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Chuck did confirm this is a chinese built willson, so it will be priced in between the 3 valve and 4 valve non compensating Eastman Euphs.  

Could be a winner!  I do prefer getting 4 valve instruments into the hands of students ASAP, but if someone is dead set against that, this is an excellent option!  


now we get to nag them into a 3v compensating sousaphone!

4-valve non-comp doesn't offer many advantages (to anyone).

- They add considerable weight, which makes them unwieldy to many young players.
- They are considerably more fragile, which always defines more damage and higher repair costs (as well as longer repair delays).
- They don't repair the B natural and E natural tuning enough to be worth it.
- The only legitimately usable on-the-fly pitch (below "low" E") is "low" D (which appears in very few large ensemble compositions.
- There COULD be some advantages, were players to actively operate the 1st slide (such as using 1-3 for C and F, so that the 4th slide could be pulled out far enough to remedy B and E), but students aren't going to do that, and the majority of adult amateurs are not going to do any of that either. Further, if the 1st slides on school tubas work well enough to be able to employ this tack, that slide will fall on the floor so many times each week that - within a couple of weeks - that slide will no longer slide with ease and the slide bow will be 50% flattened.

...but (as we've been told endlessly by a person who privately teaches the best students in schools with the wherewithal to fund private instruction) in Texas (where all students are above average in all ways), none of the above is true.

Recently, I was shown (by a band director who is doing a retirement middle school band directing job in the middle of nowhere in Texas...so middle of nowhere that - to get people to teach there - the town has to furnish free housing for teachers) pictures and a list of inventory...astonishing/fabulous/incredible (yes, really)...enough to easily outfit TWO large high schools with sets of VERY fine instruments... What an epic waste of Texas taxpayers' money.

Three-valve compensating:
It's high time it is brought back for school tubas and euphoniums.
Willson: We all knew it would - nearly immediately - be made in China, yes?

bloke wrote: ↑Sun Nov 17, 2024 9:26 pm Three-valve compensating:
It's high time it is brought back for school tubas and euphoniums.

Indeed. For me, even though it was built like a tank, the best school band tuba is a Besson New Standard 17-inch bell 3-valve comp tuba. Mine progressively fell apart on me and every two weeks I was having yet another solder joint re-soldered. So I sold it to a friend of mine who still plays it. (Yes, I told him about what was going on with it, and he wanted it anyway.) On the rare occasion I play euph, I have a B&H 3-valve comp with a mid-shank Wick Ultra 6. It does everything I need it to do, with all the advantages bloke sets forth in his post above. It's the only instrument I take to Tuba Christmas and I play the 2nd Euph part. Yes, I could take any number of instruments and take up too much space in section, but I defer to those: 1) whose only instrument may be something else and is what they bring; and 2) let the youngsters show off their instruments. I sit in a corner of the 2nd euph section and have no-stress fun filling in the texture.

I have a recording bell 3-valve comp (worn piston plating) Besson B-flat that's probably from the early 60s or sometime around then. I have a really excellent condition 70s 3+1 valve section to transplant onto it. (It's not very high priority upgrade for me...) The 24 inch thick gauge bell makes it a bit difficult to balance, but it's a really fine tuba for outdoor stuff, with the only really quirky pitch being E-flat in the staff being sharp (just like a Besson euphonium).

Those of you who own or have played recording bell tubas know that you can really only hear what they sound like when you turn the bell up at a stupid angle and sort of point it off to your right up at the ceiling, but - having done that enough times - I know that it has a really good sound.

... a few years ago, someone offered a vintage Yamaha 201 17-in bell on eBay for a really cheap price. I think about a foot or so had been cut off the bottom of it (??), but there was enough left for me to make a detachable upright bell out of it to fit the Besson, and I had a Besson male collar here, so I have both bells for this instrument. I really ought to finish the upgrade. It's really quite cool...
...but (again) it plays damn well as a three valve compensating. Before I even removed the horrible dents from the inner bows, I used it with the Memphis Symphony at an outdoor patriotic concert (at one of those Depression-era built "shell" outdoor concert venues). It really doesn't play any better now than it did with all those dents.

3-valve comp:
With the first and second valve combination length repaired, the first and third combination length repaired, the first second and third combination length repaired, and the false tones offered by a 24-inch recording bell, it sometimes makes me wonder why I mess with five valves, or even continue to think about upgrading it to 3 + 1 compensating.

bloke wrote: ↑Sun Nov 17, 2024 10:51 pm I have a recording bell 3-valve comp (worn piston plating) Besson B-flat that's probably from the early 60s or sometime around then. I have a really excellent condition 70s 3+1 valve section to transplant onto it. (It's not very high priority upgrade for me...) The 24 inch thick gauge bell makes it a bit difficult to balance, but it's a really fine tuba for outdoor stuff, with the only really quirky pitch being E-flat in the staff being sharp (just like a Besson euphonium).

Those of you who own or have played recording bell tubas know that you can really only hear what they sound like when you turn the bell up at a stupid angle and sort of point it off to your right up at the ceiling, but - having done that enough times - I know that it has a really good sound.

... a few years ago, someone offered a vintage Yamaha 201 17-in bell on eBay for a really cheap price. I think about a foot or so had been cut off the bottom of it (??), but there was enough left for me to make a detachable upright bell out of it to fit the Besson, and I had a Besson male collar here, so I have both bells for this instrument. I really ought to finish the upgrade. It's really quite cool...
...but (again) it plays damn well as a three valve compensating. Before I even removed the horrible dents from the inner bows, I used it with the Memphis Symphony at an outdoor patriotic concert (at one of those Depression-era built "shell" outdoor concert venues). It really doesn't play any better now than it did with all those dents.

3-valve comp:
With the first and second valve combination length repaired, the first and third combination length repaired, the first second and third combination length repaired, and the false tones offered by a 24-inch recording bell, it sometimes makes me wonder why I mess with five valves, or even continue to think about upgrading it to 3 + 1 compensating.

My advice: leave it as a 3-valve comp. Also, D just below the staff and G bottom line play better with 3rd valve alone, because the 3rd valve circuit doesn't need to be extended for 2+3 or 1+3 combinations, which is what the comp loops take care of. Also, as was the case with a 186 detachable bell that I had some years ago, the Eb intonation issues could be the result of the anti-node being interfered with by the detachable bell collar. When I changed the bell from detachable to a 17-inch Besson New Standard bell, the intonation issue resolved itself.

I like the (large B-flat tuba) sound of low E flat and D played on the second partial (versus false tones), even if false tones are really good, and those pitches are being written by arrangers more and more often, because they use electronic keyboards to compose.

Four valve compensating offers me the above. As far as your speculation about the tuning of E-flat in the staff, there's nothing to be done about the theoretical (nor the taper of an existing bow). A right hand thumb trigger could fix it, and I might even find more uses for a right hand thumb trigger than that single pitch.

back the it's-about-time reintroduction of three valve compensating euphoniums:

I'd be willing to wager that the finest high school euphonium player in a state would prevail in an audition with a three valve compensating instrument, and any judge who would promote an inferior player just because the inferior player played a D scale in three octaves, I would consider that judge to be a hack. Further, I would consider any wind band composer or arranger who wrote low D's in euphonium parts to be silly. They could argue that it would be a special effect, but the bass trombone and/or bassoon could offer the same effect.

back to the topic of raping taxpayers:
Fancy instruments should be financed by parental band organizations and individual students' parents. Fascism is defined as "government deciding what the private sector should/will sell and do". As I'm opposed to government building private professional ball clubs' billion-dollar arenas and stadiums (as well as endless other examples of fascism), I have to be conservative regarding spending in other ways, even if I happen to "like" other pastimes more than I'm interested in watching men hired to play games against each other.