Where's the spit?

[tubatodd]

DISCLAIMER: Please forgive me for a question/discussion on spit.

When I play my Besson 995, there is a pretty massive amount of spit that accumulates over a . I pull top and bottom slides and plenty dumps out. I spin the horn and get out every last bit.

When I play my Rudi Meinl CC, I have the opposite experience. I expect to have plenty of build up and when I pull the main slide to dump the horn and I get very little or no output. I would imagine the spit output would be the same as the player is the same. I've pulled slides for individual valves and I'm not seeing much output. I spin the horn and nothing comes out of the bell.

So is the spit output really less on this horn? Is it being stored somewhere that I have not purged?

[bloke]

When I sort of did a stop gap repair on your Rudy's main slide month or two ago, I coated the interior of it with a hybrid saliva absorbent material.

[Schlitzz]

This IS a family friendly site………

[bloke]

This IS a family friendly site………

' sorry...
I guess I just have a tendency to tamp on it.

[tubatodd]

I guess I'm just going to not over think it and just dump the horn periodically, as needed or when I can hear it. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[tubanh84]

I never had a ton of spit build up in my Rudy lo these many years ago (mine was the 5/4 CC). It did tend to build up in the fifth valve, but that was about it. Just empty the main slide every now and again, and I was good.

Out of my current horns, my CC's (Gnagey and 184) get a lot of buildup in all the valves, and the Gnagey takes some spinning sometimes to dump it out of the bell. My 182 F barely gets any. Just like the Rudy, all it takes is emptying the main slide every now and again. I just assume that the valve layout allows them to drain efficiently.

[Thomas]

I can confirm your observation and I do see the cause in the layout of the instruments. Playing a Besson 3+1 BBb and a 4 valve rotary Kaiser, I experience the same difference regarding the amount of spit. The Besson will be retrofitted with Saturn Waterkeys for all valves as my elder 17" version only had three waterkeys (at the first valve and main tuning slide + main wrap). The most water is collected in the 4th and especially the 3rd valve slide which is the most annoying slide to pull for emptying in concert situations.

[bloke]

Is the throat on the mouthpiece that you use on the RM larger than the throat on the mouthpiece you use with other instruments?

Are you blowing more air through that instrument?

[tubatodd]

Is the throat on the mouthpiece that you use on the RM larger than the throat on the mouthpiece you use with other instruments?

Are you blowing more air through that instrument?

I'm assuming this question is for me. I use a Miraphone Rose Orchestra on both horns. In my 46 years I've never owned one until last year and it has become my default choice.

[1 Ton Tommy]

I've found that there are several variables to water production -- I prefer to think of it as distilled water than spit -- namely room temperature and the surface area of the horn. My big horns collect a lot more water, to the point where I use a catch can rather than a towel on the Mammoth. Of the two Bb trumpets I regularly play, one needs dumped much more frequently and it is a smaller bore but not by much, same mouthpiece.

[prodigal]

The spit is in front of me, under my 186CC spit valve. I've never had a horn make so much water, I could use a french drain under the stage. After our concert on Sunday, my stage camo old black t-shirt spit rag was just soaked.

[1 Ton Tommy]

Maybe an antique brass spitoon would work better.

[prodigal]

Maybe an antique brass spitoon would work better.

That would add style ....

[tadawson]

To the original question: Check your shoe?

[Mary Ann]

It would make sense that the longer the bugle, the more likely the dew point will be reached as the air progresses through the horn. Cooler room temperature also more likely to have the dew point reached.

Oh, and someone please shoot me. I have finally entered The Dark Place and called a tuba a horn.

[the elephant]

The Besson is thicker, has a smaller bore, and has more traps for the water to accumulate until it gurgles. The RM has a larger bore, thinner/lighter in the valve section tubing, and all the water accumulates in one place.

Thick or thin tube walls affect how fast they warm up. Water condenses and accumulates faster in a cold horn. A thin-walled tube warms faster, so it collects less condensate from your warm breath.

Smaller bore tubing is more heavily impacted by droplets and other obstructions. The same-sized water drop blocks a larger percentage of a 19mm tube than it would in a 21mm tube, and therefore will be more prone to being moved around by the airstream, and thus gurgling.

If all the water can drain easily to a large bore tube and there is less of it in the first place, you get less gurgling and less "output". The Besson has all sorts of bends and twists between your face and the main water key. So you end up with lots of small pools that partially block smaller tubing. Since it accumulates more water in the first place, this causes you to have to duplicate it more often, and those pools take more effort to move through the horn to the "exit".

If you play the two horns side-by-side in an ensemble where you are keeping them warm as you play, and you are outdoors on a hot day, both ought to accumulate about the same amount (which ought to be only a little), though the RM will allow you more time between emptyings. If you play them side-by-side in a very cold room, the RM will collect less water and will still need to be emptied less often. In comparison, it will seem like the RM has next to no water in it while the Besson will seem "normal".

Water condenses on the warm side of a wall when the other side is cold. Outside on a hot day, a cold bottle or glass of Coke will "sweat". This is condensation collecting on the warmer face of the container (the outside face), because the air is humid.

Invert that for the tuba. The outside wall of the valve section (well, the whole tube) is cold to the touch, and you are warming up the inside face with very moist air. The water condenses against the warm face of the tube.

If the tube is not really all that cold to the touch, like when you play outside on a hot day, there will not be very much reason for water vapor to condense onto the wall; the temperatures are close to being the same. But on a cold day, the warm air from your body is a LOT warmer than the tube, so ALL of the moisture will try to condense, and you will have to empty it a lot more often.

Sorry that this is so long.

[bloke]

This is a lesser factor, but I believe we tend to choose a certain instrument to play really loud stuff and others to play medium loud stuff.

At least with me, I'm putting more of my warm air through an instrument when I'm playing really loudly. Before I got the really large B flat, I never much thought about quantity of air, but I have the first valve slide aligned so well on that instrument that sometimes I feel it getting blown out when I'm really putting out a lot of sound... and the same goes for my vertical main tuning slide on the same instrument. I shortened it a bit and also really aligned it well (way better than it needed to be aligned...I can't help it ). After that, I put a clutch on that slide, because it would get blown out and land on the floor as well when I played really loudly.

If the room temperature is in the lower 70s - rather than the upper 70s, playing really loud a whole bunch in a cooler room is going to define more condensation. I suspect other people can afford to keep their homes in the lower 70s in the summer, but I really can't and my house is in the upper 70s during the summer (much less water when practicing in the summer). Additionally, my house temperature tends to be somewhere in the 60s during the winter (much more water). Most nicer venues seem to heat and cool their air down to the lower 70s year-round.

Another factor is a constancy of playing. If I'm playing with a wind band - and mostly playing and not resting, the longer the rehearsal or performance, the less I'm emptying water, because the instrument stays warmed up. If it's an orchestral thing and I'm sitting around for one or two minutes between perhaps one minute long big blows, after those big blow episodes there's going to be a lot of water that needs to be released.

I like what Wade said about thickness of tubing and bow sheet metal. When I'm doing little jazz combo jobs with my compensating Besson E flat recording bass, most everything is mezzo forte, I'm striving to not be a pig and to not drown out the front line, and etc., and it's also thick brass. Thinking back through all the jobs I've done that instrument, I don't spend much time emptying out water... EVEN THOUGH it's top action, and top action tends to collect water in a whole bunch of places.

Most importantly, I could very well be wrong about everything.