Posted by B.G. yet again on February 09, 2003 at 18:41:46:
In Reply to: Re: Re: Re: "double" tubas posted by Barry Guerrero on February 09, 2003 at 18:15:56:
Let me just explain what Tommy and Robb's attempt was all about. Tommy feels that the Yamaha 822 F is big enough, and projects well enough for most everything that he's ever going to do in the future. However, Tommy wanted the convenience and ease of CC fingerings in the low range, and yet still have the horn play in tune. Basically, a long rotary valve with a whole bunch of ports (I don't remember how many ports) was mounted laterally (horizontally) above the main valve cluster. To be more precise, the valve runs exactly perpendicular (sp?) to the bell section. Tommy got this valve off an old German double tuba that he had sitting around for years. From the best I can tell from the photo, it appears that this long rotary valve is hooked up to the regular fifth valve trigger. Perhaps there's a separate trigger for it, but I can't quite tell from the photo. It appears that the tubing from the first four valves goes through this long rotor valve, and that extra lengths of tubing are opened up when either the fourth and/or fifth valve are kicked in - something like that. It appears to be another way to solve the compensating system issue - as best as I can tell, anyway. Perhaps someone else can fill in the details better than I can. Believe it or not, what Rob came up with does't look that unwieldy or strange. Apparently, there have been SOME discussions with Yamaha in putting this idea into production, but the start-up costs would be very expensive, which means that those expenses would get passed on to the consumer. I'm sure that it'll never become a reality unless a good number of other players were to line-up for such a horn. I would, if the price were somewhat reasonable. Until such time, I'm going to have to wait until I hit the Ca lottery, or until oil prices become so cheap (from winning the future gulf war and drilling Alaska), and Hydrogen power so plentiful, that we can all pocket the difference. That was meant as a bit of political humor.
Barry Guerrero