TromboneChat

Shortly after the first Crimean war I was freelancing in NY and LA. Three episodes of Bell's Palsy in 10 years had me change professions. I'm playing again, such as it is.
Today I subbed in a local swing band on lead with this one day old (to me) Conn 32H (likely 1957, .500-.522). 'Fat Sizzle' is the best way I could describe it. My go to is a 1951 rose brass 78H. Love it, focused core, even registers but playing lead on it could wear me out. This 32H already has me feeling puppyish. I used a Hammond 13M and 12M. The 13M (6 ½ AL equivalent) is just fine for lead and the 12M, for me, offers a very full and easier speaking mid/low register. Coming from the 78H I had no intonation difficulties with unisons etc. I haven't played the 30H, the smaller dual bore sibling, but my friend and vintage trombone connoisseur Lew Kahn recently was very happy to add a 30H to his rotation. I have read others' remarks and while opinion from here is not heavily weighted if you can get one I highly recommed it. I got very lucky and snagged this one for $360. in very good condition.

I`ve had 2 32H`s over the years and loved them (along with 3 78H`s) They are really great horns

Jake Burkle-designed horns are always good, if they have been treated well. Burkle loved TIS horns, but when the tide turned and Conn couldn't sell them very much anymore he designed the 30H and 32H to be as "conical" as possible w/out slide tuning. I have been told that even the slide crooks are conical. Great horns.

S.

P.S. I played one for quite a while. Loved it. Have you tried your 78H bell on the 32H slide? My '30s red brass 78H bell worked even better than the '50s yellow brass 32H bell for me. Try it.

Should fit...

Senor Sabutin, Yup, the tuning crook is conical, the bell throat starts to open quickly The bell section is longer than my 78H, the slide is narrow and maybe a fraction of an inch shorter than the 78H. Jury is out on the 32H slide with the 78H bell..will continue to explore.

I tried that configuration and found that it lost a little of the core of the sound. more diffuse.
and the tuning got a little off. The 7 1/2" Bell gives the horn more punch
And the other way around with the 32H bell and the 78H slide was just weird.

Really have fun with my 32H. I found Conn 2 and 3 mouthpieces for it, which livened it up compared to some Bachs I tried.

Great horns if for me just a little heavy feeling.
We took one appart during the r&d phase of making a new line of trombones and yes the slide crook is conical.

The bell had me foxed for a while until I realised it was actually made on the 8H/88H mandrel but cut to 7 1/2 inches.

Leadpipe is much longer than the majority of Conn pipes and didn't seem to work that well in other horns but is great in these.

Like Sam said Jake Buckle designed some of Conn's greatest trombones and this is certainly one of them.

We also got a 30H to look at but it didn't seem to play as well but that could just have been that particular example? One strange thing on the 30H the bell flare is joined to the stem almost half way up it's length ,never seen that on any other horn.

BellEnd

Quote from: Bellend on Oct 14, 2017, 03:02AMWe took one appart during the r&d phase of making a new line of trombones and yes the slide crook is conical.


BellEnd
Bellend, thank you for your observation. Pardon my ignorance but why would any instrument need disassembly to determine if the slide crook is conical? Would the inner diameter be proportionately different than the outer diameter? Thanks

Quote from: Ryebone on Oct 14, 2017, 03:44AMBellend, thank you for your observation. Pardon my ignorance but why would any instrument need disassembly to determine if the slide crook is conical? Would the inner diameter be proportionately different than the outer diameter? Thanks

He’s just giving an indication that the horn was very closely examined to lend veracity to his statement.

BellEnd, was there anything else unusual about the 30h or 32h?

Quote from: Dukesboneman on Oct 13, 2017, 03:47PMI tried that configuration and found that it lost a little of the core of the sound. more diffuse.
and the tuning got a little off. The 7 1/2" Bell gives the horn more punch
And the other way around with the 32H bell and the 78H slide was just weird.

I had a red brass 78H Special from the '30s. Dunno what the "Special" was supposed to mean, but it was. And I believe the bell was the same diameter as the 32H. Whatever...it's been a long, long time. I was looking for a little less "punch" at the time. Or rather...punch at a higher volume. The 32H bell I had started to get bright too early in the dynamic range for me at that time, and using the 78H bell fixed that.

S.

P.S. And yes, the tuning changed. "Off?" Again, I don't really know what that means. I play extended 1st position and adjust all positions continually on all horns. It wasn't unusable...

Quote from: Dukesboneman on Oct 13, 2017, 03:47PMI tried that configuration and found that it lost a little of the core of the sound. more diffuse.
and the tuning got a little off. The 7 1/2" Bell gives the horn more punch
And the other way around with the 32H bell and the 78H slide was just weird.

I had a red brass 78H Special from the '30s. Dunno what the "Special" was supposed to mean, but it was. And I believe the bell was the same diameter as the 32H. Whatever...it's been a long, long time. I was looking for a little less "punch" at the time. Or rather...punch at a higher volume. The 32H bell I had started to get bright too early in the dynamic range for me at that time, and using the 78H bell fixed that.

S.

P.S. And yes, the tuning changed. "Off?" Again, I don't really know what that means. I play extended 1st position and adjust all positions continually on all horns. It wasn't unusable...