Bach LT slide

[JCBone]

I have been using a bach lt slide on my 42 ever since I started playing on large bore.Recently I have been feeling very frusturated with my sound. I am going for a darker sound, and no matter how hard I tried, I just couldn't make it work. Today I had the oppurtunity to try my freinds standard slide and the difference was like night and day. Suddenly I was able to get a full, rich sound that wasn't possible with the lt slide. Is this something other folks here have experienced?

[BGuttman]

Yes.

I have found the LT slides go with G bells (gold brass) and standard slides go with yellow bells.

[Crazy4Tbone86]

Yes, yes, and yes! I much prefer the standard Bach 42 slide to the LT slide for two reasons:

1. Darker, richer sound that is more consistent up an down all registers.

2. Better control of articulations. My articulations on an LT slide always feel brittle....almost like every note is about to crack.

Don't expect everyone to share the same experiences. I know some players that feel, sound and hear no tonal differences between a Bach 42 standard and LT slide. Many of them just choose the LT slide because they like the action of the lighter slide better.

Strangely, I much prefer a nickle-silver slide on alto trombone. The nickel-silver alto slides give me the precise articulation that can be elusive on an alto brass slide.

Again, I'm sure there will be many who prefer the 42LT slide to the standard. That's fine.....we are all different!

[Burgerbob]

Some LT slides are magic and work on anything (I've played a couple that blew my mind), but I find the average 42 or 50 LT slide is a little light in sound for me.

No shame in getting a standard weight, I use them on 42 as well.

[Crazy4Tbone86]

I do have one LT slide that enjoy playing. It is dual-bore 42/50 (.547-.562). However, it has long nickel sleeves on both outers. Thus, it behaves a little more like a standard weight slide.

[LeTromboniste]

Funny how experiences vary. To me, almost every standard weight Bach 42 slide I've tried fell stuffy and lacked flexibility of tone. Every 42 I've put my LT slide in for comparison played better with my slide. Then again of course it could be that I have a particularly good LT slide (I don't think I've played on another; I've tried LT50 slides and didn't really like them), or that I'm just so used to the feel of my slide that it always makes the new horn more familiar and thus easier to play.

[bellend]

The change in blow could be down to the leadpipe as much as the slide ( which will of course make a difference also).
Years go ( just after Bill Watrous had been over ) I used to play regular trombone quintet blows where everyone was on an LT16M . We would quite often try taking the horns apart and moving either the slide or bell section to the player on the left. Bells made virtually no difference but slides........Wow ! like night and day which again must be primarily the leadpipes.

FWIW

BellEnd

[afugate]

The change in blow could be down to the leadpipe as much as the slide ( which will of course make a difference also).
Years go ( just after Bill Watrous had been over ) I used to play regular trombone quintet blows where everyone was on an LT16M . We would quite often try taking the horns apart and moving either the slide or bell section to the player on the left. Bells made virtually no difference but slides........Wow ! like night and day which again must be primarily the leadpipes.

FWIW

BellEnd

If this were a trumpet forum, one might attribute the differences to numbers of years of accumulated gunk in the leadpipe making bore sizes vary...
--Andy in OKC

[elmsandr]

I will note that the Nickel slides can have a nice resonant and rich sound.... if you can really get them to resonate with you. That is beyond my feeble powers. I really do not enjoy playing on nickel slides for just your stated reason. I am not sure if it is due to the material or the extra mass on the handgrips, but I have never built or played a slide like Brian describes above. I have tried a few different makes of nickel slides (Edwards, Holton) and a couple of different brass lightweight slides (Edwards, Bach, and a custom) and I did not like either combination with my existing bell sections at the time (a variety of Bach, franken Bach, and Edwards over the years).

As another aside, I also feel this in some top level talent in the world. A well known player that I know and get to hear up close a couple of times a year switched from nickel to brass a few years ago... He did make the mistake of asking me what I thought. I was working out in the hall at the time as he was going back and forth with the two slides... I preferred the brass every time. It is just the type of sound I want to hear. Not necessarily 'darker', just richer and it feels more resonant to me. This particular person was on a nickel slide for decades. I had to tell him I was happy he tried, because I had always been curious. His worst sound on the nickel was still better than the best sound I've ever made; but I still liked his sound better on a brass slide. Now, this is definitely ONLY a piece of a puzzle, but for me the main effects of the nickel outweigh the interactions for the ouput measure (if you can forgive the engineering speak).

Maybe I'm just a standard weight, brass slide kinda guy. Listening AND playing.
Andy

[Matt K]

Interestingly enough, I don't believe I've ever owned a nickel slide. Not because I intentionally avoided them, just that I don't recall going out of my way to acquire one. That just changed yesterday. I found a good price on a King 3BF with nickel outers and a yellow crook, which is the opposite of what I typically do. Looking forward to getting that out of the case and seeing if it plays as well as the last 3BF I owned, which was all yellow.

The one thing you might want to consider is that the LT slides are also lacking oversleeves. That shouldn't make TOO much of a difference, or doesn't in my personal experience, but may be a factor nonetheless in your perception of how the horn sounds.

[timbone]

Good post. Nickel slides will play different between manufacturers. I will say that testing as many slides as you can when dealing with fixed lead pipe slides, you may just find “it”.