Re: Double Tuba?


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Posted by Tony Clements on February 14, 2000 at 12:07:41:

In Reply to: Double Tuba? posted by Tom Caudron on February 14, 2000 at 09:44:45:

There have been MANY attempts ar a double tuba. Alexander made a COMPENSATING double that was an F tuba, with a change valve to CC (BBb). It was a GREAT F tuba and a lOUZY low tuba. The compensating system doesn't work well in this application. Gronitz makes one, never played it, There was one floating around made by Meinl-Weston, I thought. Lee Hipp (who was in San Antonio at the time) told me it was pretty good, I never got to play it either. The Late LArry Minick had one on his workbench that he had been working on on and off for years; his was a FULL double. He started with a 'natural' CC tuba, no valves and went up from there. He told me that the problem lays in the 4 feet of tubing between the F tuba and the CC tuba. While the F was great, the CC was awful. THAT 4 feet of tubing needs to be conical and expanding, not cylindrical. Yamaha came to his shop a couple of times to see his work on the double tuba and when I was in Hammamatsu, there WAS a full double in production. I think the F-CC tubing problem, along with the weight of the valves (although there was experiments with TITANIUM) and instrument, cost prohibitions and the limited market, keep the double tuba from becoming a reality.


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