Posted by Tom B. on January 29, 2002 at 21:48:05:
In Reply to: Re: Re: Getzen posted by Dave on January 29, 2002 at 21:43:12:
I'll have to look and see if I have that book. I have some CB stuff, but I'm not sure if I have that one or not.
The G-50 is a CC tuba, but it is possible to covert it to BBb without much trouble at all.
Here is a post I made on converting the G-50 from CC to BBb:
Hope this helps.
The conversion from CC to BBb is all in the 5th valve. On the Getzen your 5th valve can be set up as a half step, a whole step, or if you have the optional slide, a two step. To convert the horn to BBb from its "natural" CC state, you need to set the 5th valve slides up for a whole step and disconnect the top of the 5th valve linkage and spin the rotor 90 degrees. This will essentially make the 5th valve always "on," which adds the whole step to the CC horn that you need to get it down to BBb.
That is how you do it. However, I don't think that I would buy a Getzen G-50 if I intended to use it as a BBb all of the time. The pitch gets a little hard to control and the horn becomes very stuffy when you are using the 5th valve all of the time. The 5th valve works great when used for the extended low range on the CC side, but like I said earlier, I would not want to blow through it all of the time.