TromboneChat

A thread in the classifieds (https://www.trombonechat.com/viewtopic.php?t=35632) contains some pages from a Bach catalog or brochure. One of those indicates the availability of an Eb crook for the F-attachments.
I presume they are no longer available. Does anyone know what years those were offered? Were they ever made in open-wrap form?

All, a slide to change the Quartventil to a Quintventil. Interesting. I've never seen nor heard of one before.

Edwards used to sell these for their tenors.

I have never seen one of these. I'd hazard there are like... two in existence.

I'd also bet money they never made them after Mt Vernon.

Much like the also offered removable counterweight…. I’ve never seen one from that period. I’d love to see (and have) one.

Cheers,
Andy

I have one of the Edwards Eb slides. As one might expect, it very rarely leaves the house, but I have found it convenient a couple of times.

I had one made for a 70h I had for a while. Essentially an Eb extension. You could really rock those low notes, but you wouldn't want to play with it all the time. It was like an E pull, but a half step lower. You wind up playing a lot of 6th and 7th positions for f, c, e and b. It would be the kind of thing you switch between tunes.

You could do an old fashioned toggle valve like a plug in valve with no lever, just switch between f and eb.

I think Edwards still sells their version for tenor trombones. I have one that fits a T350 - doesn't fit my new T396AR because the tuning slide is reversed on that model. I used it once on a Lord of the Rings show (the orchestra playing the score with the movie). The whole section had to play an exposed low B. It was fun, but it's not something that gets a lot of use.

Jim Scott

Charles Reneau, bass trombonist with Oregon Symphony, was using one a few years ago. He was experiencing some left wrist/elbow/shoulder problems. I don’t remember who made it for him.

This idea keeps coming up. But it's such a specific use case. In theory you get a fully chromatic instrument even down to the pedal range. But how badly do you need an "easy" B natural below the staff on tenor, where you would not also need or benefit from easy access to an E natural below the staff. And you give up any real practical chromatic movement between Eb and E natural.

I can't think of a single situation where this would be a feature unless the part was truly boring and supremely B heavy...and you preferred a tenor sound over a bass sound down there...

At the time of the catalog, I can forgive the idea. Nowadays? It's silly.

I agree that it's not something you would use often, and isn't practical for daily use. If something comes up where you need to play a B on tenor trombone however, it's a lot cheaper and lighter than buying a bass trombone and carrying it to the gig.

Also, the tendinitis example makes sense too. That kind of injury is pretty common these days.

JS

I don't know, it's one way to avoid buying a double trigger if you only need it occasionally.

Imagine an Eb extension on the 1480. Suddenly it becomes a real bass trombone, range-wise. And takes care of the balance problem at the same time.

It's a solution looking for a problem I guess.

Low B natural for tenor is bad writing, plain and simple.

As a bass trombone poser myself, I've learned that when you're posing as a bass player, you better have E natural, Eb, all the way down to B in quick succession, into the pedals, and back up again, over and over again, and you'd better be able to do it fast and also with the slowest smoothest legato possible. I'm a poser so I couldn't do that on an Eb single valve, but maybe some bass God can.

7th to 1st, E to Eb, sounds catastrophic.

Wouldn't this be better? You could easily tune your F attachment, and then you have miles of tubing on the long tubes to pull to Eb. The only part that isn't tuning slide are the curved tubes, which you could minimize as much as possible to increase the length you could pull.

The picture below is the Boston Symphony brass section from 1921 (this is 4 years before Rochut). August Mausebach, 2nd from right, back row, is holding an instrument that has an E attachment. These were apparently used about 100 years ago. I can't imagine them being very useful since all you get is B in 1st position (B2) and you still don't have enough slide to get B1 at the end of the slide with the trigger. Bass Trombone Leroy Kenfield (next to Mausebach) has a bass trombone with a more normal F-attachment. For those of you who are curious, the Principal is Carl Hampe. Tuba player Eugene Adams was principal trombone before and after Hampe (who took a leave to serve in World War I).

I suspect that someone asked Bach to make one and they decided to add it to the catalog.

It's also something that a non-trombonist might offer to a trombonist as an acceptable alternative to a second valve.

harrisonreed wrote: ↑Sat Apr 20, 2024 4:15 pm 20240420_171257.jpg

Wouldn't this be better? You could easily tune your F attachment, and then you have miles of tubing on the long tubes to pull to Eb. The only part that isn't tuning slide are the curved tubes, which you could minimize as much as possible to increase the length you could pull.

Aside from the fact that I believe that those long miles of doubled, thicker walled tuning slide sound terrible, put actual dimensions on this to see what you get.

You need the following lengths:
F: ~37”
Eb: ~55”

Low B: ~99”

Now, you get about 46 from the handslide to get something in 7th.

Fill in the rest of the blanks on your sketch and see what that would look like…

Cheers,
Andy

elmsandr wrote: ↑Mon Apr 22, 2024 6:22 am

harrisonreed wrote: ↑Sat Apr 20, 2024 4:15 pm 20240420_171257.jpg

Wouldn't this be better? You could easily tune your F attachment, and then you have miles of tubing on the long tubes to pull to Eb. The only part that isn't tuning slide are the curved tubes, which you could minimize as much as possible to increase the length you could pull.

Aside from the fact that I believe that those long miles of doubled, thicker walled tuning slide sound terrible, put actual dimensions on this to see what you get.

You need the following lengths:
F: ~37”
Eb: ~55”

Low B: ~99”

Now, you get about 46 from the handslide to get something in 7th.

Fill in the rest of the blanks on your sketch and see what that would look like…

Cheers,
Andy

I do somewhat disagree about your first point. The wrap on the 88HCL is almost completely double walled tuning slide, and it sounds good. So I don't think that's a hard and fast rule.

As to your other point, I'll work it out and see. I'm sure it's absolutely ridiculous or maybe impossible to get the lengths (were the lengths given the length you need for the attachment tubing for that note to play in first?).

But it gets back to the greater point. Almost no one wants this. An Eb single rotor seems terrible. If possible, an F rotor with Eb pull would also be ridiculous.

harrisonreed wrote: ↑Mon Apr 22, 2024 6:52 am …
I do somewhat disagree about your first point. The wrap on the 88HCL is almost completely double walled tuning slide, and it sounds good. So I don't think that's a hard and fast rule.

As to your other point, I'll work it out and see. I'm sure it's absolutely ridiculous or maybe impossible to get the lengths (were the lengths given the length you need for the attachment tubing for that note to play in first?).

But it gets back to the greater point. Almost no one wants this. An Eb single rotor seems terrible. If possible, an F rotor with Eb pull would also be ridiculous.

Fun game, rebuild a 88HCL attachment with only ~2.5” of tuning slide pull… does it feel even better? not something that is easily done in isolation to other variables, but would be fun to try.

And yes, those numbers are relative to first position Bb.

Back to OP, I’ve seen TONS of Bb/C or Eb/D slides for trumpets of that era from Bach, tons of alternate slides for Conns from F to bE or Eb from that era…. But never any of the oddities for the Bach trombones. I wonder if they were just theoretical, or just only made like 2 of them total.

Cheers,
Andy

Okay, just did the numbers based on what you gave:
We have an F attachment that, when completely closed, is about 35" long (assuming about 2" of connections and the two small 45⁰ curved pieces). You can pull the F slide, which adds just shy of 6", so up to 41" long to tune the F slide. Then you have an additional 22" of pull (11" effective length, doubled) on the long tube. So the thing can go 63" long.

Closed, it should only go past the main tuning slide an inch or two, so fully pulled, it would go out a foot behind. Not actually unheard of already (the dang Xeno F attachment for example goes about 8 miles behind the bell without even using the paltry length of pull it offers).

So yes, absolutely ridiculous, but still more useful than a fixed Eb crook.

Here’s the Edwards crook for reference/posterity:

bitbckt wrote: ↑Mon Apr 22, 2024 7:12 am Here’s the Edwards crook for reference/posterity:

Those bows are soldered together at the top. I'm surprised Edwards didn't chose some esoteric bracing options.

I'm a little surprised at the reactions against this doohickey. It's just a thing. It's no less valid than an E pull, and it adds validity to a single valve bass. I wouldn't use it all the time, but if you have a situation (big band) where a single bass works 90% of the time, and you want to make that 100%, an Eb slide is a perfect solution, especially when compared against toting an extra valve and tubing for that 90% of the time when you don't need it.

Bass trombone ergonomics is a disaster for people with arm/wrist/hand/shoulder/elbow issues. This is just another tool that makes some things easier.

Anyway, I don't understand the campaign against a piece of equipment when so many of the topics here have a tendency far into the esoteric.

That said, I don't still own this. The 70h it was built for wasn't in great shape, and wasn't fun to play (even without the Eb) but I do wish I had one for the 1480 I bought recently (a bone that sounds great under the staff but doesn't have a usable C or B). It would make that horn more relevant to real playing situations. This was built by Mouthpiece Express.

I cannot imagine a setting where I would want Bb/Eb less than big band bass trombone. My brain and body rebel at the thought of playing something like this:

Burgerbob wrote: ↑Mon Apr 22, 2024 9:54 am I cannot imagine a setting where I would want Bb/Eb less than big band bass trombone. My brain and body rebel at the thought of playing something like this:

With an E or E-flat valve, that would be a LOT of time spent at the end of the slide!

7-1-7-1-6-7-1

My LT42AG won’t pull to e in spite of enough tubing a red flag would justified if actually got e. Once I was going to get an e pull made. Now I would get enough extra tubing to make it d and loop it like a French horn. It yields a more tame Bb in ~7th.

Ok, you guys win. $6k for 2 notes.

It's not two notes. It's the ease and facility from Db (or D, if you use G tuning) in the staff down to wherever you want to stop. Most bass trombone music doesn't need C and B, it just needs agility in and just below the staff.

The Eb slide gives you two notes and nothing else- no ease, no facility, and a stuffier blow.

Also... you can still find 100% competent bass trombones that are easy to play below $2k.

hyperbolica wrote: ↑Mon Apr 22, 2024 10:55 am Ok, you guys win. $6k for 2 notes.

You play that chart Aidan put up at 180bpm, well enough to win the gig, and post it up here and I'll sing the praises of the Eb valve.

As for those two notes though, seems like every big band chart after 1970 is full of those two notes. Almost everything I play on bass is below the staff... TBF, most of my current parts are for BQ and say tuba on them but still...

I can see you guys don't get it, which is fine, but the reason for an Eb valve is to extend what you can do with a single valve, not to threaten anyone's reason for getting a double. I've got 2 double valve horns and a couple single horns that I use for low notes. I'll take a single valve horn every time I can in preference over the double, and an Eb extension will increase the number of times I can take a single. That's all this is. I don't get what's such a threat.

It's not a threat, it just doesn't make sense.