.

[matt g]

I'm somewhat suspicious that Yamaha's Chinese production began way back when "coarse threads" and plastic valve guides piston models first appeared...but this is ONLY a suspicion.

Quite possible that they moved the valve making part of the business to China early on. That’s some of the smallest tooling. The timeframe you mention is when they really exploded in the band room scene.

[russiantuba]

My guess would be the Conn 20K (is sousaphone considered a tuba?)

[BRS]

.

[Rick Denney]

It would not surprise me if a lot of the relatively non-precision parts were outsourced to Chinese factories long ago. I'm thinking things like valve crooks, doglegs and sweeps, and possibly raw valve casings even if the pistons were still made and fitted in Japan. And I'm sure that much more recently, many student-line instruments have been full assembled in China. This is a raw guess: Maybe about the time that "custom" instruments started appearing, the "non-custom" instruments were off-shored, but it may also be that they drew that line between the 3-series instruments and the 6-series instruments.

By the way, Switzerland requires that "Swiss Made" cannot be applied unless at least 60% of the value of the object was added in Switzerland. Assembly and adjustment is often a large enough share of the cost to meet that requirement. I don't know Japan's rules, but every country is different. To be able to say "Made in USA", an item must have the vast majority of its value produced in the USA, including ALL components that are "critical to the operation". That's why cars do not say "Made in USA", but rather (if anything) say where they are assembled. Lots of products say things like "Assembled in USA using globally sourced components", which would apply to most US-made electronic goods. The FTC is perhaps the most strict of any first-world country in the use of the country-of-origin label. What I no longer see, though, is any country-of-origin marking on many products. I don't know when that requirement was relaxed.

Rick "costs must not exceed price" Denney

[TubaRay]

Around the high schools I serve, mostly YBB-641 is the most common. A few 186s. Not much else.

[bloke]

A whole bunch of the Yamaha nickel plated pistons - in my experience - are soldered together with lead solder these days. This includes the cross ports (where the air flows through), as far as being fastened to the outside body tubes of the pistons.

I guess (??) that heating them up to that temperature means that - once they are assembled - there's less correction required, as far as being perfect cylinders.

[iiipopes]

Unfortunately, I agree with the majority: the Yammy. When I went to visit my high school band some years ago to visit with the director, the daughter of the lady who was a classmate of my Dad and was my elementary school private piano teacher, I was dismayed that the venerable King tubas had been cleared out for the Yammy tubas. She didn't do it, I could tell from their age and condition that had been done by her predecessor. Moreover, my community band rehearses at a local middle school. Same thing. The school's tubas are arranged at the side of the room: all Yammys.

[bloke]

A major university near me got rid of a bunch of silver King 2341's and replaced them with Yamaha ybb-641 tubas.
How clever.

[bort2.0]

By the way, Switzerland requires that "Swiss Made" cannot be applied unless at least 60% of the value of the object was added in Switzerland. Assembly and adjustment is often a large enough share of the cost to meet that requirement. I don't know Japan's rules, but every country is different. To be able to say "Made in USA", an item must have the vast majority of its value produced in the USA, including ALL components that are "critical to the operation". That's why cars do not say "Made in USA", but rather (if anything) say where they are assembled. Lots of products say things like "Assembled in USA using globally sourced components", which would apply to most US-made electronic goods. The FTC is perhaps the most strict of any first-world country in the use of the country-of-origin label. What I no longer see, though, is any country-of-origin marking on many products. I don't know when that requirement was relaxed.

Rick "costs must not exceed price" Denney

There are a LOT of rules and requirements and exceptions for how things are labeled... I read about this a while back, and it was simply too much to retain. Very interesting though... and depending on WHAT the product is, that dictates a lot of it. It's kind of an existential question, what DOES it mean to be "Made in ___"? So, as much as I laugh about things like "made of global materials" and "Designed in USA, Crafted in China", etc., there's only so many you can say in a few words about the long and complicated journey of building something.

For example, I *think* things like clothing, textiles, and automobiles are required to say if it's made in USA or not. But other products are NOT required to say Made in USA -- a company would likely choose to say that for good marketing/visibility, but they don't have to (IIRC, the rule is something like "if it doesn't say, then USA"). I just think so many things are made in China (and so few, comparatively in the US), that it's surprising to think something (especially crap plastic stuff) isn't made in China.

The USA "value produced" also gets weird with a lot of products, since there are so dang many pieces to it. Like a book... "Printed in USA" may or may not mean that the paper also came from the USA, or the ink, glue, cover/coating/dust jacket, etc. Some companies may go into detail "printed with globally sourced ink" or may go out of their way to make 100% of every everything from the US... but they don't have to say so. Oh, and the "made in..." laws are for the products themselves, not the tangential things like packaging. But then if the packaging was contracted out to another company, then that packaging will have "Made in..." labels as well. It gets complicated quickly.

When I think "Swiss Made," I think of watches and clocks, and you're right, the assembly is a huge cost that quickly meets that requirement. That's why some Swiss Made watches might have a case back that when you open it up, says "Made in China" on the inside (like literally, that one piece of metal is made in China). And if it's a quartz watch, you can bet that battery wasn't made in Switzerland either. I briefly had a very nice watch here, one of the bigger (not biggest) name Swiss brands, and jeez that thing was well-made. The box was crap, and the box said "Box made in China," which I thought was an interesting distinction to say "Box made in China"... as something printed directly on the box itself... to cast aside fear or misinterpretation that the watch itself was made in China.

Oh, and when I see "Swiss Made," besides being for marketing and being a trademark (I guess literally a trade. mark. as well)... that does mean a few things to me -- that 1) it was literally put together and built in Switzerland, 2) the process of doing so involves or at least invokes the perception of Swiss standards of excellence, precision, and quality control, and 3) the parts they put together are probably mostly from Switzerland, but I'm not expecting everything to be from there... initially that sounds like a disappointment, but for some stuff (like batteries), it's probably best to outsource that. It's a matter of efficiency, expertise, and repeatability -- I feel better about spending $ for the expensive Swiss engineers and watchmakers to do the extremely difficult precision work, vs spending that $ for them to build their version of watch batteries that have existed already for many many years.

I have long spoken against Chinese-made tubas, but a lot of that has been in terms of cloning tubas, making crappy instruments and wasting raw materials, or doing all of that at a politically-driven low cost of production aimed at crippling their global competition. It usually seems like the goal is to produce something like 85% of the same quality for 50% of the cost (making up those numbers). At some level, that's business and that's how economies and competition happen... but when production costs are artificially low, environmental regulations ignored, etc... it's a lot more complicated than that. If the Chinese to be capitalists, then please, just be capitalists.

But in partnerships like Willson and Eastman, I'm curious to know what the production is like. For example, the new Merlin tuba... are some parts made in China? If so, which ones? Are the most important things like the valves still made in Switzerland? Or is the Chinese factory rolling out the sheet brass to ship to Switzerland? Are the Chinese making the bells and branches, and they get put together in Switzerland? I'm not sure they'll ever tell us, but I'm curious. Because shipping anything TO Switzerland is NOT going to be easy or efficient.

Anyway, I'm rambling. And now @bloke will tell me I'm well past the 40 minutes needed to watch that short documentary. (Difference here -- I can type this listening to a work meeting, but can't type this and watch something at the same time. )

[Finetales]

It boggles my mind how Yamaha could make the euph 321 and Eb tuba 321 so good, but the Bb tuba 321 so awful.

[bloke]

It boggles my mind how Yamaha could make the euph 321 and Eb tuba 321 so good, but the Bb tuba 321 so awful.

The 1960's-70's Besson they copied is a really fine model, but they obviously didn't copy some stuff accurately...or else thought that "doing this-and-that differently" would be better ideas.

[LargeTuba]

Id say the pt-6 is still very popular

[martyneilan]

YBB-321/201

When I taught H.S. math for three years and assisted with the band, I was trying to explain to their (otherwise outstanding) band director why these were not good tubas and he couldn't understand it. He was a WW guy and to him all Yamaha instruments were first rate. Fortunately they had 2-3 rotary tubas from the 70's that were good horns; my favorite was an E. German stencil that sounded better than a 186. They were getting their 20K sousas overhauled one at a time, so they had some good horns for the field.

[PlayTheTuba]

A major university near me got rid of a bunch of silver King 2341's and replaced them with Yamaha ybb-641 tubas.
How clever.

https://youtube.com/clip/UgkxdTLqr7m7CE ... OAJrWTdhTz

Exactly what was going through my mind when I read that. If the link doesn't function correctly watch at least until the 36 second mark. Replace Ripley's (the purple dragon) roar with what bloke said above around the 22 second mark.

"Shorter" Version- There's ssssssssssssssssoooooooooooooooooo many new, better, and cheaper than the new 641 and even the 321 tubas. I will give Yamaha the credit having (from my readings over the years) a fantastic spare parts program. But their "buying in bulk plus educator discount" CAN'T BE THAT GOOD!!

And yes, maybe the Lidl's weren't in the market at that time as well as the (at the time of this writing) grand spanking new Yamaha 623. Maybe the Miraphone Hagens didn't exist too. Maybe they just don't like B&S or Miraphone BBb tubas for whatever myriad of reasons

Maybe they already have a fleet of them and only need 1 or 2 of them to maintain cohesion.

Perhaps Yamaha makes a bunch of other stuff they want to support them via other indirect methods. Etc.

Ignoring the used market of course. You can do worse than the 321, 641 (I passionately dislike you), and the 3+1 631.

This is nothing against bloke who shared this information

"Longer" version below
Too Long of a rant but not long enough!
I did get a chance to try new 321 BBb as well as the Weril versions. I find them to be alright. I despise the 641 though. Plus, assuming they wanted to stick with BBb tubas, the

Miraphone - sssssssooooooo many very good models. Any of them.
B&S - see Miraphone
Meinl Weston - heck the new Meinl Weston 4/4, the 97/2, with its super circular lead pipe that I haven't played is probably way better, a group of Fafners and/or Fasolts would probably sound glorious if they'd like some 5/4 tubas instead.
Besson - I'm sure the BE994 is still a nice tuba overall.
Lidl - I quite highly and gladly would recommend the LBB784-4GR, Moldau Deluxe model personally, but the other BBb models would work too
Eastman - Although with the EBB562 and EBB825, I'd try to save up for the B&S ones instead, but that's just me. But you'd still be very happy with the Eastman versions too. The EBB534 is the King 2341 but improved.
St Petersburgs - A well put together one
Wessex
Mack Brass - My long time tuba professor told me the YorkaZo 5000 5/4 B-flat plays great and he's picky. Love to try one day. The Hirsbrunner copy that Wessex also has is good, ESPECIALLY for the price.
John Packer
Yamaha - EVEN FROM YAMAHA THEMSELVES with the 632 Neo 3+1 BBb (still haven't gotten a chance to try one), the 623 with the 2 Main tuning slides
King THE KINGS they already had!!!! Or could've just bought new ones if the old ones were too worn out. Or the Eastman EBB534 instead.
Willson - Their BBb tubas are rather large... And I'm not sure if they made the Merlin 5/4 in BBb form... Plus I haven't tried the Merlin 3060-FA5 CC myself but I am certain it's still better than the 641 and 321.
Adams - If you got the dough go for it. Still a better purchase than those 321 or 641 BBb's.
And probably a bunch of other brands that may have escaped me that can EASILY be bought in the Continental USA
Alexander - Horn Guys in California stocks them. I'm sure the stores, like Dillons, Baltimore Brass, Buddy Rogers, probably Chuck Levins too, Tuba Exchange, Lee Stofer probably can too, and maybe other's that I can't remember can assist you. The modern ones would sound glorious. The Alexanders might cost slightly less than the Adams... but see Adams as well.
Rudy Meinl - Lee Stofer can help you out. See Alexander and Adams too.
Gronitz - Horn Guys have brought their horns from time to time. See Alexander
Jupiter - A new JTU1110 (JB-582 in the past) is also decent.

There are SO SO SO SO ad nauseum many new tubas today that cost less than new 641's and even 321's there really are no excuses to keep buying those things. There's NO WAY the "buying in bulk plus educator discount" can be THAT good today.

Yes, yes, I know, I know, Yamaha does a fantastic job of getting spare parts to places that need them. And if everyone had similar instruments they are out of tune together or they are "in tune" to each other. And if you already have a fleet of them it's better to slowly replace 1 or 2 at a time to maintain the ranks.

Maybe their favorite artist plays a super duper custom one of kind Yamaha and they want to support them. Maybe they love they way Yamaha designs engines for automobile manufacturers. Maybe they own or heard state of the art amplifiers, speakers, headphones from Yamaha and what to support the company in any way they can. Maybe they want/own one of their motorcycles and want to support Yamaha in other avenues so they keep making more motorcycles.

And yes, maybe the Lidl's weren't in the market at that time as well as the (at the time of this writing) grand spanking new Yamaha 623. Maybe the Miraphone Hagens didn't exist too. Maybe they just don't like B&S or Miraphone BBb tubas for whatever myriad of reasons

Read in a nasely sarcastic voice - "Well some makers instruments are too thin, delicate, and some of them are also just too tall paired with wittle bells..." (even though tubas are inanimate objects) TREAT THEM WITH RESPECT (as much as humanly possible, that goes for me too) AND THEY WILL TREAT YOU WITH RESPECT!!!!!!!

This is ignoring the used market of course. If you found a 321, 641 (still passionately dislike you), or the 3+1 compensating 631 for a reasonable price, more power to you. You can certainly do worse in the used market. If the 4th valve is to long of a reach for any 3+1 Contrabass tuba, just make a rod with a bar or ring on it, ie "linkage" and call it a day.

This is nothing against bloke who shared this information

Note:
I generally quite like TerminalMontages video. They also have an insane amount of Easter eggs too, even within the captions/subtitles too.

Edit: Added a few more stuff.

[PlayTheTuba]

Now that I have gotten that out of my system, there is nothing wrong with not liking any of the Miraphone or B&S BBb tubas.

To stay on topic the Besson 981 or 982 in the Eb tuba space.

But yes the Yamaha 201/321 and closely followed by the Yamaha 641 are indeed the most used tuba in the USA

[tofu]

T

[BRS]

.

[MN_TimTuba]

7th grade me getting ready for my first concert

[matt g]

Now that you post that, the old “long” vs “flipped up” third valve slide is often a telling indicator of when these were built which also seems to imply the playability of this model.