Balanced horns

[hyperbolica]

I've been trying to take notice of horns' balance front to back (not volume wise) recently. My 8h balance is horrid. So is my Yamaha 455g. But my Olds Recording is great. It makes a horn so much more enjoyable to play when it isn't stretching your hand out.

What horns do you all play that are naturally well balanced, or what measures have you taken to get them balanced?

[Burgerbob]

I physically cannot deal with a front-heavy instrument... perhaps people have much better set-up arms than I do, but even small bore horns without counterweights are useless to me.

I use a counterweight on my LT16M (despite everyone poo-pooing the practice), and most of my other horns are pretty good in that regard.

[ithinknot]

Most (but not all) horns seem to respond slightly better without a counterweight, but that's pretty irrelevant if your hand hurts or you're having to work significantly harder to keep things stable on the face.

Also, positioning of the front bell brace, relative to the inner slide brace. Even with my long fingers, the further forward the better. If you want to straighten your thumb along the neckpipe for extra torque no one's stopping you, but forcing a thumb stretch from the start is bad. It's wild to me how many manufacturers have never bothered to fix this - most Conns are way further back than strictly necessary, and small Bachs from every era seems to end up at a completely random place on the receiver, like the bell flange location is standardized but everything else floats around depending on precise assembly. King got this right from the start and are much nicer in the hand. (It's not related to which side the nut and threads are on, it's just a matter of keeping the distance between the two braces to a minimum - you need the same minimum nut travel/clearance regardless of direction.)

If the answer is added mass, then keeping it as close as possible to the central plane of the instrument is best. Less point improving front-to-back balance if you end up fighting rotation instead. But you're talking to someone who did this to a 70H (no, it doesn't touch the tubes; it's milled out on either side and only grips the brace internally):

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[Matt K]

I physically cannot deal with a front-heavy instrument... perhaps people have much better set-up arms than I do, but even small bore horns without counterweights are useless to me.

I use a counterweight on my LT16M (despite everyone poo-pooing the practice), and most of my other horns are pretty good in that regard.

I totally agree. I have a counterweight on my bass. Just decided to bite the bullet and get an ergo brass for it. Will see how that works this week sometime

[hyperbolica]

78h and 79h have slides with different top slide brace positions. This is partially because the trigger pulls your hand back on the 79, and on the 78 your thumb just goes around the bell brace. My 79h is well balanced. 78 and 79h slides are different.

My 8h and 88h don't have the same relationship. The slides are the same, and the bell brace on the 8h is higher than the trigger on the 88h. I love to play the 8h, but I'm constantly using crazy grips to make it work. It's not so much a balance issue as a brace position issue, but it causes a balance issue. I've been thinking of taking a tuba thumb ring, sawing out a section of the 8h bell brace and putting the ring in the middle of the brace. I think the thumb position should be right where the brace is, so a thumb rest bullet style brace won't fix the issue. You'd have to move the brace forward about 1/2"

My Yamaha 455 has a counterweight on it, but it's still front heavy. Just wondering about 456 or 356, if they have the problem with the f attachment. The Olds Recording was front heavy until I put a cw on it. Now the whole horn is heavier than I'd like, but the balance is right on, makes the horn easy to play for a long time.

The crazy thing about balance issues is that it changes as soon as you move your slide. But bone players only complain about balance in first position.

[Cmillar]

Yeah!.... I now have a 16M LT slide for my 16M bell, but when I got the horn it had an old duo-bore 16 slide made of brass.

It killed my hand, and wasn't helping my embouchure for sure.

But I have a counterweight on my 16M horn as well, and it's made a great difference for ease of playing, holding the horn, and has also helped the horn 'focus' a little better.

Just bought one of the Generic weights from Hickeys website and got some longer stainless steel screws to make it fit.

[Geordie]

I play an Olds Recording. Very front heavy until I added a counterweight. Same with my Olds Special. No discernable affect on sound or response.

[Lastbone]

All my horns either have counterweights or are open wraps (except the open wrap with a counterweight). You can do a front heavy slide for a bit of practice, but not a three hour gig.

[rizzo67]

With two valves my Besson 743 is quite ok balanced, but with only one it was terribly front heavy.
I helped myself with the neotech grip. You can change the pivot point by setting it further downwards the slide.
Trying this with the get a grip was painful, as I pinched my pinkie immediately, but as the neotech has a strap, the hand is protected.

[Mamaposaune]

I have a Courtois in-line bass with a Shires bell, and while it is capable of a good sound, I have played both Bachs and Conns that have more resonant, colorful sounds.
But the Courtois is perfectly balanced and the triggers are suited perfectly for my smallish-sized hand. I've played alongside tenor players who use a handgrip or ergobone and question how I can play the bass without my hand getting tired. The only answer I have is the balance and hand position. I've also played small-ish tenors that are slide-heavy, and my left hand and lip wear out very quickly.

[CarlVicVogel]

I physically cannot deal with a front-heavy instrument... perhaps people have much better set-up arms than I do, but even small bore horns without counterweights are useless to me.

I use a counterweight on my LT16M (despite everyone poo-pooing the practice), and most of my other horns are pretty good in that regard.

Burger Bob: I did the exact same thing to my LT16M several years ago. My local Bach dealer obtained the weight for me and I tried it out and liked it. Not sure if I got the idea from the old Trombone forum or if I just came up with it myself, but it works for me!

[Posaunus]

I added a counterweight to my front-heavy Olds Recording (thanks to John Sandhagen who drilled it out to fit), and haven't looked back.

[calcbone]

I can adjust my grip a little to compensate for most horns…my Bach 8 has no counterweight and is a bit front-heavy. It’s not uncomfortable for me to play once I figured out the correct hand position to balance it, but I’m still working on eliminating the tension in my arm when I play it (not for comfort, but for sound).

[trombonecat23]

I have an open wrap (Bach 42)
It’s pretty nicely balanced, much more than the king student horn I played on before. Even with a counterweight it never sat right on my shoulder. I eventually just dealt with it until my parents got me a decent trombone lol

The vintage conn I ended up with (ca 1922) has a screw on weight, without it balance was terrible, but after figuring out it was a weight and not some weird thing, I manipulated it a bit and it balanced pretty nicely

[nelson31]

I've been trying to take notice of horns' balance front to back (not volume wise) recently. My 8h balance is horrid. So is my Yamaha 455g. But my Olds Recording is great. It makes a horn so much more enjoyable to play when it isn't stretching your hand out.

What horns do you all play that are naturally well balanced, or what measures have you taken to get them balanced?

I find the balance on the 455G to be off as well. I moved the counterweight all the way to the bottom of the brace it sits on and it helped a bit. I can’t really stand the look of the weight being off center.

I considered finding a heavier weight but haven’t found anything yet. I have a friend who can 3D print, I considered getting a little brace made that I could screw/mount small weights onto. Not in a rush to figure out, but my friend made it seem like it’d be easy and not very costly.

I would say this is the first straight horn I have played that had a weird feel regarding balance. 3B, 6H, 48H, even other Yamaha’s, not an issue.

[hyperbolica]

Olds Ambassadors used to have a weight that solders to the inside of the tuning crook., which pushed it back a few inches. I bought an Ambassador removed the weight, and sold the horn. Put the weight on another instrument. You can usually get Ambassadors cheap. Even better if you can convince someone to unsolder the weight and mounting bracket you.

[CharlieB]

For me, this gets into a discussion of slide grip / technique.
I use a very light slide grip with lots of wrist and finger motion.
That works better when the right hand does not have to help support the weight of a front-heavy horn.
If the horn is balanced in first position, the large muscles in the left arm support the entire weight of the horn.
If the horn is front heavy, the unbalanced weight is shared by the fingers of both hands instead of the large left arm muscles. It's all about ergonomics. All of my horns are balanced, and I accept any tonal effect caused by the added mass of the balance weight.

[rizzo67]

Two images to show what I meant with changing the pivot point. Instead of making the instrument heavier I can grap about an inch lower, so there is less weight on the side of the slide an it is less front heavy.

[timothy42b]

Side to side balance has an effect too, I think.

Someone here has posted a photo of his counterweight, a slender rod that extends past the tuning crook. That seems a good idea as the leverage means less actual mass, and it is tunable.

[tbonesullivan]

Side to side balance has an effect too, I think.

Some of the double valve bass designs, especially dependent ones, for some reason put ALL of the tuning slides on one side. The one time I did get to try a Yamaha YBL-822G, I definitely fell it pulling more to the left. With my 612 RRII The D slide is on the opposite side from the F tuning slide, which definitely helps with the balance.

[baileyman]

Side to side balance has an effect too, I think.

Someone here has posted a photo of his counterweight, a slender rod that extends past the tuning crook. That seems a good idea as the leverage means less actual mass, and it is tunable.

Even better to extend to the rear AND to the right, behind your head, to balance the leftward rotation. I did that during a period of wrist pain, with a dowel and velcro, and it was an almost complete solution. After the wrist healed I went back to normal.

[rizzo67]

Perhaps I was mistakable, or pivot point isn't the right word, excuse my english.
I wasn't thinking of side to side balance, but of the problem with front heavy trombones.
In the time my besson 743 had only one valve, I clamped a leathermen tool at the tuning slide to get in balance.
With the neo grip it was the same effect, without the tool.
The images should show that with the grip I grab an inch down the slide, not tuning, but the big one, so the fixed point changes. I prefer that instead of making the horn heavier.
Additional thanks to the grip I have less problems with tension in shoulder and elbow, so for me it works fine.

Martin

[Macbone1]

I find myself avoiding horns that seem to require counterweights. I know that eliminates a vast number of excellent choices (Conn 6H, most Kings, Shires, Edwards etc). Best horns I ever played were an old Holton 65 and a new King 2BL (Jiggs Whigham). Felt light as a feather, no counterweight needed on either and I didn't miss it for a second. Oddly, the late model Conn 100H I once had was pretty front-heavy, though I don't think it was intentional at all, just unfortunate.