Pictured are most of my basses. I have another corporation 50B on the way for some reason...
Horn on the left is an '80s 50B3OG that I had John Sandhagen swap Shires rotors into. I love the wrap now, and boy howdy does it play about 1000X better than the stock Bach valves it had before. In the previous iteration, it would hit a hard dynamic cap at around maybe a forte where it would just stop working. The low range wasn't horrible, but had an even lower dynamic cap. Now it has a great vintage color (gold bell maybe?) and actually plays in all ranges and dynamics. The articulations really pop, too. Playing some jazz etudes on this today, it felt right at home.
The horn with the shiny valve caps is a Meinlschmidt Open Flow valve set with reverse tuning slide connector from an Edwards adapted for my Bach corp bells (one with screw ring, one without). This is a monster of an instrument. The Open Flows are purported to be .615 in my set, which makes them ridiculously open but still easy to play. They don't have quite the same width to the sound that very open Thayers would have, but are easier to play and have a very smooth, fast action. This horn, with the screwbell, has almost no dynamic limit that I can find. Even my last horn (stainless thayers, different screwbell, Edwards dual bore slide) would stop responding at a certain point and was much, much harder to play. The non-screwbell is a lighter, fast responding bell that does have a dynamic limit, but has a great color and a great sound in general. It's probably my favorite to play.
I have two slides right now, with the 50B coming I will have another.
The slide on top is an Edwards V slide- single bore, gold tubes, yellow crook. I haven't had much luck with single bore slides for a while. 50 slides are too stuffy, or inconsistent, and they all feel like they are muffling my inputs. I had a standard Edwards single bore for a while, but it played so badly with my Thayer horn at the time that I traded it for this one. It also didn't work with the Thayer horn, but it has really worked on the other Bachs I've had. It has a really great sound and color that I don't get from standard material Edwards slides, and a much better response and action than anything I've had from Bach.
The other slide is a standard Shires B62/78 dual bore with yellow tubes and nickel crook. This slide plays very, very well on everything, and actually seals in 7th position, unlike my old Edwards. My only issue with it right now is that the Shires tenon doesn't quite fit Bach receivers (flops over, doesn't thread all the way). I had it torched off and replaced with an Edwards tenon. Problem solved, right? Nope, it fits exactly the same and doesn't thread. Going to buy a new Edwards tenon that should solve it for once and all, I think... This slide has a nice wide sound, lots of core, and just easier to play for me than any of the single bores I have had.
My leadpipes currently in use are a stock Bach 50 leadpipe with a threaded ring on it, an Edwards 2SS, and Shires B2.
I talk a lot about dynamic limits and running into them here. Some members here might take that to mean I'm a total meathead that's only concerned with playing loud. Maybe you're right! However, as I have become a more relaxed and efficient player, I have discovered the limits to my instruments. My tenors actually do this better than my basses, which is why I attribute it to the trombones. I want some color as I play louder, but I don't want to lose the core entirely as I approach that point, which some horns definitely do. As singers would say, never shout. Always sing.
This is all played with my Greg Black 1G .312 #2 (one of them, anyway). I went through my collection of bass pieces a couple weeks ago, recording a couple excerpts and writing down my thoughts. Listening blind, I picked out the Greg Blacks every time, as well as preferring how they played. I've been trying to get my ego out of my equipment choice... turns out this time that it came out the same!
Thanks for reading this long, dumb post... As I work through all these combinations, I'm thinking about just selling it all and buying a Shires bell section. We'll see!
Also, the horn I will be playing the most in the next month? The Yamaha 830 at work.
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