Miraphone 181 Family Discussion

[the elephant]

Okay, so I am very interested in a tuba that one of my erstwhile students now owns. It was described to me as a model I did not know existed.

Not being a "specs fan boi", I do not feel like wasting a lot of time on the Miraphone website reading meaningless decimal places. I want actual hands-on experiences and comparisons.

Starting with the 181 — My guy here has what he told me was a 181 Belcanto. I was under the impression that the Belcanto was the 381. That bit of ignorance on my part is why I am coming to this community for clarity.

So the 181 is the progenitor of this family, and it was a 1980s attempt to replace the "fiscally uncompetitive" 180 F with a B&S knockoff. The initial ones were great in many ways. (The one I used in several concerts, borrowed from Ev Gilmore, and which was a late version prototype), the early ones had moderately less sucky low Cs, but the low B was trash. The overall scale was really good, and the timbre was much more interesting to me than any B&S product ever had.

My friend's horn was less colorful but had a rocking low end and (what seemed to me with only a cursory examination using the mouthpiece I had on me) played quite well.

It was about 2,000 pounds lighter than my Kurath, and about six inches shorter. It *felt* like an F tuba, whereas my Kurath *feels* like a CC. That was fun and useful for a long time, but now I want to try to move to more of a traditional bass tuba sound and, well, attitude. I am looking for a better-for-me Adams F, meaning the heavier, original HB piston F tubas. But finding one of those up for sale will be a challenge.

Miraphone and I go back to the very beginnings of my musical life. I would really like to have one of their newer F models.

So, with all that nonsense spewed onto the screen… PLEASE OUTLINE, DESCRIBE, AND COMPARE THE CHARACTERISTICS OF MIRAPHONE F TUBAS. ALL OF THEM IF YOU CAN. But I am more interested in finding a 6-valved rotary horn that has a rocking low register, which seems to slowly be turning into a thing.

The 181 family is the most interesting. 181, Belcanto, Electra, Petrouschka, et al…

[prodigal]

Thanks for starting this thread, I might need/want a different F someday.

How do these Mirafones rate against the Cadillac, a Cold war Symphonie?

[arpthark]

There's the first generation 181, which was essentially, as you said, a PT knockoff without the graduated bore.

The second generation 181: I have played several of those, both 5 valve and 6 valve versions (mostly 6 valves). I believe these have "Premium" engraved on the bell, and the ones I have played have been Mirafones instead of Miraphones (early 90s era, I'm guessing?). These are the ones that have the sky-high second space C. Like, 30-40 cents sharp. Definitely required an alternate fingering; I would typically use 4th valve. All of those third partial notes required some adjustment in some form. Pull out for 1st valve Bb, use 3rd valve for A, hope and pray for Ab, etc.

That said, they tend to have a very solid lower range. Not as solid as the 281/Firebird, but less amorphous than other German style Fs.

(I think the Firebird actually has the most CC tuba-ish low range of the rotary lineup, and I think it is also the smallest.)

I don't know if I would put the Petrouschka in the same camp as the 181 family -- I think the bugle/bell may be different? But it's really easy to play as well and I remember being pleasantly surprised by it. It reminded me of a Yamaha piston valve F but with a lot more color in the sound. It's been several years since I've played one.

Circling back to the sky high third partial C, I haven't played any of the newer offerings so the characteristics of the modern 181 Bel Canto, 381 and 481 are lost on me. The taper may have been corrected to eliminate the issue. I can't even find the 381 on the Miraphone site anymore -- perhaps discontinued?

Interesting that the whole Miraphone rotary F tuba lineup starts with the same bore as the 186, and even expands to be larger than a 186: .772" to .835" graduated bore.

[MikeS]

This is from a 2011 post on Miraphone’s Facebook page.

Greetings to you low brass folks out there!
Following up some rumors and questions about Miraphone's new rotary F tuba line "BelCanto" I'd like to make some general statements about these horns which might help to clarify a few things for everyone interested:
After two decades of continuous efforts to improve the classic 81 F tuba line step by step, recent evolutionary measures and changes applied have made it necessary to finally replace the existing model with a new name and item number. The former 81 tuba has ceased to exist!
Here are the two new F tuba competitors on the market:
1.) Miraphone F tuba 181 "Belcanto", item number 150181B (5 valves) or 150181C (6 valves).
2.) Miraphone F tuba 381 "Belcanto Solo", item number 150381B (5 valves) or 150381C (6 valves).
The outer measurements are the same as with the older 81 F tuba models. But here some significant changes which result in a much better flexibility, and improved quality of response, sound and projection:
Both "Belcanto" models 181 and 381 have the improved 1st valve bore (more solid in both intonation and centering) and an optimized leadpipe.
The 181 "Belcanto" comes with a free leadpipe (attached to the bell with only two braces) and the standard Miraphone receiver, the 381 "Belcanto Solo" has the leadpipe soldered onto the bell and comes with a receiver type that allows the leadpipe tubing to wrap directly around the mouthpiece shank (without the receiver being "in between"). Additionally the bell and bottom bow of the 381 "Belcanto Solo" are made from thinner brass sheets which increase the horn's potential t resonate and add color. The thicker material of the 181 "Belcanto" on the other hand enables effortless projection for big concert halls.
The 181 also comes with an optional bell wreath. For the 381 the wreath is standard. Both models are available in either gold brass or yellow brass, with 5 or 6 valves and in lacquer or silver plate.
As always it is impossible on my end to recommend the "best option" for everyone. The nature of preferences is to be subject to the individual musician's taste, playing habits, performance group settings and concert hall acoustics.
So please forgive me if I can only invite you go and try both horns and figure it out. They were just released. So best way to do it is to go to the next trade show and test play them at the Miraphone booth.
Hope you find this information helpful.
Keep up the hope for the perfect horn!
Markus Theinert

[the elephant]

Very helpful, folks!

[Bob Kolada]

Okay, so I am very interested in a tuba that one of my erstwhile students now owns. It was described to me as a model I did not know existed.

Not being a "specs fan boi", I do not feel like wasting a lot of time on the Miraphone website reading meaningless decimal places. I want actual hands-on experiences and comparisons.

Starting with the 181 — My guy here has what he told me was a 181 Belcanto. I was under the impression that the Belcanto was the 381. That bit of ignorance on my part is why I am coming to this community for clarity.

So the 181 is the progenitor of this family, and it was a 1980s attempt to replace the "fiscally uncompetitive" 180 F with a B&S knockoff. The initial ones were great in many ways. (The one I used in several concerts, borrowed from Ev Gilmore, and which was a late version prototype), the early ones had moderately less sucky low Cs, but the low B was trash. The overall scale was really good, and the timbre was much more interesting to me than any B&S product ever had.

My friend's horn was less colorful but had a rocking low end and (what seemed to me with only a cursory examination using the mouthpiece I had on me) played quite well.

It was about 2,000 pounds lighter than my Kurath, and about six inches shorter. It *felt* like an F tuba, whereas my Kurath *feels* like a CC. That was fun and useful for a long time, but now I want to try to move to more of a traditional bass tuba sound and, well, attitude. I am looking for a better-for-me Adams F, meaning the heavier, original HB piston F tubas. But finding one of those up for sale will be a challenge.

Miraphone and I go back to the very beginnings of my musical life. I would really like to have one of their newer F models.

So, with all that nonsense spewed onto the screen… PLEASE OUTLINE, DESCRIBE, AND COMPARE THE CHARACTERISTICS OF MIRAPHONE F TUBAS. ALL OF THEM IF YOU CAN. But I am more interested in finding a 6-valved rotary horn that has a rocking low register, which seems to slowly be turning into a thing.

The 181 family is the most interesting. 181, Belcanto, Electra, Petrouschka, et al…

I don't really know anything about the rotary Miraphone tubas but just a note- the Petrouschka 1281 is their piston F tuba. The one I played for a year or so played very well but the low range underneath C was rough. I got the feeling it was a 'cheater horn' for C tuba players who wanted just that- an easy playing F tuba that kinda feels like a small C with a good low C and that's that.

[prodigal]

Where does the 481 Elektra fit in with this series?

The only Mirafones F I've played was one of the old 181s a quarter century ago. I was playing a Symphonie at the time and I thought it was okay down low but not special up high.

[Pauvog1]

I seem to remember a larger and smaller bel.canto around 2011 (I think the larger was a bel canto 181, and the smaller the 381). The slightly smaller one played great at Mid West when I tried it years ago.

[Sousaswag]

I seem to remember the 181's being for sale all the time, for middle of the road F tuba pricing, with 5 or 6 valves. Now they're pretty rare.

The 81 series - I have played each one except for the 381.

181 - To be honest, I don't remember much about the pitch. I was young (20 or so) when I messed with one at the Midwest conference. I didn't have the ear then that I do now, but nothing struck me as way out one way or another. I thought it was very nice with typical Miraphone quality.

281 Firebird - We all know about that one. Very good F tuba, good low range, that's why people like it. I started out my F tuba journey on one of these, had the opportunity to buy it too, but chose the stinker original 2141 instead. Anyway, the 281 is outstanding. WAY different than your Kurath or my Willson, but probably (likely) easier to play in tune.

481 Elektra - The newest one. No idea of the difference between it and the others. Also very good. Outstanding intonation across the whole range, and as traditional German as you could get. The version I test drove had a 4+2 setup and was all gold brass. Not only was it a looker, but to me was the easiest, soloistic player that I've played in a long time. I do believe the owner sold it in favor of a Yamaha 822.

1281 - A piston F. Not part of the traditional German rotor series. I think they're easy players with pretty good pitch too, but my issue is the physical size. It's very small and short. You being a taller guy probably wouldn't like the leadpipe making it to about your adam's apple or so. I had to hunch over to play the thing. I think this is Miraphone's attempt at competing with the HB10, Adams, 2250, etc. It's a touch smaller than any of those.

[bloke]

When Miraphone decided to open up distribution and not give MiraFone USA exclusive distribution anymore, they were dumping all their remaining stock for probably around cost including accessories. I went down to Texas and bought several things. One of them was one of those pt10 (15?) copies.

Compared to my Symphonie model, it seemed like an awful lot of work to play and the rotors were so large in diameter that they were slow (as with the old model 90/190 Kaiser tubas) and my fingers were outrunning them.

I drilled them out from the top and bottom as far as I dared without going into the cutouts in the rotor bodies, but it didn't speed up their rotation. As it didn't help, I determined that the problem was the excessive surface contact (due to the large diameter) and not the weight.

I'm sure I'm not the only one who has noticed that nowadays - when they use a really large bore like 21.2 mm, they're using 186 size rotors (the size they use for the 19.6mm bore) and just scooping them out much larger. This results in rotors that are actually a little bit faster than 186 rotors, rather than way slower.

I don't want to piss off anybody, but I don't think they ever really got rid of the sharp second space C problem with any of the F tuba models all the way up to the most recently designed ones. That's a very common problem across the industry with F tubas, and everyone whines are about the C an octave lower, but to me that's pretty easy to play if it's played like the particular tuba wants it to be played, with only a couple of makes and models of F instruments offering a really wretched C below the staff.

Okay... I've gone off track from the topic. so let me go back to those newer models of F tubas that Miraphone offers...
Of course they're well made and that goes without saying, but - like I said -:I find that the second space C still rides up (and that's just really distracting to me), and the type of resonance that they generate sort of reminds me of the Walter Nirschl 4/4 -5/4 C tuba type of resonance... It's "good"... (If you catch my drift). I really feel uncomfortable doing anything but raving about their instruments, because they are such great people and they do such great work. I just don't think that their F instruments are their forte (did I just accidentally make a pun?)

Moreover, I believe that Miraphone's specialty is B flat instruments, and - with B flat instruments beginning to come into vogue in the United States (with the top grade B-flat instruments finding their way into the hands of players, rather than just entry level B flat instruments being sold by the container load into grade schools), I predict that Miraphone is going to garner even more more attention from American consumers of tubas.

[russiantuba]

I played the Elektra, Gold Brass Firebird, and Petrushka back to back to back. I have a student with the redesigned 181 with the super sharp C and B (had some work done as the 5th valve had the length of a 4th valve and a euro receiver). I used to like the firebird a ton. It was very point and shoot, had some color.

However, when I played all of these, and having owned a 180F, the gold brass firebird was my least favorite of the 3. The tuning wasn’t as solid, I didn’t have the tonal flexibility and the response was not as good as I once remembered. The Elektra was such a good horn, and I had played it first. It had the playability of a piston F (like my Gronitz), had a great sound, great response, great control. I said if I went to a rotor F and didn’t do an Alexander, no doubt I would get an Elektra.

I should note, I really doubt the firebird played different than the other times I tested it—I almost got one ages ago. The Elektra was just that good.

The Petrushka had a tuning slide kicker, which was a bit clunky. For a piston F, it was point and shoot, I thought it was better than the firebird, but the Elektra was much better. The Petrushka was a hair easier to tune than my Gronitz, less interesting sound, but played very similar (a hair less free blowing). I had an alumnus who wanted a different F, who had played and liked a firebird, and I urged him to play and give serious thought to the Elektra.

I’m lucky my repair shop has all the demo horns for Miraphone. It might be worth a trip to TMEA if he brings all 3.

[bloke]

... and I'm well aware of the fact that I'm spoiled...

[thedancingsousa]

My one big experience with the Elektra was overwhelmingly positive. So much so, in fact, I still think about it quite often. At the time, I actually wasn't a fan of how easy it felt. I remember thinking, "it feels like this horn is playing me. Everything is so effortless." That sensation made me uncomfortable at the time, but I often think back and laugh at myself for being afraid of such an easy horn.

[prodigal]

Great feedback friends! Yes bloke, you're spoiled with that 6 valve Symphonie. I remember the old 5 valve I played on. I remember checking tuning with my tuner. Everything was spot on all the time! My Cerveny Piglet is a lot more squirrelly, but I'm playing for fun, so I can deal with it.

[bloke]

Great feedback friends! Yes bloke, you're spoiled with that 6 valve Symphonie. I remember the old 5 valve I played on. I remember checking tuning with my tuner. Everything was spot on all the time! My Cerveny Piglet is a lot more squirrelly, but I'm playing for fun, so I can deal with it.

not every pitch is "centered" in tune, but the (so-called) "slots" are so freakin' barn-door wide that one would never notice the few that are (never more than) 10 c. away from centered-on-pitch...

OK...I sorta judge myself as being able to "hear" tuning reasonably well (so many formative/young years of tuning and tempering the tuning of guitars), but I could imagine someone who hasn't worked (as much as have I) towards LEARNING tuning (and more "plays by feel") getting in trouble playing a Symphonie model...because neither slightly low, centered, nor slightly high FEELS low, centered, nor high. (Either this makes sense, or it doesn't...??)

[prodigal]

Great feedback friends! Yes bloke, you're spoiled with that 6 valve Symphonie. I remember the old 5 valve I played on. I remember checking tuning with my tuner. Everything was spot on all the time! My Cerveny Piglet is a lot more squirrelly, but I'm playing for fun, so I can deal with it.

not every pitch is "centered" in tune, but the (so-called) "slots" are so freakin' barn-door wide that one would never notice the few that are (never more than) 10 c. away from centered-on-pitch...

OK...I sorta judge myself as being able to "hear" tuning reasonably well (so many formative/young years of tuning and tempering the tuning of guitars), but I could imagine someone who hasn't worked (as much as have I) towards LEARNING tuning (and more "plays by feel") getting in trouble playing a Symphonie model...because neither slightly low, centered, nor slightly high FEELS low, centered, nor high. (Either this makes sense, or it doesn't...??)

Mine seemed like cake compared to my too-big bell 186. It felt like the difference between driving a steam locomotive and a BMW. (My old 186 just feels more precise, like a big F tuba.) Maybe that's what the "modern" Miraphone Fs seem like? I've got to try all of them sometime.

[bort2.0]

I need to remind myself about the Miraphone F tuba that I briefly owned... honestly don't remember much at all about it, except that the 4th and 5th valves were configured to be the same number of steps. I had planned to get the 5th cut down to a normal length but had to sell it for financial reasons before I got to that point.

It was an early 181-ish design or some sort.

Regarding the Petruschka, my recollection was that it was made as a companion to the 1291 and 1292 tubas, since it features a similar asymmetric top bow design, piston valves, etc... hence the similar model number, 1281.

Side note, I'm not sure if Alan Baer ever had much to do with the 1281, but he did have some early input on the 1291. I met him years ago, and he gave me an earful about how Miraphone asked for his help to design the 1291, so he built them a great tuba... which they promptly ignored and said that wasn't how they did things. Eventually, they built and released the 1291, which was based on Alan's work but he didn't like it. Hence, the soon-to-follow 1292 was released with the name New Yorker. That tuba was much more in line with his original concept, but by that point, the ship had sailed for the Baer/Miraphone collab. By the time I heard this story, he had been with MW for a while already, and was pretty much always playing MW tubas in the orchestra. At the time, his headshot for the orchestra/press releases was him with a Miraphone tuba and the Miraphone logo front and center. I asked him, what's the deal with that and quickly got a look and a grumbled response... wrong question to ask.

[bloke]

There aren't too many piston F tubas with which I'm enamored, but if I had to play one on a job, I'd probably go with the tried and true Yamaha 621 or that Miraphone 1281... but the bore size is so large on that 1281 that I think I would work myself to death if I had to play a long gig on that instrument - particularly, if there was a good bit of high range playing.

[bort2.0]

There aren't too many piston F tubas with which I'm enamored, but if I had to play one on a job, I'd probably go with the tried and true Yamaha 621 or that Miraphone 1281... but the bore size is so large on that 1281 that I think I would work myself to death if I had to play a long gig on that instrument - particularly, if there was a good bit of high range playing.

I always figured the 1281 was supposed to compete (aka, attract the same buyers) as the Yamaha 822. It's been a LONG time since I've tried the 1281, but my memory is that it sounded a lot more F tuba-like than the 822 does.

[bloke]

There aren't too many piston F tubas with which I'm enamored, but if I had to play one on a job, I'd probably go with the tried and true Yamaha 621 or that Miraphone 1281... but the bore size is so large on that 1281 that I think I would work myself to death if I had to play a long gig on that instrument - particularly, if there was a good bit of high range playing.

Actually, the Mr. P F tubas are pretty good, but they don't seem to be consistent.