Posted by Chuck(G) on May 24, 2002 at 17:03:13:
In Reply to: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Basses and Contra B. posted by Frederick J. Young on May 24, 2002 at 16:15:01:
I sold it to a fellow in Rhode Island about a year or so ago. I bought it as someone's botched attempt to cut it to CC (the result was an usuable low register). I reconstructed the missing 22" of tubing and converted it back to BBb.
It actually played pretty well as a BBb, but without the dark low low end you'd expect from a tuba this large. Rather, it had an exceptionally loud middle register. Intonation in the upper register was pretty dicey. As I mentioned, it had very heavy valve rotors, requiring stiff springs to get any sort of decent action.
As the photo shows, it has a very small bottom bow--about the same size as my B&H 983 Eb tuba, in fact. The bell flare is very sudden. One other curiosity was that privleged tones seemed to be completely non-existent, try as I might to find them.
I've been told that this type of construction is very typical of old Milanese tubas.