Wessex French C Tuba TC 236 P

[Snake Charmer]

I used my french c for a while in my quintet, but only when we had to play as a quartet (after the trombone player worked abroad). I used it for better balance with the small bore trumpets and french horn. But we played mostly my own music arranged for this setting, so my part covered tuba and trombone sounds.
For playing standard quintet music I think the sound is different to what the arranger wanted to hear. But it will work when you play it with a big mouthpiece. It is not too much work to play in the bass/contra register once you got used to the fingering.

[franz]

A custom color note.

[MikeS]

Sorry, but one more question for Snake Charmer and Franz. I am having difficulty figuring out how different the C tuba sounds from a euphonium with a similarly large mouthpiece. The specifications look pretty close. I have covered 5th parts in brass quintets, at least ones written with bass trombone in mind, using a euphonium with a 2g. I have also tried playing euphonium with a contrabass trombone mouthpiece and felt the tone I produced lacked focus. Thanks!

[franz]

In my opinion and experience you should use (for all instruments) a mouthpiece with the largest possible internal diameter of the cup with which you can get the desired sound. It's not so much the mouthpiece itself, but the combination of it and the player's lip-labial musculature complex (you can find a review article I wrote here http://www.dwerden.com/forum/content...um-Mouthpieces ). In my case the measurements vary from the K&G 4C (internal diameter 26 mm, which I use on trombone and baritone) to the K&G 1D (internal diameter 27.7 mm which I use on the euphonium). With the French tuba I use the K&G 3D (to which I modified the shank on the outside and enlarged the internal diameter bringing it to 27.5mm). On both the euphonium and the French tuba I also use the K&G 3D + (diameter 26.7mm) which gives me a brighter sound. The Bach 2G has a diameter of 26.75 mm, comparable to the K&G 3 therefore, in my opinion, also suitable for the French tuba. When it arrived it included 2 mouthpieces, an euphonium type with a smaller internal diameter than those suitable for me and a bass type tuba with an extremely large diameter with which I was unable to obtain a sound that could be considered acceptable.

[Snake Charmer]

The french C tuba is different to other brass, the same is with the Eb alto (UK:tenor horn).
Nearly all brass instruments have some "ideal" mouthpiece size, which only differs between players reacting to lip size and blowing technique. If you get it too small the sound gets weak, if you take a too big one the tone loses center and pitch. With the french c tuba I can play with totally different mouthpieces: Allrounder is the Kelly Beast, a big bass trombone mp, for mostly high playing I use the Kelly BassBone, which is a bit smaller and for "big tuba playing" I take the Houser BelCanto, which I otherwise use with my (slender) F tuba. These give me three different sounds without compromising the playability. Only with the smallest mp the very low range is thinner (below pedal g!) and with the big one it is getting flat beyond e'.
The same effect you can see with the Eb alto (piston valves). Some players are normally trumpet players and use it with slightly bigger trumpet mp, giving a clear sharp sound. Some are french horn players and use a french horn mp, which works good. Others (like me) use a tenor trombone mp and sound is also good over the whole range.
Maybe an effect of the relationship between tube length and increasing diameter, but I made no measurements. But none of my C or Bb Saxhorns reacts this way, only my two French c tubas (Wessex and 1940 Courtois).