Has anyone seen the Wessex double bell

[LittleJimmy]

at Ft. Myer?

Little Jimmy
Yamaha 621s baritone

[bbocaner]

Exhibits open tomorrow (friday). I intend to go check it out.

[Nbnarcisi]

If you do give it a try Barry, could you post your opinion, I am sooo interested in purchasing one but am nowhere close in proximity to be able to.

Nick

[DaveBj]

What Nick said. Interest runs high in this household.

[FreezingGamer]

I got to play it for a little while. It plays really nicely but it is just awkward to hold.

[DaveBj]

It will be interesting to see if the QHR hand strap will fit on it.

[58mark]

it needs a strap. When you are using both hands and 5 fingers, there isn't much left to support the instrument

It played nice, but there is a MAJOR difference in tone between the two bells. to me, it's more like a euphonium with an extra muted euphonium bell on it.

[DaveBj]

it needs a strap. When you are using both hands and 5 fingers, there isn't much left to support the instrument

It played nice, but there is a MAJOR difference in tone between the two bells. to me, it's more like a euphonium with an extra muted euphonium bell on it.

That's good news to me. In my opinion, the whole point in having two bells is having two different sounds. Can't wait to try one myself, even if it means that I'll pro'ly have to buy it to try it

[davewerden]

I agree with David (without having actually heard the two bells in question, though). My own Holton has a considerable difference between the 2, but in some settings the room acoustics blur the distinction to the point it is tough to hear it. My personal preference would be for a smaller diameter little bell, but Jonathan said he planned to use a smaller one. I'm not sure if the one on display last weekend was the original prototype or one with a smaller second bell. The effect can be partly visual, so the audience automatically understands that one bell will sound smaller.

[Clutch]

I agree with it being awkward to hold. I hadn't thought about the strap idea, but I had thought it would benefit from a second thumb ring like the Festivo has. I also felt the same way about the major difference between the bells. I may be crazy, but I also thought that it was a little "stuffier" sounding through the regular bell than the tone of the Dolce.
Just my 2 cents...

[davewerden]

...I may be crazy, but I also thought that it was a little "stuffier" sounding through the regular bell than the tone of the Dolce.
Just my 2 cents...

Again, I haven't tried the horn, but it would not be surprising for it to be stuffier than the Dolce. Look at how hard companies work to reduce the tightness of tube curves, and how important we know it is to align valves to the air passes through easily. We also know that a compensating horn is likely to be stuffier in feel than a non-comp because of extra complexity (all else being equal). So the extra valve, and possibly extra bracing and mass, are bound to have at least some effect on responsiveness and feel.

Also, on traditional American DB's, they played slightly less well than their single-bell counterparts.

[bbocaner]

Hi all. I spent some time with it too. I agree 100% that it was very difficult to hold standing up. It's very heavy and there just wasn't a chance to get a good grip with both hands engaged in valving. Might have been easier as a 4+1 rather than a 3+2. Build quality looked great. Tuning was excellent and there wasn't any difference I could tell in intonation on the two bells. I agree that it did play "smaller" than the dolce or what I remember of the regular festivo -- I wouldn't say stuffy, but it did have a fairly focused sound on the big bell. Not anywhere near as much as a traditional american-style instrument that you'd find with an antique double bell, though. It's hard to hear yourself play in the exhibits room, but I liked the timbre and the big contrast you got from using the small bell. I would buy one!

Wessex was also showing a six valve french tuba in C! I tried to play Bydlo, but the valves were all sticking pretty badly -- Jonathan though that some of their mouthpiece sanitizer had gotten down the leadpipe and contaminated the valves. It seemed like it was very sweet to play, though, and I think it'd be really fun to have.

I also tried the smaller bell version of their new Chicago 6/4 CC tuba which felt like a winner to me.

They had a newer version of the 4-valve baritone they had previously shown and I wasn't super impressed with it. The intonation was VERY poor and it had a very focused timbre which I feel is uncharacteristic. I remain a big fan of their 3-valve compensating instrument, though.

I also tried their new F contrabass trombone which did not particularly impress me.

For me, Wessex was the most exciting booth at the show. Not much new from anyone else and there seemed to be a scaled-back presence from all the exhibitors. Eastman had some very nice-looking new tubas that I heard some buzz about but I didn't try them. Adams had several euphoniums at Baltimore Brass's booth. Although one had a minor cosmetic defect, the build quality on all of them looked to be significantly better than mine, so I'm relieved they seem to have that under control with their recent instruments.

[davewerden]

Thanks for the photos, Barry! I now see that the DB would not allow me to do the wah-wah effects I like so much! As in:

https://youtu.be/Izufz3geg-w?t=64

You can sort-of see in the video that I'm holding down the 5th valve by stretching out my 4th finger past the 4th valve. That's about as far as I can reach, and the Wessex puts it out of reach. But that's a pretty unusual use-case for a DB anyway!

The 6-valve looks interesting, though. We'll see how it develops.

[bbocaner]

That's so cool, Dave!

Incidentally, did you see that the JMU brass band with Adam Lessard and Toby Furr played your duet adaptation of Believe Me, If all Those Endearing Young Charms?

[DaveBj]

If the QHR strap doesn't work, the EP-105 might turn out to be a sit-down-only horn, especially for us geezers. I don't have a problem with that; in fact, I have bought a 29" swiveling barstool. It has a back and is very comfortable to sit on and play.