There are no "best" valves. Each type has its advantage and disadvantages. For a student horn, bulletproof stainless valves have a strong selling point. To a professional player that takes meticulous care in oiling and cleaning, no technology is better or worse.
As far as design goes, the Selmer Radial 2° valve block had definite ergonomic advantages. I can't say that they are faster than Bach, Getzen, Monette or Schilke valves however.
@mediocreplayer The analysis of a sticky valve is to first check cleanliness (dirt/damage/distortion - thank you Ivan) and proper lubrication, then comes the interface finger position to valve stroke. Proper lubrication means BONE DRY VALVES AND CASINGS, then oil to create isolation between them. Oil floats on water so drying first is a real part of oiling.
Sometimes we can hone the valves (with a loss of compression) until they work or push the player to change hand position and play with the tips of their fingers.
I have only had issues with used instruments broken in by someone else.
@stumac I think that most are dead because the market did not want what they were making - for the price that they were asking. Value is an interesting concept and it is still exists today. When businesses expand, they take a risk. When businesses have more overhead than turnover, they have a problem.
I admire the Chinese for their granular production. The same production line can build a $50 or a $1000 trumpet. The quality is determined by the person placing the order not the artisan. I have played prototypes of both. The knowledgable reseller does not HAVE to screw their customer.
On another side, I bought a 3d printer and have been printing mouthpieces. They are WAY TOO GOOD. I am not selling or taking orders, I am learning and offering my students the possibility to play before they pay. They can evaluate what the difference between an A, B, C, D, E cup is as well as backbores and rim shapes. Then they buy what works. There has not been much R&D on natural trumpet mouthpieces - just copies made of historical ones without knowledge if they were „high performance“ back then. For less than $1, I can experiment until I am happy. Then the 3d model can be made in silver, brass, copper or any printable plastic. Will this change the mouthpiece market - I certainly believe so. Print on demand could be a great advantage to a pro shop. No appreciable inventory. The printers with suitable resolution are available. Kelly mouthpiece anyone?
Arban only speaks about the Cornet á piston or simply "piston". I have never seen any reference tying Arban to a rotary valved anything. It also looks like someone else besides the bell engraver engraved the name into the bell.
I would be interested to see what proof Josh got of the provenance of this instrument.
@djeffers78 Standard “problem” thread. What does best mean? Good enough? What definition of value do we declare? Resale value, acceptance by teachers, blend with other horns, bling factor for the student? The list goes on and on.
My point is that the term “BEST” is about the WORST description that there is. Because Monette is not Bach or Yamaha, would that be an off brand?
Are we looking in this thread for good value at a lowest price or innovation at any price? Are we considering dealer support? Financing possibilities?
I am actually allergic the the word “best” because it simply is not a factor, rather an opinion that is generally worthless.
Now, if we are looking for good deals for students, we need to be very clear about the advantages and disadvantages IF that student is going to music school. If we are considering vintage instruments, there may be a coolness factor but a big disadvantage in ensemble playing. Vintage instruments may need serious TLC to get the valves tight and slides working smoothly.
My students generally start with a Yamaha 3xxx or 4xxx model. Resale is great if they end up in sports programs. Performance makes life easy. Playing characteristics are sensational. Service in Germany is top notch - from the dealers AND Yamaha.
@J-Jericho Half of the fun is the positive comments from colleagues for the idea. The coke bottles are physically more stable than much of the competition. My favorite is the smaller 0.33 liter mute. In theory, this is an adaptation of the Renuzit mute.
@Kehaulani If that was the goal, they failed miserably. I consider them to be light years apart on blow, core and tone.
@ButchA said in Not really a "mouthpiece safari" but the need for a "saving grace" type of mouthpiece...:
In review:
Bach 10¾CW - arguably the easiest MP to play both low and high without any straining.
Bach 3C - a fantastic MP with a full sound, but after the high A, I start straining.
Curry 3M. - a really amazing, custom, MP that is (according to Mark Curry) in between a 3C and a 3D. I went right up to the high C with minimal straining.
In my world, no direct mouthpiece comparison has any meaning at all. We need to acclimate and that takes time. I have played mouthpieces (like the 14A4A) that were 15 minutes of bliss then caved because my lips bottomed out. I certainly could have solved that problem, but at what cost? Only a couple of months can tell!
We are the sum of what we repeatedly do. Regular and intelligent practice helps us create reliable playing targets. Mouthpiece searches - especially for those without well trained embouchures are a crap shoot!
I recommend picking ONE MOUTHPIECE and sticking with it for a couple of months. At that time, if you have been taking notes, you should be able to come up with the next step (stick with the mouthpiece or change).
As far as your comparison, it sounds like it was done in a small room. When trying to fill up larger playing venues, small mouthpieces can be a lot of work.
Please do not confuse what works for strong players with recommendations for weaker players.
@IrishTrumpeter
My son lives and works near Cork. If Covid settles down, I may visit this year.
@grune Even if it were "accurate" what does that mean? Can our eyes tell us how a mouthpiece rim will interface to our lips? It only shows the rim and cup - a lot of how a mouthpiece feels is in the bore and backbore however. We are sensitive to contours in 1/1000ths - how "accurately" can a 72dpi -150dpi screen image be.
The comparator for me is evidence that Kanstul measured many typical mouthpieces in a repeatable way. That makes it probably the best database out there. I can say however that the Kanstul Monette copies had nothing to do with the real thing - from "feeling" or playing characteristics. I am sure that the rim and cup were accurately measured - there is more to feel than the rim and cup...
I have made some interesting discoveries during my career.
This thread will show the "foolishness" of putting "slotting" high on the list of trumpet priorities. We need flexibility to play in tune.
There is a "bible" on intonation written by Chris Leuba - a former horn player with the Chicago Symphony. I am not sure if it is still in print, but it is certainly worth having.
https://www.hornguys.com/products/a-study-of-musical-intonation-by-christopher-leuba-pub-cherry
I have also had mixed results with PVA and gap - regardless if I did it or I had my artisan of preference do it.
What ALWAYS worked was a complete disassembly of the horn - unsoldering EVERYTHING soft soldered, reassembling without jigs or tension applied to the parts, solder cleanup and polish inside, then valve job, PVA/gap.
I believe that there is a short and long term "break in" of the horn and player. Short term, it is wear/mechanical (valves/slides) for the hardware and acclimation of the player. Long term it is tempre, wear (gap, leaky slides and valves) and the training of preferences in our ears/brain. Those preferences can be blow, sound, color or intonation - all being related.
If that is the original case, it is a far east creation. I do not think that a realistic value can be placed without physically seeing the horn - even if it were a popular brand. Valve condition, repairs, etc. all determine its value.
In this case with the leadpipe sleeve, I would assume that it did not come from the factory this way. I would suspect someone customized.
In my view, it looks terribly unbalanced. Sheet bracing, removable bell imply "heavy" something that is not good for a horn not designed to specifically be that way.
@stumac I think that a "barrel" backbore would be something like the Schmidt Backbore that Schilke uses as well as certain hyperbolic shapes used by Monette.
Those that get excited about backbores need to keep in mind that the rim, cup, throat, leadpipe and bell are also in the system and that any advantage is very much dependent on the synergy.
A good playing mouthpiece with a standard backbore gets a flat upper register when we change the backbore in this way. Some like that because they play tense and that compensates...
Mavbe some of us are reading the auction incorrectly. The engraving says Duke Donin FROM Louis Armstrong. Christies has a bunch of "non scientific" theories - not backed by documentation (invoice, serial number. history):
https://www.christies.com/features/The-1948-Louis-Satchmo-Armstrong-trumpet-10881-3.aspx
Certainly a collectors item, but you really have to want to believe the conjecture about Louis having actually played theis horn...
Opening the throat does not make the mouthpiece less stuffy. It makes the "targets" or slotting looser - a big advantage for Bach C trumpets with the high third space C, flat 4th space E and sometimes sharp top of staff G.
I have found that "stuffy" generally means that I can't hear myself well. Even with my current setup that is wonderful in churches and concert halls, when I play outdoors with little reflective surfaces, it feels stuffy. Experiments with the 1 1/2C back in the day, had me push the tuning slide in further (making me slightly sharp) and then relaxing more when playing. After a short while, the more relaxed chops resulted in much more open sound and far less embouchure tension - great for more endurance and a better upper register. In addition, articulation got easier where my face muscles were doing less.
I would suggest experimenting with pushing the tuning slide in so that you are maybe 10 cents sharp, and then "lipping" everything slightly down. For me it was like pulling the cork out after a week or two. 10 cents is not much work to compensate and I found it much easier to hear myself with the "new" tone.
My experience with Chinese instruments has been very good. We just have to understand that they do not decide on the quality, they just build to order.
When I last visited, I saw the production lines. If some customer wants a $50 trumpet, they will build it. For $51, you get some nickel silver trim, for $52, a bit thicker metal. $55 gets you a couple of mu more Monel on the valves... And so it goes up to their most expensive instruments that cost maybe $650 each (including mouthpiece, case and white gloves) when a container full is ordered. The realistically purchased instruments are VERY, VERY good!
The bad guy is not the manufacturer, rather the customer that is willing to pawn off cheap on their customers.
@Trumpetb My point is that we do not NEED TO PERFORM WITH the original instruments to get the original intentions of the composer. For some people, myself included, learning and performing with them does however, offer additional palettes of color to use.
As the trumpet through its history has changed about every 50 years, I would place most of the "blame" for lost technique and tone clearly with the trumpeters. Even in the Jazz genre, how many players just noodle around without really embracing the various periods in jazz? How many can play a convincing Bix or Dizzy chorus? What about a whole evening of 1920s jazz (or 1950s for that matter). Sure, we may hear some licks that apply, but a whole evening? The same is true with cornetto choruses called diminuation. It is not a hard concept, the patterns developed over time and also applied to a certain extent to the baroque period.
The ignorance that is displayed - even by some (if not many) professionals, is simply laziness not lack of sources, information or role models. It certainly is not hardware based. There are even courses to build your own cornetto or natural trumpet.
I would not consider anything lost rather ignored.
@_mark_
It is (maybe not) funny, but I have NEVER had a beginner walk away from the first lesson with what you describe.
"Too much" pressure is NOT an issue for the first weeks/months of playing and if your face is capable of forming the letter "M" without nervous twitches, you are only a moderate breath away from a stable first note.
That first note can be practiced with just buzzing the lips, buzzing with the mouthpiece or buzzing with the mouthpiece and horn. We do not need to squeeze the lips together with high pressure, the normal letter "M" is enough for the first open tones - normally open G and low C. Resist the urge to mess around with the valves until your "M"-bouchure is steady.
The trumpet actually only needs a wisp of air to ignite the tone. A LOT of players exercise WAY TOO MUCH EFFORT in basic tone production. Do not try to hyperventilate after reading how much "air" the so called experts pump through the horn. Do not try and form a six pack in your face.
Trumpet playing is thousands of very low impact repetitions. There are no short cuts.
Slow down, find someone who plays reasonably well from a local band or school and get the beginnings in a decent direction.
Hmm, I probably shouldn't answer, but the original post struck me in a way that I can't let go of easily.
I don't think that ANYONE OWES ANYONE ELSE ANYTHING. Posters that come on with how they have been given a rough time are very suspicious in my book. The second "telltale" tidbit in this thread is the mention of low funds being a reason to call fair repair rates "outrageous" or even the myth of those "outrageous" prices driving us to DIY.
Skilled veterans NEVER treat musicians in need with "contempt" (their may be other types of non-customers that rub them in a way that generates less cooperation however! As a matter of fact, the seasoned veterans (at least all that I know) are usually very willing to help the needy in special ways.
My drive to DIY is based only on my personal interest about how things work and none of my techs have heartburn about it.
Now if we can get beyond the very bogus "contempt" for those making an honest living, there are a lot of resources available for the DIY trumpeter. I took a natural trumpet building course that lasted 5 days. We had three professionals showing us (13 course members) their "tricks of the trade", from soldering to brazing, to making tubes and bells, hand hammering, bending our self made tubes and engraving. In addition, we all had successfully built a working trumpet after 4 days.
The artisans that I work with are very responsive when I ask "Can you show me how to do that". I have learned how to properly change leadpipes, set the gap on a mouthpiece receiver and what happens when we move a brace. They have helped me to purchase the right tools for specific jobs. They have all let me in on "secret tweeks" - knowing that I would not abuse the information.
I know of no website with trumpet repair tips for the DIY scene. The reasons are manifold. No respect, strong differences in the definition of "quality", myths.
So, my recommendation is to look in the mirror. Maybe, just maybe you will see something that could change your relationship with the professionally qualified. My firsthand experience is that they are much more forthcoming than the way you came on in your original post.