Chinese bass trombones

[euphdude]

Totally fine Gary. When I post my 7B clone with Shires leadpipe and Edwards Bullet brace for sale, I will check back here to see if you are still interested. There is no way I'll be asking anywhere near what Jim Laabs is charging. Get a double valve horn with Shires leadpipe and Edwards hand brace for at least $130 less than the single valve Schiller.

[Davidus1]

Gary,Where did you land on this? I just put a deposit on a Mack Brass Bass TBone. I have been very very happy with both the Tuba and Euphonium that I purchased so I'm confident the BassBone will be equally of good quality.

[ghmerrill]

I'm not looking at a single-rotor horn on the basis of price, but rather in terms of ergonomics (to some degree), other features (I like the 10" bell), and because I just don't think that for my purposes I'd need the double trigger more than once or twice a year (if that). In addition, my feeling is that if/when I encounter a demand for a fully in-tune low B-natural, it should be playable on the single-rotor horn even if this means I'd need to modify it in some way (which I believe would not be difficult on something like a 421 horn or clone).

I'm sure that several of these double-valve Chinese bass trombones are excellent (and in fact had the opportunity to play a Mack Brass one for a few minutes). But I do like the larger bell on the 421 clone (my Holton had that size bell), and just don't see the point of having an extra valve ALL of the time for the rare occasions on which you need to play ONE particular note. I'm encouraged in this somewhat deviant perspective by some remarks of Doug Yeo ("a single valve bass trombone works well in almost all symphonic playing situations" -- http://www.yeodoug.com/resources/faq...xt/valves.html), and that my playing would be confined to third and bass trombone parts in community band and smaller groups, and probably on an episodic basis. For those purposes, a large bore tenor (like the Mack Brass) would not be an unreasonable compromise. But I would prefer the larger bore and larger bell.

Perhaps my ideal choice would be a Yamaha-822G, but I sense that this is not going to happen.

This will likely turn out to be an "impulse decision" when I end up actually having the discretionary money in hand.

[euphdude]

The Yamaha 822G is one heck of a horn! That's my bass that I'm not selling. And the Yamaha Doug Yeo mouthpiece that comes with it is fantastic. I had a Doug Elliott made that just sold on ebay that was an easier to play version of that.

[ghmerrill]

As you can see in another thread in this forum, my final choice was to go "low end" and buy the Schiller "American Heritage" clone of the King 7B.

Over a few months, I made the following changes and acquisitions:

1. Added an Edwards Bullet Brace. It took a surprising amount of time for me to adjust this so it's comfortable, and this also required adding a wine cork over the thumb support bar. But I'm VERY comfortable with the horn now.
2. Had the lead pipe pulled and replaced it with a Brass Ark press fit BH62 brass lead pipe. Huge difference.
3. After MUCH experimentation, settled on a Rath B1.5W mouthpiece. For me at least, this is vastly superior to all the others I tried on this horn.

Since I would have acquired a Bullet Brace and mouthpiece for ANY horn I bought, these things don't distinguish what I needed to do to the Schiller horn from other possible purchases. I might also have wanted to go with a different lead pipe as well.

In any event, for $1,000 or less I have ended up with a double valve (independent) bass trombone that I'm very happy with. The fit and finish on it is excellent, and the slide is great. A very close examination will indicate that it's not entirely of the same quality as something like a Bach or Yamaha (or of course, Edwards, Rath, etc.) -- but that's mostly in the area of the absolute precision of the tube extrusions, takes a pretty good eye to notice, and has no effect on performance. And recent reports indicate that contemporary Conn and King products are suffering from the same issues.

I've thought a bit (encouraged by my wife!) about replacing the horn some time next year when I get reasonably good at trombone. But honestly, I don't see any point to that now. I really like the horn, I'm comfortable with it, it has no problems, and the sound is great.