Posted by Peter Krill on March 03, 2000 at 08:19:28:
In Reply to: Shank length posted by John on March 02, 2000 at 22:07:38:
I've had the Dillon adjustable gap receiver installed on four of my tubas, and found that by adjusting the gap between the end of the mouthpiece and the beginning of the leadpipe I can get a good balance between the lower and upper registers of the tuba, and also get good clear articulation.
Most definitely there should be a gap between the end of the mouthpiece and the beginning of the leadpipe. When I have dialed the adjustable gap receiver all the way in, the tone is stifled. Usually, I find that a gap of about 5/8" works best for me. You can also adjust the gap by using mouthpieces with different size shanks as mentioned in the other posts.
(In my previous post I made a slight error in the second paragraph. I meant to say "beginning of the leadpipe", not "beginning of the receiver".)