Posted by Rick Denney on April 09, 2001 at 12:15:03:
In Reply to: Re: Re: Conversion of F tubas to Eb posted by Jay Bertolet on April 08, 2001 at 12:28:27:
Jay, you have to add about 18 inches to drop it to Eb, which is 9 inches on each side of the slide. I don't have my horn handy here, but you may run into conflicts with the bottom bow.
But I don't think you'll have terrible sound problems as a result--the main slide is conical through the crook (the fat side is much fatter than the narrow side), and it's already quite short. Klaus may be right that the fourth slide may also need an extension. Everything else should be within adjustment range.
If I may presume to offer you advice: Don't limit the potential of this F tuba by trying it with a small "F tuba" mouthpiece. They don't work on this horn, at least not for me. They do work well with a full-size mouthpiece. The only note on the horn that I have any intonation difficulties with at all is the expected 5th-partial G.
As to how they sound out in the group--I heard Lee Hipp play one with the San Antonio Symphony for a couple of seasons. He may have been working harder than he wanted to, but he didn't have any trouble getting his sound out for the sorts of works that you are talking about. He has always tended to the German concept, as you do (or as you did, heh, heh). As I have said before, the 621 seems to specially appeal to players with that concept.
Rick "who thinks the Willson is too noble-sounding to replace an ophicleide" Denney