Trip to Dillons (Long)


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Posted by Andy Smith on May 20, 2001 at 15:42:50:

Hi everyone,

This past Friday, my girlfriend and I decided to take a trip to Dillon Music to try out some new tubas. I could go on and on about the great CC's, but I won't because I know there's been a lot of talk about BBb's on here recently, so I'm going to talk about them.

Before I do, I had the wonderful pleasure to meet JaTtik Clark on Friday. He was down there trying out 6/4 tubas and I got to go to lunch with him and Matt Walters. An amazing player and person who actually helped out a guy when he was in need of it.

Anyway, back to the BBb's. I'll admit, I haven't played a BBb tuba in about 3 years. The last one I played was a Yamaha 321, so my experience is limited. First off, all of these BBb's are wonderful horns. So here's the list of the ones I played:

VMI 5 Valve - Out of all of these on here, surprisingly this is my least favorite. It didn't seem to me to be as decent sounding as the others, including a 4 valve version of this that I tried. The slides were in weird spots and I just didn't care for it.

Meinl Weston 18 - This horn was better than the VMI. If you like that German sound and you also like rotary valves, this is the horn for you. The fifth valve spatula on this horn is in a terrible spot and isn't long enough for someone with small hands to reach. However, it did play much better than the VMI 5 valve.

Jupiter 4 Valve - This is the one that I was most interested in trying. I've heard so many great things about it, that I had to see if it was as good as people said. Frankly, it was disappointing. The slides were way too short, particularly the first valve slide. With its intonation quirks, you needed a longer slide to play all of the notes in tune. The general sound, however, was quite good.

King 2341 (New) - This is the best BBb tuba I've ever played. Hands down. I played it right next to a new Conn 56J and the similarities are overwhelming. If you don't like the new Conns, then you won't like this King, but the King is an exceptional player with good sound, intonation and craftsmanship. Definately my favorite BBb.

There's a lot of great stuff there that isn't BBb's, like this new Cerveny 5 valve F that was really surprising. Had a good sound and played in pitch in the low range.

Hope this helps all of you that are looking. I caved in and am in the process of buying the Buescher that was at ARMYTEC. This is a fantastic horn.

Andy Smith
BassDi(AT)aol.com
Tubist at Ithaca College


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