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Thread: Looking for a mouthpiece for...

  1. #21
    Fuzzy sound - I had trouble with a fuzzy sound on certain notes as well, particularly on Denis Wicks. Long story, short; the solution was to find a mouthpiece with a sharper inside rim edge and a more rounded cup. The Wicks tend to have round inside rim edges and a very conical cup.

    There are some excellent articles out there about upward vs. downward embouchure. Most brass players only use one or the other. However, the bigger the mouthpiece the more likely you are to have to switch. It is these notes, when you are transitioning, that cause all the trouble (fuzzy sound). I learned all this the hard way when I switched from a trumpet to a tuba some years back.

    Hope this helps some.
    Dan

    York 3082 - Silver 3+1
    Giddings & Webster Bayamo Heavyweight

    Practice by itself is not fun but it sure makes performing an absolute blast!

  2. Here's a picture of the Buescher Eb tuba. Hope it helps with the mouthpiece question.

    Click image for larger version. 

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  3. #23
    wow those tuning slides look incredibly long! I would have guessed that was a BBb tuba.

    I don't see a "w" tuning slide on the horn, so converting from low pitch to high won't be easy. You're probably going to have to cut the main slide by at least 2 inches, and then cut 1/2 an inch off of each individual slide.

    Before you do that, contact doug elliot and see what he thinks. I'm VERY skeptical that the mouthpiece is causing the horn to be so flat, especially now that you have one that is the right shank size.

  4. #24
    Join Date
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    Central North Carolina
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    Okay, one more time with feeling ...

    Yep, that's an old Buescher Eb tuba all right. Notice the similarity to this one -- after I de-dented it, cut it to 440, and added the (still prototype) 3rd valve kicker. Also note that it is sporting the Denis Wick 5 mouthpiece (Heritage) that I picked up on Ebay for a really good price.

    Does it help with the mouthpiece question? No. Pretty much everybody (except for some of the TubeNet dudes who are willing to speculate about something they've never seen or had actual experience with) is telling you the same thing: It's almost certainly not a mouthpiece issue, and you won't find a magic mouthpiece that will fix the problems you're having. You need an "appropriate" mouthpiece for this, but no mouthpiece will fix a fundamental pitch problem. Have you actually tried the tuner/scale approach at different pitches to see if it has a good scale at a lower pitch? Have you done the leak tests to ensure that it isn't leaking?

    You can believe on the basis of some kind of faith that somewhere "out there" is a mouthpiece that will make that horn play in tune, but in cases like this an empirical approach works much better than a faith-based one. Asking the same question and getting the same response won't get you closer to a playable instrument. That's a nice looking horn you've got -- in apparently much better cosmetic shape than mine was when I got it. It's amazing how well the finish lasts on these things. It would be a pity to give it up because you're committed to believing that what it needs is just the right mouthpiece. But if you do, then someone will get a really nice instrument and then fix it so it plays in tune.

    My horn plays so well now that I'm really enjoying playing an Eb for the first time in twenty years, and I've been using it for over a month in community band. I'll be using it there regularly for about another month until my new compensator arrives (it is currently motoring northward just off the coast of France -- contemporary ship tracking capabilities are amazing), and then this one will be retired to use in Tuba Christmas, small groups, playing when standing is required, or just when I want to have some fun with it. One thing I have noticed about it is that it seems to require a different embouchure than did my BBb contra bass horn. More like a big euphonium (surprise). And more of a difference in embouchure in the middle/high and the low/contra ranges.


    Click image for larger version. 

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    Last edited by ghmerrill; 04-25-2013 at 08:05 AM.
    Gary Merrill
    Wessex EEb Bass tuba (DW 3XL or 2XL)
    Mack Brass Compensating Euph (DE N106, Euph J, J9 euph)
    Amati Oval Euph (DE 104, Euph J, J6 euph)
    1924 Buescher 3-valve Eb tuba (with std US receiver), Kelly 25
    Schiller American Heritage 7B clone bass trombone (DE LB K/K10/112/14 Lexan, Brass Ark MV50R)
    1947 Olds "Standard" trombone (Olds #3)

  5. #25
    I'm confused... in this thread you did say that a mouthpiece helped your pitch problems...

    did the horn ever get cut?

    http://www.dwerden.com/forum/showthr...l=1#post118265
    Last edited by 58mark; 04-25-2013 at 08:01 AM.

  6. #26
    Join Date
    Dec 2011
    Location
    Central North Carolina
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    2,370
    Sorry for any confusion. I never followed up with these changes in that original thread because at that point I thought people were probably tired of hearing about it.

    Yes. I had thought that the one mouthpiece had addressed the pitch problems (the Besson #13), but it was still pretty much of a struggle against flatness and required a constantly very firm embouchure. After about another week with that, and having cleaned the horn again so that (a) the Wick 5 seated correctly while (b) the Besson then seated all the way to its cup. I spent a lot of effort "mapping" and graphing the pitch with a tuner (in some instances with me playing and my wife manning the tuner and chart so that I wouldn't prejudice the pitch reading in any way). Given that, I then had more of a suspicion that it was an overall pitch problem for the instrument and did my studies of the scales when setting the tuner at different pitches. When I saw a reasonable scale develop (beginning at about 438 and then get better down to 435), I knew what the real story was.

    Like Bigbassman I was VERY reluctant to take a hacksaw to the instrument -- particularly since it said "LP" (low pitch) on the second valve, and so it HAD to be a low pitch horn, right? And the most widely held view is that "LP" meant A=440. But given the evidence that it was pitched lower, I did some more intensive research and discovered a fairly widespread use of A=435 in the decade or more after WWI. In the end, all the theory and likely stories and such don't matter. What matters is the science -- the empirical results. And these then seemed undeniable. If it's not leaking, and it isn't playing to A=440, and it does play a good scale (with a reasonable and relaxed embouchure) at A=435, then the only rational conclusion is that it is pitched to A=435. I have seen a number of cases where tubists (even very experienced tubists) have said about one of these instruments things like "I tried everything -- every mouthpiece I could find -- and it still wouldn't play in tune," and then got rid of the instrument. I'm convinced that these were cases where the instrument was just pitched to something other than they thought.

    Still, I was reluctant, and thought I would proceed as cautiously as I could. So I ended up doing the following in sequence over time:
    1. Cut the third valve slide by about 1.5" on each side, lapped it, and fashioned the kicker rod. This brought the 2+3 pitches closer in tune, but still not perfect. This also allowed me to get a mid-staff C-natural that was in tune -- but using 3 as the default C-natural I found to be irritating and fatiguing. The 1+2 was still significantly flat.
    2. Cut the main tuning slide about 3/4" on each side. This allowed me to get virtually everything in tune across the scales at 440. In combination with what was done to the third valve slide, this resulted in the B naturals being fully in tune with that slide all the way in (it was otherwise quite flat), and resulted in the F and E-natural at the bottom of the staff being in tune with the slide out about 2.5"-3" (they were otherwise quite sharp -- which is common). The 1+2 mid-staff C natural and the 1 D-flat were still a little bit flat -- but nothing like what they had been.
    3. After several more weeks, and facing continued flatness or marginal flatness with the 1+2 combination and some 1 notes, I cut about 1/2" off each side of the first valve slide.


    (I would MUCH have preferred to address some of the intonation issues with a main tuning slide trigger rather than a third valve kicker. Unfortunately, the outer sleeves of the main slide are not parallel, and fixing that would be MAJOR surgery -- not worth the effort and risk or expense. I took it to a good repair tech and he was not at all enthusiastic about and would have done it only in consultation with someone else in the area with more experience in that regard. So that's out of the question.)

    That leaves me with what I have today and it is working well. In truth, I would cut a bit off the second valve slide, but I don't have it in me. I don't think I'd cut more than 1/4" off it, and there is NO room to work in there. I'd have to use a Dremel to cut it out in pieces, and then file it (of course, they all required filing). Might be better to just file that much off over a bit of time. I MAY do that at some point in the future, but for now I'm handling any minor second valve flatness with embouchure. From the looks of that 1917 horn, modification to the second valve slide would be much easier.

    The horn has quite good false tones that play in tune, and so I can play it chromatically all the way down. E.g., the end of the second movement of "Folk Song Suite" is eminently playable on this instrument -- though not with the gravitas of a larger horn. The end of the third movement (the 8va part), however, is a real kick.
    Last edited by ghmerrill; 04-25-2013 at 09:57 AM.
    Gary Merrill
    Wessex EEb Bass tuba (DW 3XL or 2XL)
    Mack Brass Compensating Euph (DE N106, Euph J, J9 euph)
    Amati Oval Euph (DE 104, Euph J, J6 euph)
    1924 Buescher 3-valve Eb tuba (with std US receiver), Kelly 25
    Schiller American Heritage 7B clone bass trombone (DE LB K/K10/112/14 Lexan, Brass Ark MV50R)
    1947 Olds "Standard" trombone (Olds #3)

  7. If the tuba was made to play below A440, I can accept that -- however, I can't figure out why the fingered notes are so flat compared to the open notes. I've been playing brass instruments since 1969 and I have never come across one that had this problem. It has been suggested that a shallow, bowl-shaped mouthpiece similar to the original would help it play in tune with itself. I don't know, but this sounds reasonable to me. I would rather have a Bb horn, but I can't find one that I can afford.

  8. #28
    Join Date
    Dec 2011
    Location
    Central North Carolina
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    Quote Originally Posted by bigbassman View Post
    If the tuba was made to play below A440, I can accept that ...
    I replied to this on TubeNet (breaking in part one of my self-imposed rules). No sense in doing it here as well.
    Gary Merrill
    Wessex EEb Bass tuba (DW 3XL or 2XL)
    Mack Brass Compensating Euph (DE N106, Euph J, J9 euph)
    Amati Oval Euph (DE 104, Euph J, J6 euph)
    1924 Buescher 3-valve Eb tuba (with std US receiver), Kelly 25
    Schiller American Heritage 7B clone bass trombone (DE LB K/K10/112/14 Lexan, Brass Ark MV50R)
    1947 Olds "Standard" trombone (Olds #3)

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