USA vendor of tubas. For me, this is not even a slight problem because I have a tendency to be flat on brass instruments (and I was not flat before dystonia; but my (now "world class on the horn" ) sound quality has *improved* quite a bit since dystonia and re-learning to play differently. The NStar came back to me with a "brass band tuning slide" that is probably 443, but a good inch shorter than the original one. I am using that slide on the Star to be on pitch with everybody else, and the brass band tunes to 440.

I think with the Hagen this is going to turn out to be "love the one you're with." I might have been better off with a 282 or an older 184-186, but -- this is what I got. It is a bit of an air hog, and I am even more appreciating what I can do with the NStar, but I also think I can learn to manage this one. I am getting light headed blowing it and am not as loud as I am on the Star. (I'm told the NStar carries VERY well in a band situation, and when I played it in a community orchestra years ago I also got positive feedback.) Yesterday playing with my trumpet friend, I was seeing stars at one point from hyperventilation, but I remember similar problems to adjust to with my first 184 CC about 15 years ago. And while I'm not 15 years younger any more, I think I can still do it. The ergonomics and the intonation are important considerations, and they are good. Anyone wandering in the neighborhood of Tucson is welcome to come give it a blow.

[Rick Denney]

...
Again...Don't ask me to build a bridge across a river, lake, or oceanic inlet, but I've had enough experience (with various types of one-person work) to be able to predict what's strong enough to support itself in various ways (at least, in regards to the types of jobs I've undertaken).

There's nothing in what I wrote, most of which is based on about the same amount of experience carrying around tubas as you have, that contradicts anything of what you wrote. Additionally, I'm a klutz barely capable of remaining upright most of the time, and seem to play in places that don't provide unloading privileges by the door, etc.

But when a tuba the size of the 98 weighs 6 or 7 pounds lighter than other tubas of similar size, the only possible explanation is that the brass is thinner, which you have acknowledged. And you have stated that it is thinner because it was handmade, and I think that can only be explained by lots of sanding. But some tubas dent more easily than others, even though they seem to be about the same thickness, and I remain confident that the proximity to the annealed state explains it for the most part.

My hand-hammered Hirsbrunner isn't all that light, but the hand-hammered B&S-101 is pretty light. And it's been hand-hammered a few times :)

I'm always a bit surprised at how light my Holton is, and it's monkey-made. But then air is pretty light, and that tuba encompasses a lot of it.

Rick "who has never dented a tuba stuffing it into a hard case, but can own a few dents that occurred while the tuba was inside a gig bag" Denney

[bloke]

I believe it's thin simple because the sheet brass they used is something like .5mm thick.

I think if anyone tried to expand a hydraulic tube that started out only that thick, they'd be up (you know what) Creek.

The sheet brass used to make any "handmade" instrument can be any thickness (.6, .65, .7...) as long as it can still be worked, which is why yours is probably thicker and heavier. I would have bought mine if it weighed 3- 5 lb more, I wasn't paying attention to the weight when the model first impressed the hell out of me a decade ago.

Something I wish were different...The nickel caps are made of super thick nickel, and are arched up with a considerable space between those caps and the brass bows. The previous owner put a couple of fingertip size chips in the upper one, and there's no way to get those out other than soldering a ricochet tool to each of those dents and pounding them out backwards. Were those caps flat against the bows and thin - like my old B&S tuba, I could take care of those with a magnet.