Question about Big Chinese Bats

[dp]

No, not the ones in Wuhan, the Yorkish-knockoffs from Wessex and Eastman.

"Since I see used examples of these horns offered for sale
all over the place and all the time now,
<edit: here's the question>
does anybody have an idea how many of these horns were sold into the market?"

[Mary Ann]

Nope, but I have noticed the same thing. They aren't Miraphones and it became obvious to the owners.

[bloke]

They need to drop the price of them down to about $1,400, so that Gen fill-in-the-blank peeps can afford to keep them (playing characteristics not withstanding) in order to be able to pose with them for their "professional artiste" portraits. (ie. "This is the tuba that I use every time our Orchestra plays Fountains,." etc.) Also, they look cool sitting in the corner of their "studios" - as long as they are dusted regularly.

[arpthark]

[the elephant]

More than three were made, I would guess.

[bloke]

designed by German technicians

[the elephant]

Designed in "Germany", which is the name of a village in Guangdong…

[bloke]

I remember when one of those models (that - in regards to its appearance - resembles the appearance of Wade's Japanese one...the Chinese model that seems to be the most often for sale - used - of any of them... known as "mode" in statistics) was first released with much aplomb.

I was eager to try one of them.

After less than a minute of playing time...(quietly to myself, as I had connections to get one at the original dealer cost, which was pretty low) my reaction was "nope".

[Tubatex66]

I wonder why so many of these have come up for sale in the last few years? Is it because a bunch of college kids bought them and then discovered they weren't versatile enough to be their only horn? To me, these have a very specific purpose and are not a do-it-all horn. Kind of like if your only hammer is a sledgehammer. Yes, you can hammer a thumbtack with it, but it's not the best tool for the job. Or is it because they just aren't great horns? If that's the case, why do people like Chris Olka endorse and play them?

Just wondering...

Thanks!

[bloke]

I've spent a lot of time playing through the 120 Rochut (Bordogni) vocalises with a 6/4 B flat featuring The 20-inch bell and .835" bore, but it's a very good instrument and it can easily be made to conform to A=440 equal temperament tuning... And without any alternate fingerings... nothing that isn't found in the front of the beginner band books (other than the fact that I have a couple of more valves available).

I haven't necessarily found that to be the case with most of the C yorkalikes.
I've owned several different ones of those (none which were Chinese, admittedly), and I never felt like playing music on them, but mostly just played scales in arpeggios to remind myself of all the things I had to do to favor them in tune.

...but I'm not taking this 6/4 tuba or one in C with a smaller 3/4ths inch bore to some job where I've got to play a bunch of gymnastic things on the tuba.

[Sousaswag]

I wonder why so many of these have come up for sale in the last few years? Is it because a bunch of college kids bought them and then discovered they weren't versatile enough to be their only horn? To me, these have a very specific purpose and are not a do-it-all horn. Kind of like if your only hammer is a sledgehammer. Yes, you can hammer a thumbtack with it, but it's not the best tool for the job. Or is it because they just aren't great horns? If that's the case, why do people like Chris Olka endorse and play them?

Just wondering...

Thanks!

Probably a lot of reasons. Yes, a bunch of college students buy them and realize pretty quickly doing everything on a 6/4 is hard. If one already has or has access to a smaller instrument, well, there's other reasons.

My hunch? Chinese instruments depreciate a LOT. I'd bet a lot of owners see that, and want out before they lose half of their original investment.

Or, you'll see the "I want to switch to rotors" comments come up - That usually means "I don't like something about this tuba."

They are certainly not do it all horns. However, if all you do is play in a large band, by all means, play one. That's what it was built for. College students are expected to play a large variety of music. A York copy will *not* be the best fit in brass quintet, for example.

I have a 6/4, but it's not Chinese and I've put a lot of thought behind making it into something that 1) isn't hard to play in-tune, 2) is as easy to play as possible, and 3) doesn't make me want to find another horn to do what this one was designed to do. I also have other horns to fit whatever role I need to cover. The 6/4 isn't my ONLY instrument, but I do play that one 90% of the gigs that I take. The other 10% is on Eb or F.

Chris Olka can endorse and play pretty much whatever he wants. I know he loves that what he plays is readily available for most to go out and get, rather than, well, the Yamayork or Nirschl. Chris is also an excellent player. If this make/model makes his job easier, then why wouldn't he endorse them?

[bloke]

People are tired of my opinions.
Yeah, I've sort of decided that 6/4 is just a little bit too big for an instrument in C.
As an example, imagine an instrument in E-flat that was just as big, but tapered even faster from the mouthpipe to that same gigantic bell and bottom bow.
Quite a while back, I lost interest in what models other people play, at least in respect to influencing what I choose to play.
There are some really fine players who obviously don't put "one of the easier models to play in tune" as a top priority, so - right there - their priorities and mine diverge.

[catgrowlB]

There is a pretty big jump in size between Eb and CC tubas. The old 'Monster' Eb tubas are more or less considered "6/4" size for Eb tubas -- equivalent to compact/squat 4/4 CC and BBb tubas. Yet 6/4 CC tubas are about 2 sizes larger than the Monster Eb tubas, and are pretty much as large as 6/4 BBb tubas.

As for the Wessex, Eastman, etc BATs.....
I guess there is still a lot of players wanting big shiny tubas because the symphony pros play them in the big orchestras. The Eastman is the closest thing to the 'coveted' YamaYork, while being more "affordable". But I suppose some ppl realize they are not very practical tubas for most users, and after a while they sell them...

Back when I was in college 25 years ago, there were hardly any tuba players seeking out 6/4 Yorkaphones. Most college players were on 4/4 and 5/4 contrabass tubas. The big 6/4 tubas at the time --- VMI Neptune, MW 2165, Yorkbrunner, etc were looked at as more specialized tubas that really only symphony players used, and you'd sometimes spot a college kid with one back then. Very different today...

[tubatodd]

Back when I was in college 25 years ago, there were hardly any tuba players seeking out 6/4 Yorkaphones. Most college players were on 4/4 and 5/4 contrabass tubas. The big 6/4 tubas at the time --- VMI Neptune, MW 2165, Yorkbrunner, etc were looked at as more specialized tubas that really only symphony players used, and you'd sometimes spot a college kid with one back then. Very different today...

I too was in undergrad 25 years ago. I was the only person in my studio with a 6/4 tuba. I fell in love with the tone of the Meinl Weston 2165 I found at Dillon Music and traded in my Kalison Daryl Smith 4/4 CC that day. The 2165 was a bear to play. Sure, great tone, but it was very difficult to manage. A 4/4 CC tuba would have served me MUCH better.

I've been out of academia for a long time. My guess is that the glut of 6/4 Chinese-ium in the hands of students is because "that is what the pros are playing."

[the elephant]

My idea (based on conversations with PeopleWhoKnow® leads me to believe the following, though none of them have outright said any of this. But a lot of winking and implying was going on. (I suspect these people know my name from online sources and believe me to be far more "plugged in" to what is happening than I actually am, so some of them probably told me things that I ought not know…

• Some of these BATs (which will be unnamed by me) are heavily advertised as being built at a consistently high level.

• Some kids have excessively indulgent parents. ("Supportive" is the term they would use, but they overdo this to the extreme and sometimes end up harming the kid as a result.)

• Some of these kids know enough tech babble that they dazzle said indulgent parents to the point that said indulgent parents tell them, "Just call up XXXX and order whatever it is that you think you need for school, my boy. Here's my credit card. We'll look at cars *next* weekend."

• Some of these kids do not yet fully understand the whole advertising-versus-reality thing.

The truth is that the online, very carefully cultivated "word of mouth" advertising done by most of these companies implies that these are so well-made that you can simply order one up over the phone, and you'll have York No. 3 on your doorstep in no time at all.

The truth is that the so-called "fit and finish" of these is fine on the exterior, but internally, many of them are the musical instrument equivalent of "Five Second Rule" hamburger patties.

Run a good bore camera through them, and you frequently will see all sorts of little horrors hidden in there that will cause these horns (all horns, actually, from any maker) to be inconsistent enough that ordering one rather than trying it out first is a STUPID way to purchase any musical instrument.

Don't buy new tubas of any brand or model over the phone! Go try them out. If you can't, then be prepared to get a POS, because you have a pretty decent chance of that happening. That is part of the price to get one of these things.



All instruments have flaws due to limitations in manufacturing techniques and human error. While some makers are very consistent during the build process, most are not.

There, I said it. Most.

Even our biggest and best makers dump bowsers on the market on occasion. I studied with a guy who fought with a huge-name boutique builder over a truly craptacular bell that needed to be replaced (and really ought not have been allowed to leave his shop, truth be told), and this battle went on for some time and was pretty acrimonious.

TEST TUBAS THAT ARE NEW. TEST THEM. TEST THEM CAREFULLY. ALWAYS DO THIS. IF YOU CAN'T, DON'T GET IT.

What my little birds have been telling me is that consistency is off enough that many of these kids who buy over the phone, thinking they will get York No. 3 in a cardboard box delivered to their door, are disappointed that their new musical Wunderwaffe has some issues and is harder to play than they expected. Sometimes this does not become apparent for a while, and they try very hard to figure it out and make it work. Then they put it up for sale.

It can also be that (in the case of BATs specifically) they discover over a year or two at school that everyone was just being nice to them about their new tuba, and that they actually sound like soggy chum in quintet and like they are slurring everything in band. It takes kids in this situation a long time to suss out these things. It does not help that more than a few professors out there encourage the kid to spend a LOT more money and time searching for the Magic Mouthpiece® when better guidance and teaching would benefit the kid a lot more. You don't take auditions to get comments, or to see how you do, or to try to advance to the next round. You do not have ANY business taking auditions unless you honestly believe that you can WIN the audition. Otherwise, you are wasting the time of a lot of people who are very busy and who are there to find a new colleague so they can get back to work… and you are wasting thousands of dollars of that orchestra's very limited budget. An audition is not a contest but a serious job application process.

Hard facts.

So what happens is that these kids buy these horns, and realize:

• They got a bowser because they did not play it first.

• A 6/4 tuba is inappropriate in most groups at a kid's current level of mastery.

• They will *never* win an audition with a full-time orchestra or military band.

Please take note that to get a JOB playing the tuba, you need to have rock-solid intonation, time, rhythm, and an excellent sightreading ability. Your tone needs to be very characteristic… but the vaunted World Class Sound® NEVER wins a job by itself. In many cases, and in many spaces where tuba auditions are held, a BAT will MASK what you are doing and hinder you greatly. If people tell you that this is not the case, they are either lying to you or are stupid.

To quote Johnny Carson when doing an impersonation of Walter Cronkite's final CBS News telecast:

People say I'm the most trustworthy man in America. People have faith in what I say. Okay, trust this: Kids, wet your finger like so. Now go jam that little sucker in the wall socket. Trust your Uncle Walter: it won't hurt a bit.

But what do I know?

[the elephant]

To distill this down to something that does not make the reading-challenged whine about how long the above post is:

Kids buy these over the phone. They get a dog. Everyone they respect tells them how great these are, so they struggle and work to polish that turd, eventually playing someone else's in comparison, and discover just how bad their example is.

And it goes up for sale.

— or —

They play any example at school (good or bad) and discover that these horns are pretty specialized and do not work well at all in many situations, and that a trusty, used 186 would have been a better choice for 90% of what they do.

And it goes up for sale.

— or —

Rich kids want nice toys, and once they graduate high school and move on to other things, they discover that most college women do not find tuba players all that compelling on a date.

And it goes up for sale.

[bloke]

There are also those who were lulled in by the band trophies and the All-State accolades in high school, but even in college (not to mention the cattle call so called professional world of shrinking budget and shrinking audience symphony orchestras... and for some reason, not too many of them really don't want to play in military base bands, and nor do they really want to use their degrees for what they are designed for: which is to be a high school band director), quite a few move on to a more practical major field of study by their sophomore or junior years (and I'm talking about what many of them - I suspect - tend to do and not what they need to do, which is to learn and develop skills in blue collar trades before delving into the esoteric and intellectual disciplines). If they don't sober up and move on to a more practical field of study, the failure to meet the passing grade requirements in private lessons, ear training, and keyboard proficiency will take care of that anyway. They might still play the tuba partially through their senior year, or they may not.
... and yes why not (without parental oversight as pointed out by Wade) get one of the Harley-Davidson visual-effect tubas (as - let's face it - most everything that's sold is sold through pictures of the products sold) since you can get one of those for $8000 or $10,000 that look just about like the $40,000 ones.
... and - in America - their instruments are going to have to be C-length, which reminds me a lot of what French conservatory students were required to acquire and play up until around 1950 or so, yet a different very specific type of instrument. ← As an 18-year-old, I TOTALLY bought into this.

[tclements]

I'll only give my experience: I've had 3 6/4 CC Eastmans. I sold all 3. Currently, I have both the large Wessex. I use the York for pit work and when a microphone is in my bell, like for movies. And the Presence when I need a bit more projection or a tighter sound, based on the bass trombone player on the gig. I use the Presence for trad jazz, and when I play with the Peninsula Banjo Band. Currently, my MAIN 2 horns are the Adams 6/4 and a B&S 3100, 4+2.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!