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How do we make sure the tooling for G bugles is never lost?


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Some day, when it would be economically viable to do so, I'd like a start a group of ensembles that uses three-valved G horns. Since these instruments are virtually no longer produced and will soon be unobtainable, do we run the risk of never being able to produce these instruments again at a time when it is appropriate?

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Some day, when it would be economically viable to do so, I'd like a start a group of ensembles that uses three-valved G horns. Since these instruments are virtually no longer produced and will soon be unobtainable, do we run the risk of never being able to produce these instruments again at a time when it is appropriate?

I am sure if you have the money, that Kanstul will still make a set of 3 valve g bugles for you.

Two people to talk to about preserving the g bugle tooling would be Brent Getzen and Zig Kanstul.

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I'm curious about this as well - in the grand scheme of things, I doubt that the mandrels and such take up much space in the elves' workshop, but with minimal orders, they probably move further to the back of the shelves. A related fear would be the (as far as I know) special case of the DEG SuperMag 4V contras, as the valves are from Willson. Anyone know if this was some special arrangement, or was the volume so low that DEG just ordered a cluster from the Willson catalog? Would that arrangement carry through on special order items? Very curious, as this is what I would consider the pinnacle of the G contra.

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Some day, when it would be economically viable to do so, I'd like a start a group of ensembles that uses three-valved G horns. Since these instruments are virtually no longer produced and will soon be unobtainable, do we run the risk of never being able to produce these instruments again at a time when it is appropriate?

You're assuming special tooling exists. IMO, most of them were made as "longer Bb" instruments, and not retooled at all. When people claim those horns are "difficult to play in tune" this is what they're talking about, because the overtone series on each valve combination is "further away" from equal temperament than a properly made instrument. (properly made instruments are tuned to the Harmonic Series, which is ALSO some [predictable] distance away from ET...bad instruments act randomly to the musician.)

The only instruments that were retooled (and built properly, in G, from the ground up), that I'm ABSOLUTELY SURE ABOUT are the King Euphs and King Contras.

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the tooling exists, companies have said so. however if no one buys any, you wont see it last

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the tooling exists, companies have said so. however if no one buys any, you wont see it last

Thank heaven for eBay and smart guys like us who keep a few G's in our personal arsenal. That's arsenal, with a "nal".

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You're assuming special tooling exists. IMO, most of them were made as "longer Bb" instruments, and not retooled at all. When people claim those horns are "difficult to play in tune" this is what they're talking about, because the overtone series on each valve combination is "further away" from equal temperament than a properly made instrument.

Interesting. Is this pretty much all that makes a G soprano sound so different from a Bb trumpet when played by the same group of players in a drum corps setting?

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Interesting. Is this pretty much all that makes a G soprano sound so different from a Bb trumpet when played by the same group of players in a drum corps setting?

All of the factors you can name contribute to the difference. All I'm saying is that if you take an instrument designed to maximize the length of a Bb tube (at a desired quality of sound and intonation), and then do nothing but make the tube longer, the resulting overtone series will not line up as it did on the Bb tube. You have to make other adjustments to bore/MP/bell/rate of bore increase.

From here, we can notice that trombones are DESIGNED to do exactly what I'm complaining about! That is, a trombone is a real-time "change of length" instrument, where the part that's changing is CONSISTENT in its construction. First of all (I play trombone), the trombone DOES have slight issues with this is the slide goes out...everything in the overtone series gets more unpredictable, to the point where the higher partials are practically useless. (That's OK, because the higher ones exist as lower partials in higher positions...just like long vs short valve combination) Trombonist's compensate for this by using the infinite tuning slide in front of their faces. Valve players have no such luxury, and it makes them tired.

A trombone is a cylindrical instrument. Bugles are conical! (At least, that's what we're told, lol)

Now we play Trumpets. Good ol' band-o-matic trumpets, and we've stopped pretending that "soprano bugles" are bugles.

SOME manufacturers DID try to make them conical, and those were rejected as not "projecting enough." (I have no examples; only recollections of conversations here and there, 15-20 years ago. I played low brass, which had clear conical tone [tuas/euphs] and less-conical tone [bari].)

Recall that "screech soprano playing" was practically a requirement BITD. Do you think they could get that sound on a Cornet? (A true[r] bugle!) HECK NO. Therefore, "soprano bugles" were NEVER BUGLES AT ALL.

Conclusion: Soprano bugles BITD had all of the problems of a trombonist trying to play their entire scale as if the slide were extended from 4th to 7th position.

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