Re: Tuba Quality


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Posted by Lee Stofer on November 11, 2002 at 08:49:47:

In Reply to: Tuba Quality posted by Tracy B. on November 10, 2002 at 14:15:31:

Tracy,
I increasingly find that there are few inherently bad instrument designs out there, and most manufacturers use really good materials. What makes the big difference is the quality of construction, how well it is assembled and finished. Most people want to buy a tuba at 1970's prices, so many manufacturers crank them out as fast as possible to keep production costs down. Really assembling an instrument right is a time-consuming task that can't be rushed.
As for hand-made vs. machine-made, this has to do with whether the body branches were cut according to patterns out of sheet brass, partially formed, brazed together, then finish-formed with hand tools, or if the branches were formed out of seamless tubing that was hydraulically blown-up, in a series of steps, to the finished size. This is nothing new, as Conn was using the hydraulic method as early as the 1920's. The hydraulics, if done correctly, yields nearly perfect consistency, and if the parts are properly annealed, the resulting instrument will play just as well as any other.
A tuba with hand-made branches depends much more upon the skill of the craftsman than the mechanical process, and takes a lot more time. Two workmen in factory "A" can probably hydraulically form 20 bottom bows in the time necessary for two craftsmen in factory "B" to make one or two bottom bows by hand. There are so many variables that it would be impossible to predict the playing qualities, but I think that there would be a tendency where the parts are hand-made, that they would more carefully assemble these parts. I would dare say that the reason Rudolf Meinls and Hirsbrunners cost as much as they do, is because of the amount of time taken in building them right. As I work on a variety of instruments every day, it is very obvious to me who took the extra time in building their instruments, and who didn't.
Lee Stofer


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