TubaForum.net

LeMark wrote: ↑Mon Jan 22, 2024 10:56 am …It's the same tuba that Wade has for sale now. If I was an F tuba guy I would be all over that

I think it’s gone anyway.

Was the 188 a very late ‘70s design?

I’m not clever enough to answer the original assignment. The two European tubas that I have from the ‘80s are both (I think) designs from the ‘70s, but they’re quite nice.

arpthark wrote: ↑Mon Jan 22, 2024 7:59 am At the risk of being tubapolitical, can we get a list of known stinkers going?

The best answer to this question would be to ask @bort2.0 which tubas he regrets letting go. Then you know the rest are stinkers.

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Frank

jtm wrote: ↑Mon Jan 22, 2024 1:24 pm

LeMark wrote: ↑Mon Jan 22, 2024 10:56 am …It's the same tuba that Wade has for sale now. If I was an F tuba guy I would be all over that

I think it’s gone anyway.

Was the 188 a very late ‘70s design?

I’m not clever enough to answer the original assignment. The two European tubas that I have from the ‘80s are both (I think) designs from the ‘70s, but they’re quite nice.

You're right -- late 70s design, early 80s production. Norm Pearson says at http://forums.chisham.com/viewtopic.php?t=47661 :

Norm Pearson wrote:The 188 was in development in the mid 1970's while I was studying with Jim Self and Tommy Johnson.

Jim Self brought the first prototype to a lesson around 1976. It had a more open wrap and was taller than the production 188. It also had a vertical tuning slide and looked a lot like a Rudy Meinle 4/4. (same pitch tendency's as well, hmmmm).

The next incarnation I saw was at the 2nd International Tuba Euphonium Conference (ITEC) in June 1978 at USC. The tuba had been completely reworked and looked as it does now with a compact wrap and horizontal tuning slide. It was still a prototype but was basically ready for production.

The first run of 188's were finished in the spring of 1981 and sent to Sun Valley. I bought mine in June 1981 out of the very first shipment of three. The other two went to Steve Klein (LA Freelancer) and Michael Margules (USC Student). The first prototype was sold to Fred Greene (now a LA Free Lancer) and later was owned by Chuck Koontz. Roger Bobo, Tommy Johnson and Jim Self received their instruments from the next shipment.

The 188 is one of my all time favorite tubas: Great sound, pitch, response, Projection and ergonomics.

yeah...I wasn't as connected to Mirafone USA as was Norm, but my memory is that the production of 188 tubas was just post-1980.
I bought a gold-brass 188 c. 1983...Bargain priced and purchased direct from the Valencia, CA folk, it was (imo) the worst one that I've ever played.
...oh, I could make it "go", but it wasn't fun...and the #2 rotor was never reliable. It featured a L.H. 5th valve with a fold-up-out-of-the-way-for-storage 5th valve slide thumb trigger...which makes me wonder (as that was something that I've seen on his instruments) a Roger Bobo reject (??).

fwiw, I judge the best 188 tubas to have been made early on, and of yellow brass.

Hirsbrunner 6/4 C (again) was then as well...which is why I picked that date.

Before the dawn of that decade, available designs/models seemed to have been fairly static.

fantasy time-travel:
If I could go back in time had $1200 to spend back then (a TON of dough !!!), I would time travel to Sun Valley, CA in 1969 and would have hand-picked (brand spankin' new) the SPECIFIC 186 5-rotor C that Bill Holt now owns...That instrument could have done me quite well for QUITE a long time...and (no "negative talk" of specific models) quite a bit better than a whole MESS of stuff which (again) began appearing a decade later...

...cough, cough...

Big Francis wrote: ↑Mon Jan 22, 2024 1:53 pm

arpthark wrote: ↑Mon Jan 22, 2024 7:59 am At the risk of being tubapolitical, can we get a list of known stinkers going?

The best answer to this question would be to ask @bort2.0 which tubas he regrets letting go. Then you know the rest are stinkers.

-
Frank

Hrmm... now I have to think how many of my tubas (overall) were designed SINCE 1980. Some of them, but not all of them.

Breaking the rules though, there are really only two truly terrible European-made tubas that I can recall, and most of that is likely attributed to the particular example that I tried:

Besson 995CC -- there was one at the Dillon booth at USABTEC like 20 years ago, and no matter how much I tried, the C, Db and D in the staff all sounded exactly the same, with any combination of fingerings. It was the weirdest thing, and I just kind of sat it down and said "I think something's wrong with this." Of course, that was also right next to the fully-handmade (whatever the name of it was -- but the tip-top model) of the Nirschl 4/4 CC... and that was likely the best tuba I have ever played in my life. Incredible in every way, except I thought the 5th valve under my palm was sorta weird. (To which Matt said something like "there's always something".) I wanted to buy it, but backed out on the (then-a-lot-of-money) price of $10,500...even though no tax, and no shipping to worry about.

Cerveny kaiser CC and/or BBb -- okay fine, the older ones. To me, they play like metal garbage cans. I can eventually make them sound good, and it's not the whole "you have to play a Kaiser tuba differently." It was more like, the combination of thin metal, resonance to the point of "is this thing going to hold up or fall apart in my hands", and a sound that I can only describe as "hollow." I played a newer Kaiser CC about a year ago, and it was a pretty decent tuba.

Otherwise, no stinkers. Especially not the newer stuff. All of my buy/sell/trade was based either on personal preference, ergonomics, or