A new member of the family

I bought a used Bach large bore 229 C trumpet with a Malone MC2 pipe and tuning slide. It's for my oldest daughter to play in a youth symphony this fall. What was especially great is that seller was in Montreal and happened to be taking a vacation road trip that would take him past my part of the world, so he brought the horn to my house for me to check out before buying it. It plays great without many of the intonation problems you get on a C. It sounds more like a Bb than any of the other Cs I tried.

So, now the family brass stable includes:

Getzen Severinsen

Bach 37

Kanstul 1500

Bach 229/Malone

Schilke E3L

Kanstul 1525 flugel

Conn flugel (mid 70s, "Couesnon copy")

Holton 179 french horn

and a school system Yamaha tuba

Maybe next year, a piccolo?

:drool: :drool: :drool: :drool: :drool: :drool: :drool: :drool: :drool: :drool: :drool: :drool: :drool: :drool:

Very convenient, you can probably store them all in your tuba.

Nice lineup!

I want your Kanstuls!

So, will it be a Schilke picc, or something else?

So, will it be a Schilke picc, or something else?

When the right one comes along, I'll know. I'm never in a hurry to buy a horn because I've found that patience is rewarded. I'd been looking for a C trumpet since May. The Schilke Eb/D came along when I was resigning myself to settle for finding the Yamaha version of the same horn (Yamaha = good, Schilke = great).

On the piccolo watch list:

Schilke - I have dibs on someone's P5-4 if he ever decides to sell it.

Selmer - the short bell like Andre's

Getzen - Their 940 is the "sleeper" pic. A nice horn with super valves, and even better with a Blackburn pipe.

Yamaha - the one patterned after the Selmer

Definitely no Kanstul, SB. As you know, I'm done with them.

Yeah, I know you are done with the Kanstuls. Really, their pro-line picc is only really useful if all you do is play picc anyway. I mean, 3 bells, 3 sets of slides, 3 leadpipes, ONE horn?

My instructor said he liked the Stomvi picc a lot, though not as much as his Schilke. Supposedly, those new Bach (not the Stradivarius) piccs are Stomvi parts with Bach valves. Also supposed to be nice. The Strad picc is just a Selmer picc with lower QC.

The problem with buying a piccolo is that you really should have experience playing one before buying one, or get an experienced player to try it first. For both the player and the instrument, the slightest flaws are magnified on a small horn.

Anyway, it's going to be at least another year before I even think of buying another horn.

Probably.

Unless I find a nice '50s Martin Committee for $500.

Nothing like impulse purchases!

GOOD {censored}ING LUCK ON THAT ONE BRO

GOOD {censored}ING LUCK ON THAT ONE BRO

Probably easier than finding a Firebird under $5000!

GOOD {censored}ING LUCK ON THAT ONE BRO

That's about what it would take for me to bring another horn in the house now.

I'll bet that, somewhere in America, there is an estate sale where an elderly widow is selling her late husband's lovingly maintained Committee that he bought new in his youth.

Too bad the bitch knows about eBay.

heh, nice

what's so special about the Malone lead pipe?

Think of the tuner car business. All that aftermarket stuff you can do to increase performance on a Honda Civic? That's what an aftermarket leadpipe can do for a Bach, or even a Yamaha, C trumpet.

C trumpets are notorious for intonation issues. Some of the problems are the from horn, some from the player. For this reason, Bach makes many different leadpipes in an effort to fine tune their horns (pun intended). The current ones are the 25A, 25C, 25H (called the Herseth pipe), 25S (called the Schluetter pipe), and 25R (reverse). Though every C trumpet player has their own preference, a Bach 229 bell + 25H pipe is very common for orchestral playing (big sound that cuts through).

Still, a cottage industry developed of brass technician making leadpipes and tuning slides that further improved sound and intonation over what was available from Bach. Probably the 2 most notable are Bob Malone in LA and Cliff Blackburn in Tennessee, but also Charlie Melk, Doug Pilczuk, Jim Becker, and Scott Laskey (who stopped doing aftermarket work and now makes great handmade horns).

Malone's leadpipe/tuning slide design has a unique "inside-out" feature: a reverse pipe with an outer sleeve that "hides" the end of the tuning slide. The other thing Malone does is "sweet spotting" the braces, slightly moving and re-soldering them to optimize the bell resonance. The horn I bought had the bell bow brace moved but not the bell flare brace. Malone also added an extended 3rd slide stopper, another of his designs.

A couple of years ago, Malone closed his shop and became Yamaha's chief trumpet designer, creating their Chicago C that has become the instrument of choice for many of the nation's top orchestra players. So, the Malone pipes for Bach trumpets are no longer available and are in high demand as result. The Yamaha Chicago C goes for around $3100-3300. I paid a small fraction of that for the Bach-Malone and a few people who played it like it as much or more than Malone's Yamaha. Come to think of it, the Bach 37, Bach-Malone C, and the Schilke Eb/D probably totalled around the price of a Yamaha Chicago C!

Speaking of the Yammie Chicago...

My college actually bought one of those over the summer! Since its a college deal, I guess we got it for about $2600.

And its been sitting in my instructor's office since. I don't even see his Franken-Bach in there, not lately!

I haven't gotten to play it yet. He says it plays wonderfully, but the sound is brighter than he likes. We'll see...

That's a great deal on a great horn, but too much for me to spend especially on a C. I found a Yamaha dealer willing the sell me a Chicago C from stock for $2695 (they were out of stock on Xenos until October). Most of the better known e-tailers sell it for over $3000. Basically, that horn is based on a classic Bach C with the Malone MC2 pipe/slide so I bought essentially the same horn for less.

When Malone's Yamaha Eb/D comes out, it's going to set a new standard. Then again, it's probably going to sell for close to $4000 with both bells and slides. I know someone with a Malone original Eb/D, made in the LA shop, and it sounds amazing, i.e. rivals my Schilke.

I hadn't heard of the Eb/D Yammie.

We may truly be in the twilight of the Bach Bb/C and Schilke high trumpet age, for orchestral playing at any rate. Well, for those orchestral players that can afford them.

Not any time soon: I've heard that Phil Smith is back to playing Bach.

If the Schilke E3L remains around $2800 new, there are plenty of players that would choose it over the Yamaha/Malone for approx. $1000 more. I've heard great things about the newer Schilke P7-4 piccolo but haven't played one because supply is scarce.

I didn't know he had stopped playing Bach!

In major orchestras it'll likely be a while before anything changes. Half of them still use the same 90 year old sheet music, after all. It'll be interesting to see how Yamaha develops as a major player. Personally, of the Yammies I've played, they are nice but not like Bach/Schilke. Just an "X" factor I can't put my finger on. These Chicagos look like real winners.