Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Taper and intonation


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Posted by Ken Herrick on October 27, 2001 at 17:24:02:

In Reply to: Re: Re: Re: Re: Taper and intonation posted by Matt Walters on October 27, 2001 at 05:00:54:

Hi Matt,

I was wondering what response you might have! Very interesting ideas. Obviously as tuba lead pipes are proportionately much shorter than a trumpet's we do have imposed limitations which Ren did not face with trumpet design. Considering that a trumpet does have the valves located roughly half way through the length of the open horn we would be looking at some monstrous valve ports and tubing if we were to place the valves on a tuba at a corresponding place! And, yes, "response" factors are the quality which can be greatly influenced by shaping of the lead pipe. What you say about the player being the big variable is very valid. My own experience and the results of work I have seen done on tubas by people like Ren, Carl, Jerry at Karnes years ago and some others does convince me that definite changes in tuning can be made by varying the lead pipe, especially on instruments with the longer pipes.

Maybe what I will do, when I get seriously stuck into rebuilding my old King is try a few different lead pipes. (Might have to see if I can talk a certain top tech out of some tubing!) I had planned to do the rebuild in the new instrument tech facility which was planned., but alas the politicians were all talk and no money and the whole project has vapourised. ( I was looking forward to those new horns too!)

An interesting point on tuning variables in the lead pipe area: While puting dampeners on the 5J I found that the 5th partial D which was somewhat flat could be altered a lot by playing around with locating a dampener against the lead pipe in the last few inches before it entered the valve cluster. It was a bit flat and could be made VERY flat but I now have it pretty well in tune.

Guess I better leave some memory for other posters! Haven't been puting much in as the computer had the flu when I did and when we recovered from that I had a bad reaction to a cholesterol reducer which almost killed me so I have been very limited in my none survival critical activities lately.





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