Posted by Joe S. on December 10, 1999 at 00:52:46:
I apologize for being "overly-caffienated" (hyper-posting) tonight, but as I mentioned a month or two ago, I would be attempting to do a "quickie" conversion of a 6/4 Conn short-action 4 piston tuba to CC, since no one has ever bothered to try it before, it seems.
By "quickie", I mean that I am only yanking tubing away from one area of the instrument, rather that painstakingly shortening each branch of the tuba. Who knows? Maybe it will prove to work out great.
Anyway, you can click on this image and see that I removed three "branches" PLUS the main tuning slide assembly from this tuba and plan to put this clunk of trombone bell (that I bent around my son's skull ;^) in place of all of that. Obviously, this tuba took a huge "hit", tubing-wise, and now is somewhere up in the DDb range (not too handy). However, you notice that I am now lacking a main tuning slide. I plan to add a NEW main tuning slide within the mouthpipe (mounted on the bell) and make the NEW main tuning slide completely left hand accessable. Adding the NEW main tuning slide with LENGTHEN the tuba back DOWN to the key of CC, and would allow for hand-tuning of any note desired.
It will also do something else: It will make a longer section of the "front end" of the tuba proportionally smaller to the "bell end" than it used to be, like Miraphone tubas are. (Think about how many feet of tubing on Miraphone tubas stay "skinny" before the branches start to get "fat"...several feet.) By doing this, I ALSO hope to accomplish a sort of Miraphone-like overtone series with a more in-tune 3rd partial (not flat) than typical 6/4 tubas (although this monstrosity might [?] also prove out to have a little more resistance than other 6/4 CC's, too.) Anyway, we'll see. Later, when I have time to rig up the new mouthpipe with its on-board main tuning slide, I will post a pic of that, too.
Sorry for boring most of you. This is mostly for "nerds" like Matt...et al.