Posted by Dale on January 12, 2001 at 11:27:19:
In Reply to: Re: It occurs to me posted by Chuck(G) on January 11, 2001 at 22:07:03:
Well, I'm bound to chap someone's hide by piping up and saying,
1) Sure there are plenty of good-playing CC's out there. Still,
many people do personal modifications to their tubas precisely
because the horn is special enough to the owner to warrant those mods.
If the owner may opt for heavily modifying the instrument by changing
the pitch to CC or F or G or whatever isn't REALLY so different is it?
2) to properly do a "cut" takes time and money. And most people seem to think
that all it takes is a hacksaw. "Cut" can mean only shortening some pies,
but most of the time it will involve as much dis-assembly and parts replacement
as it takes to completely restore to "new" ANY horn.
IMO "price" savings is no longer a factor the way it might have been 25 years ago,
when it was (apparently) harder to obtain a good limited use specialty instrument
like a grand orchestral horn.
3) as far as a tech making money, I suspect they'd chose more efficient
ways to make a coupla grand. A certain shop back east has a basement
full of horns that (some think) would be GREAT candidates for cutting.
If it made good business sense to do so, their guy would cut more horns
than he does, m'thinks.
The pro technicians I have talked to DON'T cut many horns anymore, at least
not to CC or F, prolly because there ARE plenty of good horns "already out there."
It's also a gamble as to the balance of the horn when you are done, and there's
only so much that even the BEST crafters can do in some cases. So, they don't do them often anymore. Of course, if you want a Mirafone 180-tiny pitched in G like Roger Bobo's,
then a cutter is your only way to go, but it isn't cheap by a LONG shot - gee, why do people think their supplier/instrument tech's time should only cost 20 an hour when often these CUSTOMERs earn much more?