cimbasso trombone

[Mary Ann]

Is there a rotary valve instrument in the cimbasso class that is the same range (Bb) as a trombone?

[pompatus]

The cavalry valve trombone of yesteryear immediately comes to mind, but I haven’t seen one in rotary. The closest you can get with a modern instrument is possibly with a Miraphone or Cerveny.

https://www.miraphone.de/bb-valve-trombone-1.html

[bloke]

If you look through the repair threads - and although I haven't had time to finish it, I built a very nice playing bass trombone out of a formerly trashed 1980s single rotor Yamaha YBL-322 bell section and an early 1960s California Olds formerly imperfect duo-bore bass trombone playing slide. I've started on the vertical valve section - which will sit on the chair seat, rather than on the floor (being only B flat length). There will be four pistons with a bore of .562" and two left-hand rotors also with a bore of .562". Some might ask why I didn't use larger bore rotors, but those are still located in the portion of the instrument which would have otherwise been in the playing slide, so I didn't feel as though I should make the instrument any larger there.

As time has passed, I've spent just about as much time playing designated *bass and second trombone parts on my F cimbasso as I have playing designated tuba parts on it, which made me decide that one built in B-flat would be useful, as it's just a little bit easier to play double high B-flats and C's (etc.) on a B-flat instrument with a .562" bore versus a longer F instrument with a .689" bore (though my recently-designed mouthpiece for the F instrument has made such pitches much more practical without taking away from the double-low range at all, luckily).
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* I'm actually getting some calls to cover 4th bone parts in big bands, because those that have heard me do it love the big sound, and - even though those almost never pay anything - they are fun, but the other time that I typically encounter bass trombone parts is church gigs whereby quintet and organ arrangements are actually written for bass trombone and the tesultura is higher, and when churches hires small orchestras to play rock-and-soul charts, and most of those parts are actually either second bone or bass bone parts.

[Finetales]

Mike Johnson out of the UK makes cimbassi in a bunch of keys including tenor Bb, so that's probably your option. https://m-j-c.co.uk/instruments/index.html

Jürgen Voigt also makes an extra-large-bore tenor valve trombone with 4 rotary valves that might be up your alley. https://shop.voigt-brass.de/en/MASTER-I ... V-427.html

[Finetales]

Some might ask why I didn't use larger bore rotors, but those are still located in the portion of the instrument which would have otherwise been in the playing slide, so I didn't feel as though I should make the instrument any larger there.

But, consider that when you move the trombone handslide out of first position, you aren't adding more tubing of the same size as the inner slide, you are adding a section of much larger tubing (the outer slide). I don't know the inner diameter of a bass trombone outer slide, but on a large bore tenor the outer slide is about .585", vs. the .547" inner slide. It's probably the main reason that valve trombones don't sound like slide trombones, and why F attachments are almost always in a larger bore than the inner slide bore. So, to mimic a slide trombone, you would actually want the valve set to all be the same noticeably larger bore.

[bloke]

That's a good point, but those two valves are substitutes for adjusted second, adjusted third, and adjusted forth whereby not a whole bunch of 58x tubing is exposed on a regular slide trombone, and to make the fourth piston circuit be .58X" would would put a bulge in the instrument that who knows what it would accomplish.

As a reminder, I have a slide all ready for this instrument, no two instruments are alike, and - to play an instrument well - requires that the player figure out what the instrument needs and give what is needed to any particular instrument. I'm expecting the valve section to not quite feel like a playing slide, because it isn't one.

Nearly a half century ago when I was beginning to develop a little bit of prowess playing one make and model of tuba, when I would pick up instruments that were quite different, I didn't have much luck with them, because - as a naive progressing player - I didn't understand that which I expressed in the previous paragraph.

I'm sure that my five rotor plus trigger F cimbasso plays quite differently from an F contraalto/(bass) slide trombone. In the case of this comparison, the valve instrument probably plays more so-called "open" than most any of the slide versions.

[MiBrassFS]

Handslides always choke back down to the inner of the lower. Even with dual bore slides, the there’s always a choke point returning to the lower inner.

Just a thought.

[Mary Ann]

Just to clarify -- I asked about cimbassi because I cannot hold up a trombone. It would have to rest on the floor, have rotary valves, and be playable on medium level brass quintet tbone parts.

If I were wanting to toss a lot of money around for something to play once a month or so, the Mike Johnson compact one would be interesting.

[bloke]

LOL

If I don't like mine after it's finished, I might be willing to sell it.

[MiBrassFS]

How about one of those ERGObone gadgets…

https://www.ergobrass.com/trombone/

[bloke]

Everyone who looks at the "repairs" forum has seen this crap, but - just as a review...

Here's as far as I've gotten on the valve section:


> four .562" bore pistons and circuits, along with some .562" bore rotors (and even a couple of .585" bore rotors



> The (and it was previously - what many would judge to be - hopelessly trashed) 1980's YBL-322 bell section "compatiblized" to a 65-years-young Olds bass trombone slide



again:
There's no way that a valve version of something (with its particular quirks and bore flaws) is going to "feel" just like a slide version of the same thing (with its particular quirks and bore flaws), but it's really easy to criticize stuff that some one else (and not oneself) is fabricating or assembling, isn't it? As an example of my own fallibility/shortcomings regarding this, I was seemingly hard on the lightweight (not hollow) rotor design in the "hollow rotors" thread, but (yet) I continued to admit that it was an ingenious design, there's no way that I could fabricate one myself, and that it might well accomplish the same-or-better than an actual hollow rotor might achieve as so much surface contact was eliminated. My only personal stumbling block (or pet peeve, as I tend to be dismissive of all rotors with four round holes in them YET their diameters are LESS THAN 2X the bore size - as with most standard rotors) with that design is that - with all the surface area that's eliminated - it (yet) adds surface contact area which does little more than to to take away from the size of the passage through the rotor via an unneeded bulge of spanning material...otherwise: (at least, to me) amazing

...As far as resting a (9-feet bugle B-flat) cimbasso on the floor (rather than on the front of the chair seat), that would call for a quite (absurdly?) long floor peg - one so long that it would do little to stabilize the assembly...There just isn't enough tubing in NOT-a-BB♭ contrabass nor F contra-alto contraption to make it "down to" anywhere near the floor.

OK...I've probably annoyed several people...
...so here's another Covid shot: (Consider this one a "booster".)

[Mary Ann]

I can't play the euph because of two things: I am not a piston person, my first brass at 45 having been the horn, and my very small hands now are so numb I can't "find" pistons anyway to mash them. The weight of the euph, which does not sit on the chair or my lap, is too much to hold up. I hate those ergo things -- borrowed one once, no WAY.

My tubas, all of them, sit on the chair as close to me as I can get them, and balancing a tuba is way different from holding up anything. While of course I expected the "how about this instead" plus the nay-saying of the TFFJ, if I ran into a Bb cimbasso I'd definitely be curious enough to try it. Balancing is different from holding up in the air. None of you are 94 pound, 75 year old, 5'2" ladies.

[Mark]

What about an English baritone or a German Kaiser baritone. Similar to a Wagner Tuba, but uses a trombone-sized mouthpiece and could rest on a chair.

[Finetales]

Handslides always choke back down to the inner of the lower. Even with dual bore slides, the there’s always a choke point returning to the lower inner.

Just a thought.

Yes, just as a larger valve set in the same bore as the outer slide inner diameter chokes back to the lower inner when the air leaves the valve block.

it's really easy to criticize stuff that some one else (and not oneself) is fabricating or assembling, isn't it?

I wasn't trying to criticize, just making a thought. We recently had a related discussion about F attachment size over on Trombone Chat, so it's been on my mind. If I were getting the same thing made, I would probably ask for a .562" valve section as well.

Regardless of the specifics, your project is something I'm excited to hear in action.

[bloke]

Early on, I planned to put "bass trombone F attachment" size (c. .585") rotors on 5 and 6...(after all, they're "down the way"...), but then realized that the connector to the bell section was still .562", and then realized that it made much more sense to use .562" bore rotors.

Curiously, the instrument will have (basically) TWO F-attachments - one in the bell, and the other being the 4th piston valve.

I suppose I could tape down the thumb lever and play it with the 5th and 6th valve (as a crapola F contrabass)...well...until I quickly ran out of adequate circuits.

Besides the 6 valves, I plan to put a little "just-in-case-a-few-things-really-suck" right-hand thumb trigger slide in the capillary portion in front of the #1 piston.

...I wish it was COMPLETED already.

Unlike many, I don't particularly enjoy the "journey"...I (simply) want the INSTRUMENT.

I SORT-OF wish that I had better slide technique...but (back when I accepted bass trombone jobs) I had to spend WEEKS practicing the music prior to those gigs (whether simple or complex --- TUNING !!!)

[Mary Ann]

What about an English baritone or a German Kaiser baritone. Similar to a Wagner Tuba, but uses a trombone-sized mouthpiece and could rest on a chair.

I had a MW rotary baritone for a while -- ergonomically it was usable but the intonation was so wonky even in the open bugle that I got rid of it, plus I didn't like the thinnish tone. The British baritone -- still has pistons and has to be held up in the air. I played an Eastman 3-valve baritone last Tuesday at quartet, and ergonomically nope. Nice instrument though. The owner bought it to play in the brass band; we have a fine pair of baritone players.

I wouldn't want to purchase one of those rotary baritones without checking both the intonation tendencies and whether they would rest on the chair. That stuff ok, they would be candidates. I have played a Wagner Tube, but it was an early Chinese one and truly awful in every way.

I think I'm lucky that all my tubas either sit nicely on the chair -- after I started with the adjustable-height seat cushion -- or in the case of the 183, have sufficient leadpipe angle correction that I can use a stand. This includes the Hagen, which is getting some recreational use as I adjust to a 4/4 BBb. (In my mind, it is not a 3/4.) It's the Hagen that makes me attracted to that Alex CC that was out there, and probably sold. A Manly Sound for sure.

[Mary Ann]

So I wonder how awful this thing is? Probably pretty far up in the Awful category.
https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R ... 3&_sacat=0

My trumpet player friend who is learning euph and plays that Yam 201 with the too-long valve slide played my Sterling for duets the other night -- and now I suspect he is ruined in terms of still wanting to play on that Yam. There aren't too many 77 year olds who are wiling to learn a new instrument, and can actually do it. The rub is he has no motivation to learn bass clef, which will eliminate him from a lot of groups. And -- he breathes in with his chest!! Great big lungs (barrel chest) and he doesn't know how to fill them.

I wonder can a cimbasso be played non-blatty? Blatty seems to be the standard when I listen to stuff put on Facebook. Ah, the lure of a new toy ---

[BramJ]

So I wonder how awful this thing is? Probably pretty far up in the Awful category.
https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R ... 3&_sacat=0

But it's professional! It must be good
Right?

[bloke]

At every volume level to just below fffff, a cimbasso played by a *good player sounds like a trombone, except a little bit more mellow than a bass trombone.

At fffff, I guess it also sounds like a trombone... a trombone played at fffff, except bass trombone players have no hope of competing with someone who knows how to coax as much sound out of a cimbasso as can be coaxed.

I'm still waiting for the office to send me a recording of the Mozart Requiem, where I used it to play the third trombone part. I sat next to the second bassoonist, and I would predict that if you can hear me playing on that recording, you can also hear her playing. 90% of what we played - sitting next to each other - were unisons, with a bunch of 16th note run passages that lasted two or three lines.

Other than electronic instruments, (as far as loudness is concerned) it very well could be one that offers a wider range most other instruments which are commonly played.

Am I a *"good" player? The jury is out.

[Mary Ann]

Hmmm. I have an old Yamaha 622 (? - single rotor) bass bone, and played with a 9C it has a very nice mellow tone, better than I can get out of a regular tenor bone. Of course the blatty x-low range isn't really accessible with that mouthpiece, but I was surprised at what comes out of it played with that cup and my chops. I can't hold it up of course, but that is old news.