Posted by BrassWind trip update on March 06, 2001 at 15:55:56:
In Reply to: Brass Wind trip posted by Dave M. on March 05, 2001 at 06:14:25:
By some minor miracle we got there in only 6 hours. Anyway when I first got there Mr. Russo was out to lunch so I started pulling tubas off the wall and playing them. I played
the huge MW 65, a yamaha CC, a MW 55, and some other larger horns, they were a bit large for me. When he did show up we talked for a little bit about what I wanted and he grabbed 6 horns for me to try all 4/4 and 3/4 CC. I gave all of them maybe 15-20 min. of play then lined them up in the order I liked them the most. The order was this: MW 2145, Rudy Meinel rotary, some piston horn that had a bad hum in it, I still liked it alot, a Miraphone 1885u, what I didn't like about most of the miraphones is that from the bottem bow to the leadpipe they are really short and I'm 6'4"...not a good match. and there were 2 more, I think one was a 3/4 Rudy, I know one didn't have a thum ring.
I spent th rest of the time playing the MW 45 and the Rudy, and finally decided with the MW because of its comfert, PRICE, nice sound for a smaller horn, and Mr. Russo Guarenteed the valves on these horns won't crap out on me anytime in the future like older MW tubas.
I had tons of fun and Mr. Russo was a great help narrowing down the tubas(iv'e never seen so many tubas in my life) that would work for me and he gave me a great deal too!
-David McRoberts