Reverb So Cal: Cerveny 601 BBb

[sugawi]

https://reverb.com/item/73626609

[arpthark]

I briefly owned a 601 BBb. It was the largest tuba I have ever played.

edit for a crappy 2016 photo:

[jtm]

I briefly owned a 601 BBb. It was the largest tuba I have ever played.

edit for a crappy 2016 photo:

That barely even looks real!

[arpthark]

I briefly owned a 601 BBb. It was the largest tuba I have ever played.

edit for a crappy 2016 photo:

That barely even looks real!

To be fair, I am a fairly short guy with a short torso (5'6" on a good day), but yes, it was ridiculous. I honestly couldn't even tell you how it sounded in a hall, because my ceilings were low and I never even got it out of the apartment to play it until I sold it.

[TheHatTuba]

That's pretty close...

[LeMark]

I have the CC version of this. Great tubas

I'm 6 foot 8, so it doesn't look as extreme next to me

[arpthark]

I have the CC version of this. Great tubas

I'm 6 foot 8, so it doesn't look as comical next to me

I bet my Yamaha 621 F copy would look like a euphonium next to ya!

[LeMark]

This Eb is about that size

[arpthark]

This thread is just reminding me how much I like Cervenys and miss my old Piggy.

[LeMark]

Me too brother

[bort2.0]

Very nice looking tuba, I actually think these glamour shots do a great job of making the tuba look 1) as large as it actually is and 2) like a normally-proportioned tuba. I think photographs of Kaiser tubas rarely capture their sheer presence and girth... most pictures of the MW Fafner, even, look kind of "meh" when out of context. I also appreciate the honesty in the Reverb advertisement... some of those 601s are terrible. I've played a few, and there was a lot of variation.

One older 601 was at one of the "big 2" stores (but I forget which!) and was described as being "extremely resonant." Well, that was true, to the extreme that the entire tuba vibrated when I played it. Not like "loose things made buzzing sounds," but rather "the metal on this tuba is shaking when I play it." It was the weirdest thing, and in all the bad ways. Frankly, so much energy seemed to be lost through this resonance that I really questioned how much power actually carried and projected beyond the tuba itself. Hard pass!

A friend in college also had a 601 (or maybe a pre-601 or whatever... but it was the Kaiser CC). He sounded incredible on it. Big guy, not quite as tall as Mark, but he could physically handle the breath support needed to command that tuba like it was half of its size. I tried it a few times... it wasn't really my favorite, but I think like many Kaiser tubas, it just takes a different approach and needs some practice to get -- and stay -- on top of it. I wouldn't say that I didn't have the air for it, but it wasn't the air I was used to feeding into my PT-3, that's for sure!

Around this time last year, I got to try a brand new Cerveny 6/4 CC, and I liked it. Same thing, that it seemed like I would have needed a little time to adapt to it, but it played well, nice valves, and was a pretty good tuba. Biggest concern was control, and flexibility to use the tuba in

I've seen a number of videos of 601's on YouTube, and don't recall any that I particularly liked. Either pinched tone and not a great sound, or (for lack of a better description) a "floppy" sound that was unfocused and not fun to hear. That said... these tubas NEED a large space for their sound to develop and be fully realized, and a Youtube video is not a fair place to make a lot of judgments. Even my Rudy 5/4 BBb sounded weird in my house... but in a large hall, the first note made me smile and laugh so hard (out of happiness) that I had to stop playing.

[bort2.0]

Not sure how you feel about this one.

[bort2.0]

Very nice, @LeMark!

[hrender]

I noticed that this is still up, and the price has been dropped. Seems like a particularly good specimen of the make/model at a very good price.