Besson Bbb tuba

[Grumpikins]

I'm just curious.

What is the difference between the besson 994 and 992 models. I cant really find any info comparing the two models. What I see when i search is the same sales pitch for each.

Would be fun to try them out someday.

Thanks

[bloke]

I probably shouldn't post, because I don't know for sure, but wasn't the 992 made in England and most of the 994 instruments having since been made in the B&S factory?
I'm sure I'm the exception, but as long as the valves aren't leaky and the rest of the instrument isn't compromised, I believe I like the old 17-in bell English made instruments better than the 992.

Real brass band players will tell me that I don't know what I'm talking about. They're right.

Probably it's because they cost so freaking much, but I've actually never come across a B&S-made top line Besson compensating BB-flat tuba in this neck of the woods. I have a couple of the 17-in bell instruments here and a 992, but nothing German that's Besson.

Other than the E-flat and the staff - which is sharp and needs a workaround, I find that the intonation offered by the old 17-in bell instruments is remarkably good.

I still think it's goofy that - because of what John Fletcher did to his E flat (that he mostly did not use in brass bands), the most common bell size these days for the top action compensating B-flat and E flat tubas is 19 inches. I tend to wonder if they increased the B-flat bell size to 19 inches simply so that the E-flat instruments' bells wouldn't be larger than the B-flat instruments' bells...(??)

[andycat]

Imperial/New Standard - Before 1980 ish

992 - first "Sovereign", based on Imperial but with flat/level leadpipe and input from John Fletcher. 1980-89ish.

994 - 1989 ish onwards - some great, built in Edgware, London, but then a charity scheme (National Lottery) meant a lot of bands got grants and bought sets, and to keep up Besson got a bit sloppy. Good ones are great, bad ones terrible.

994GS (Current) - shorter, wider, less manageable. Made mainly in Germany (early ones were London still). I find them woofy and very ergonomically terrible, but some love them. Some very bad intonation issues requiring alternative fingerings, but nothing to the slide pulling you have to do on a non comp.

I'd have a Yamaha Neo over any besides a good 992, or a 19" bell Imperial although these are so heavy they are a pain (physically) to move around/carry etc.

The 17" bell imperials are great, but don't quite cut it in a high standard modern brass band. I know because I tried!

Andy

[andycat]

I still think it's goofy that - because of what John Fletcher did to his E flat (that he mostly did not use in brass bands), the most common bell size these days for the top action compensating B-flat and E flat tubas is 19 inches. I tend to wonder if they increased the B-flat bell size to 19 inches simply so that the E-flat instruments' bells wouldn't be larger than the B-flat instruments' bells...(??)

I think this all started with trombones getting bigger (in bore and bell), then Euphoniums etc. I think we've got "bigger" as others have. The 17" imps have great intonation, especially the 3 valve ones, they just can't keep up with the over bloated euphs and troms and EEb's these days.

The pyramid of sound we look for doesn't quite work unless the BBb's are the biggest.

[2nd tenor]

994GS (Current) - shorter, wider, less manageable. Made mainly in Germany (early ones were London still). I find them woofy and very ergonomically terrible, but some love them. Some very bad intonation issues requiring alternative fingerings, but nothing to the slide pulling you have to do on a non comp.

I always find this situation interesting in that folk sing the praises of four valve compensating instruments, and how great such instruments they are, but seem to forget - or even not understand - that there is no compensation until the fourth valve is pressed. I’ve actually been shocked by some of the well experienced players that don’t get that subtlety.

The simple stuff that I’m called on to play on my Eb Bass sometimes benefits from use of a fourth compensating valve, but the range above lower treble clef D (concert F?) will always be uncompensated and potentially out of tune on a four valve instrument. Well, that is, unless I’ve misunderstood something.

Edit. To be clear if you want a three valve Besson / Boosey and Hawkes Tuba then seek out a three valve compensating one. (When the third valve is depressed the airflow leads back into additional sections on the first and second valves). I’m not sure whether the compensating loops make the tuba stuffy or not - but others here will know.

[bloke]

I realize I'm probably being annoying by continuing to change the subject by broadening the subject, but the old Besson BB-flat compensating instruments that I really like basically are about the same size as a Miraphone 186. (They look as though they're bigger, because of the tall upper bow, but actually they're not.)
The complete copies of their bells (made very early on by Yamaha which are also 17 inches in diameter) are dead ringer copies of 186 bells other than an additional quarter inch of radius.

As others have intimated, stretching these out to 5/4 size instruments has affected the clarity of sound as well as the intonation characteristics.

I know that I rant on and on here about all sorts of wind instruments having become too big and mouthpieces having become too big, but players are having to work harder to get the same types of ringing sounds out of their instruments (at medium volume levels) and - when playing very loud (and it's appropriate) producing just a bit of edge out of the very large instruments becomes more difficult, compared to a bit smaller instruments used across the board in the past. I'm just not sure that it's any sort of advantage... and (again) it's everything, and not just tubas.

When brass bands are so limited as to the type of instruments which make up their ensemble (ie. "brass") - yet all the instruments somehow need to sound enough different from each other so as to be distinguishable - I see killing the 15-inch bell E-flat tubas as having been the end of the two (sonically) distinguishable sizes of tubas. ..

...so 6/4 contrabass tubas in wind (brass and woodwind) bands and extra large bodied 3/4 size string basses in symphony orchestras...?? ... I think those get a "by" from my rant, because they are the very largest instruments, and as long as a particular model offers accessible intonation and clarity, "big bass" has been popular to most everyone's ears ever since the introduction of the electric bass guitar in popular music.

Yeah... I've almost never had the privilege of listening to live British style brass bands - and - sadly - have never heard any of the superlative ones live, but when I listen to older recorded performances of some of the amazing ones of the past (with their 17-inch bell Besson BB-flats and their 15-inch bell E-flats... as well as 8-inch bell baritones with only .503" bore sizes and wonderful Imperial euphoniums with only .580" bore sizes and 11-inch bells... I suspect that a retreat to those instruments would be of benefit to the brilliance and clarity of the sonority.

...but I've been completely wrong plenty of times before.

[Grumpikins]

Thank you for all the great info.

This is the u toob video that piqued my interest.
(If the link works)



I'm sorry, this is a "new standard" model tuba.
I dont know, I really like older tubas that are unusual (at least in the little corner where I live.) That's why it caught my attention.

[arpthark]

Thank you for all the great info.

This is the u toob video that piqued my interest.
(If the link works)



I'm sorry, this is a "new standard" model tuba.
I dont know, I really like older tubas that are unusual (at least in the little corner where I live.) That's why it caught my attention.

Yep, that’s a Besson 17” bell 3v compensating BBb. Fantastic player. Thick metal, sort of tall and rather heavy but they sound great and are IMO one of the best 3 valve horns you can get.

[gocsick]

Stas is such a fun tuba player too. Great Dixieland solos.

[JC2]

I realize I'm probably being annoying by continuing to change the subject by broadening the subject, but the old Besson BB-flat compensating instruments that I really like basically are about the same size as a Miraphone 186. (They look as though they're bigger, because of the tall upper bow, but actually they're not.)
The complete copies of their bells (made very early on by Yamaha which are also 17 inches in diameter) are dead ringer copies of 186 bells other than an additional quarter inch of radius.

As others have intimated, stretching these out to 5/4 size instruments has affected the clarity of sound as well as the intonation characteristics.

I know that I rant on and on here about all sorts of wind instruments having become too big and mouthpieces having become too big, but players are having to work harder to get the same types of ringing sounds out of their instruments (at medium volume levels) and - when playing very loud (and it's appropriate) producing just a bit of edge out of the very large instruments becomes more difficult, compared to a bit smaller instruments used across the board in the past. I'm just not sure that it's any sort of advantage... and (again) it's everything, and not just tubas.

When brass bands are so limited as to the type of instruments which make up their ensemble (ie. "brass") - yet all the instruments somehow need to sound enough different from each other so as to be distinguishable - I see killing the 15-inch bell E-flat tubas as having been the end of the two (sonically) distinguishable sizes of tubas. ..

...so 6/4 contrabass tubas in wind (brass and woodwind) bands and extra large bodied 3/4 size string basses in symphony orchestras...?? ... I think those get a "by" from my rant, because they are the very largest instruments, and as long as a particular model offers accessible intonation and clarity, "big bass" has been popular to most everyone's ears ever since the introduction of the electric bass guitar in popular music.

Yeah... I've almost never had the privilege of listening to live British style brass bands - and - sadly - have never heard any of the superlative ones live, but when I listen to older recorded performances of some of the amazing ones of the past (with their 17-inch bell Besson BB-flats and their 15-inch bell E-flats... as well as 8-inch bell baritones with only .503" bore sizes and wonderful Imperial euphoniums with only .580" bore sizes and 11-inch bells... I suspect that a retreat to those instruments would be of benefit to the brilliance and clarity of the sonority.

...but I've been completely wrong plenty of times before.

The British brass band sound is really its own thing, completely different to orchestral or wind symphonic type of sound. The players are always striving for a very warm, sweet and blended sound. You’ll rarely hear much edge in the basses, more just a warm rumble in the bottom of the band. The good ones can play unbelievably soft too.

Traditionally, the players from basses up to cornets are using deep funnel mouthpieces (traditionally the Dennis Wick type of thing). I think this also contributes quite a bit to the very blended, diffused, homogenous sound.

In the past I’ve tried using an F tuba or a CC tuba (my EEb fingers are gone these days) in a brass band and I find it doesn’t work at all. Particularly the F tuba sound sticks out quite badly. The besson sovereign has this unique ability to play very wide with very little core. It’s a bit hard to describe. Orchestral tubas have too much core, which ends up not blending. Similar but not quite as extreme as trying to use a trumpet in a Cornet section.

Anyways, to address the bell size thing. I think the British players actually prize the more wide, warm diffused sound of the 19 inch sovereign. If I was buying a Besson for wind band or orchestral use, the smaller bell ones would be awesome fun. I could imagine them not working quite as well in bands now compared to the big bell ones. That extra brightness and zing won’t be your friend.

[BramJ]

There are 2 992's for sale in the Netherlands, https://brassatelierdewilde.nl/product/ ... 92-732053/

Although the laqueur is bad and obviously well used, are these the 'good' ones @andycat? I wonder what the valves are like...

[andycat]

Yes, these are the ones.

[bloke]

The profile of that instrument in the picture (and the Sovereign that I have upstairs in a Jakob Winter case) just doesn't/don't really look much fatter - really - than the vintage B-flats that all of us like due to their intonation. I wonder how much different they really are than the bell pancake (and the more challenging intonation).

(I picked up the Sovereign thinking that I would fix it up nice and have a instrument that I would like better than my old Besson, but after playing it for a bit - decided that didn't like it as well, and I guess that's why I've never pulled it back down and fixed it up for resale, because I originally didn't purchase it to resell.)

I'm being way too redundant, but I still am nursing the suspicion that the reason that the Besson B-flat bell diameter was increased from 17 to 19 inches is only because the E-flat bell diameter was increased from 15 to 19 inches (which sort of made the B-flat seem out of place with an only 17-inch bell diameter).

Fletcher put a 19-inch bell on his E-flat much earlier, but this other stuff happened around the same time that Miraphone increased their signature model's bell diameter from 16-1/2 inches to 17-3/4 inches (leaving everything else about the same).

pancakeflation

I remember when the German 5450 model (a superb model which sold heavily when first released) experienced a sales slump (because - LOL - it plays and sounds just as advertised) and many students were soon defaulting back to the (bland?) pt6p that so many of their teachers had been telling them to buy...so they increased the 5450 bell pancake to 19 inches and sold some more of them.

186:
Some of us are old enough to remember when we first encountered one of these at school children, and were astonished at the huge bore size and the other large dimensions of this model.

bloke "We skeptics (who tend to suspect that things often aren't really done for the reasons that are claimed) tend to be quite annoying."

EDIT:
OK, now I'm curious:
One of these next few days (maybe Sunday, because I don't feel as guilty doing non-productive stuff on Sundays...Musicians never view Saturdays as days off, and - also - neither Sundays, until 12:20 P.M. or so.) I'm going to pull out and bring down that Sovereign BB-flat and compare it to a vintage Besson to see if - actually - there's much difference in size anywhere other than the bell flare pancake...(I'll be honest with that I find...I'm quite accustomed to being wrong ...a lot.)
That having been said,
Discussing differing opinions re: compensating tubas with the English is just about the same as pooh-pooh Martin tuba myths with Martin tuba owners (though the English are infinitely more polite about it)...Those are not equipment-owners. Rather, those are more like orthodox religions.