Re: MW182 vs Yamaha 621


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Posted by Joseph Felton on October 16, 2002 at 12:22:56:

In Reply to: MW182 vs Yamaha 621 posted by F tubas on October 15, 2002 at 22:05:42:

I'm stating the painfully obvious when I say that it all comes down to personal preference and the type of playing situations you have in mind. My tastes don't have a habit of neatly lining up with other peoples so please take what I have to say with a grain of salt. I've spent about the same amount of time with both horns.. always at conventions.. don't own either(own a PT-15).

That said, I think the MW182 is a tremendously better horn than the YFB621. Both are easy to play but while the YFB is merely an above average amount of forgiving of poor playing habits(why is this such a selling point? develop good habits and all horns play well) and possesses a pleasant but unmemorable sound the MW is *electric*! The MW nearly leaps out of my hands, is a blast to play *and* has a very characteristic sound to boot. Sound flies out of the bell of that horn *before* you play it. Very quick response. Everything I played was absolutely effortless and instantaneous. Incredibly easy to do technical wizardry on. Soundwise it is much bigger than you would expect and possesses a respectable amount of flexibility(of sound- being able to change the sound of the horn by turning the tone knob in my head is a big deal to me).

Most folks have a preconceived notion of what they think a tuba should sound like in a band. For that reason neither of these horns is probably the horn to play if you are the lone tuba in band. Paired with someone on a bigger horn it would probably be quite nice, however. Alone, they both would work very well in a musical sense but overcoming the preconceived notions of your fellow musicians would likely be difficult unless everyone agreed to playing with a much more transparent sound. Both strike me as great solo/quintet/tuba ensemble horns.

In short, if the choice is between these two horns the no-brainer choice as far as I'm concerned would be the MW182. If you are serious about playing very much in larger ensembles you might want to look elsewhere.. depending very heavily, of course, upon what your tastes are. You might just think it works just fine. A bigger mouthpiece and slight adjustment of the tone knob in your head might be all the horn needs to satisfy you.

good luck!
joseph


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