Wessex Tubas FB-124 Flugabone vs Dynasty M566

[kbro]

Does anyone have experience of the Wessex Tubas FB-124 flugabone vs the Dynasty M566 marching trombone? I've got a very good example of the latter (no dents or dings, seems to have lived undisturbed in an attic for a decade before I bought it) but to my mind it's very "stuffy" to play and the sound is very "thin". (My other instruments are JP Sterling 373 Baritone, B&H Sovereign 967 Euphonium and B&H Sovereign tenor trombone, all of which play much more freely and sonorously for me). Is the FB-124 better than the M566 or should I continue my quest for an Olds O21, King 1130, Blessing M200 or Kanstul 955?

[fjalars]

Does anyone have experience of the Wessex Tubas FB-124 flugabone vs the Dynasty M566 marching trombone? I've got a very good example of the latter (no dents or dings, seems to have lived undisturbed in an attic for a decade before I bought it) but to my mind it's very "stuffy" to play and the sound is very "thin". (My other instruments are JP Sterling 373 Baritone, B&H Sovereign 967 Euphonium and B&H Sovereign tenor trombone, all of which play much more freely and sonorously for me). Is the FB-124 better than the M566 or should I continue my quest for an Olds O21, King 1130, Blessing M200 or Kanstul 955?

Did you go for the Wessex flugabone?

[kbro]

I bought a King 1130 for £300 through an acquaintance on Facebook who “knew a guy”. Strangely there’s no engraving on the bell, but it sure looks, feels and sounds like a King. I also bought a mint King 1127 marching baritone through Reverb for a lot less than the $3000 that’s currently being asked. I can thoroughly recommend both instruments, though for a while I went off the 1127 in favour of a Blessing BM301 “Accord” stencil made by Elkhart that I bought in a terrible state for $25 and spent £200 having it rebuilt from the ground up - there’s some great pictures of that on FB! - but I came to my senses, sold the Elk and kept the King.

[fjalars]

Ok. Not a bad price for a King I reckon, given as you say that it is the real deal. In the end, the sound is all that matters.
I am a tuba player but have the biggest crush on the flugabone (and marching baritone also..) and am seriously considering getting one Wessex horn.
I am located in Iceland and instruments like marching baritone and marching trombone /flugabone just don't exist here. The marching tradition - The Force - is not that strong with our wind bands. That basically makes these instruments kind of exotic to me

Sounds like you have a farely good setup of instruments for all occations by now!

I will probably start with a flugabone... pretty sure..

[kbro]

Hi fjalars, yes, the flugabone is great fun to play. If I stick in a 12C mouthpiece and close my eyes I can pretend I'm Miles Davis (okay, maybe I need to close my ears a bit too!) But after a while I miss the big mellow sound of my euphonium so I switch to the marching baritone (which is much closer in shape to a euphonium than to my JP373 upright baritone) and then I'm happy again until the front-heaviness of the thing kills my arms! So then I go back to my euph, or my upright bari, and then round we go again! They're all great, in their own way. And then there's that trombone, waiting for me to want to learn how to use a slide properly...

[EvanWeeks]

I just finished a week's trial of the Wessex Flugabone and I was a little disappointed in that I couldn't get the intonation dialed in. I'm actually sending it back to them and picking up a Sinfonico Euph instead. My embouchure is still in a rebuilding phase from the 15-year vacation I gave it, so my experience may be completely non-indicative of anyone else's, but I felt like the intonation was just fuzzy and nonspecific in the middle-ranges (from F3 to D4 mostly), ranging from definitely-flat to just lacking a positive "center" to the partial that I could latch onto and say, "yes, this is where the instrument wants me to play that note." Again, that's possibly (even probably) my lack of chops right now, but I turned around and played the same stuff on my King 1129SP marching euph and everything locked in with good (or at least small-adjustments-needed) intonation. Maybe the latter is just easier to play. I'm not sure.

Lake City brass just put their own Flugabone up for sale as well:

[davewerden]

I just finished a week's trial of the Wessex Flugabone and I was a little disappointed in that I couldn't get the intonation dialed in. I'm actually sending it back to them and picking up a Sinfonico Euph instead.

Sorry you have to dance around a bit, but it is probably a good swap for you. The Flugabone, whoever makes it, has not had nearly the dozen decades of development and tweaking that the compensating euphoniums have had in history (about 140 years and counting). I think Keith demonstrates a good use for it in his video above. And that is probably a common use (i.e. as a second instrument, since Keith is a trombonist, and a jazz instrument because of its forward-facing bell).

Once you get the Sinfonico, you will still probably have to do a good bit of work to work out its own intonation, but I think it will be worth the effort. Even if you bought an Adams, which has the best intonation of any horn I have tried, it is not perfect and needs some getting-used-to time.

[davewerden]

Also of note on the Flugabone...it has a .492 bore. For perspective, trumpets are around .460, my little baritone horn is .515 (newer ones are .547), an American style euphonium with curved bell is about .560, Yamaha 321 around .570, and most compensating euphoniums are around .592.

[EvanWeeks]

Yeah, as I told James Garney @ Wessex over email yesterday, I feel bad for sending it back, but it just was not what I was hoping for when I picked it up. For comparison, my King marching euph has little intonation quirks, but each partial has a definite "center," and I can adjust the 5-10c difference from there with air and embouchure or the 3rd valve tuning slide. D3 is flat, C3 is sharp, but never by more than I can immediately adjust for. One thing to note was that the Wessex flugabone had no ring for the 3rd valve tuning slide. It has a slot for a lyre holder, but it's on the solid part of the pipe, not the slide, so you can't even add one without serious modding of the instrument.

Also agreed about the purpose of the flugabone. I had intended to use it as an upper-register solo/lead instrument for some brass arrangements I've been working on, but when I started playing around up there I just could NOT get the intonation to work with me. Again... and I can't say it enough... that may well be my relative lack of chops to make it work. Keith's videos on the flugabone are actually one of the main reasons I went looking for one, and I may still end up picking up one in the future, possibly the one he and his shop have designed there. But, I really think the Sinfonico is going to be the best choice for me right now. Like you said, I figure it'll have its own intonation quirks, but I don't expect to have the same "where the heck is the center of that partial?!" moments with an instrument of that quality and price point.

[Richard III]

Yeah, as I told James Garney @ Wessex over email yesterday, I feel bad for sending it back, but it just was not what I was hoping for when I picked it up. For comparison, my King marching euph has little intonation quirks, but each partial has a definite "center," and I can adjust the 5-10c difference from there with air and embouchure or the 3rd valve tuning slide. D3 is flat, C3 is sharp, but never by more than I can immediately adjust for. One thing to note was that the Wessex flugabone had no ring for the 3rd valve tuning slide. It has a slot for a lyre holder, but it's on the solid part of the pipe, not the slide, so you can't even add one without serious modding of the instrument.

Also agreed about the purpose of the flugabone. I had intended to use it as an upper-register solo/lead instrument for some brass arrangements I've been working on, but when I started playing around up there I just could NOT get the intonation to work with me. Again... and I can't say it enough... that may well be my relative lack of chops to make it work. Keith's videos on the flugabone are actually one of the main reasons I went looking for one, and I may still end up picking up one in the future, possibly the one he and his shop have designed there. But, I really think the Sinfonico is going to be the best choice for me right now. Like you said, I figure it'll have its own intonation quirks, but I don't expect to have the same "where the heck is the center of that partial?!" moments with an instrument of that quality and price point.

Out of curiosity, what mouthpiece were you using on the flugabone?

[davewerden]

I suppose it is possible (even likely) that ALL such Flugabone-type instruments will not be happy with the mouthpieces we normally use. As discussed in various threads here, some vintage horns don't like the 4-size mouthpieces, or even 5's very much. And those are a much larger bore than a Flugabone. I would think something like a 6-1/2AL might be the large end of the scale for those, but I'm not sure. I have fooled with such horns on displays and just used my Wick 4BS because I had it with me. But I didn't get into any serious testing or playing.

[Richard III]

I have a Blessing marching baritone. It doesn't really like the 6 1/2AL. In fact it really doesn't like any really deep cupped mouthpieces. It does like more shallow style cups, that being a relative term. Since, like with all my other brass instruments, I have a box of mouthpieces, there always a few there that seem to work really well. The Bach 12C is the usually recommended mouthpiece for this style of horn. The Stork 3 also works well, as it is Stork's version of the 12C. The Schilke 42 gives it a particular warm and fluid sound that I like. I also have some vintage mouthpieces that work really well, but those are pretty obscure so not worth mentioning their names.

[EvanWeeks]

Richard, the mouthpiece that came with the flugabone was essentially a 6/12AL. I also tried a DW 5BS (more out of curiosity than anything else), 9BS and Bach 12C. And like you said, the 12C seemed to work "best" out of them, but none of them really solved the issue for me.

[Richard III]

Richard, the mouthpiece that came with the flugabone was essentially a 6/12AL. I also tried a DW 5BS (more out of curiosity than anything else), 9BS and Bach 12C. And like you said, the 12C seemed to work "best" out of them, but none of them really solved the issue for me.

Ah too bad. I'm guessing the horn is not what we would have hoped it would be. Too bad. Flugabones are expensive due to the notoriety (my guess). Being able to buy a budget version new would be cool.

John Powell's demonstration does not show the horn to be the desired instrument either. Oh well.

Best of luck.