TromboneChat

anyone have chance to try O’Malley's VG50 or the Minick “legit” bass leadpipes? Trying to figure out where they sit compared to Shires/Edwards stuff (like B1, B2, etc). Also happy to hear thoughts on how they play/sound otherwise. Thank you!!

I'll call the VG50, Minick, Close 50 replicas etc. vintage leadpipes- they are meant for Bach 50 and similar instruments.

Shires and Edwards leadpipes are generally wider in sound and account for the efficiencies built into those instruments.

There's definitely some overlap- I'd say the average Bach 50 leadpipe is somewhere close to a Shires 1.5 in blow, for instance, but they really sound and respond differently.

I've personally found that they are best kept in their own lanes in a very general way- stock Shires and Edwards really play, respond, sound the best with their stock series of leadpipes as the "vintage" stuff is typically a little tight and narrow sounding on them.

That's just my opinion- I know people that have had great success with the Brassark 50 leadpipes on Shires, for instance, but I find they just work better as instruments with (typically) a #2 from the same brand.

I play an M&W conversion of a Bach 50, which makes it much more like a modern instrument- I find that with a Shires slide, a Shires 2 is best. Edwards? Edwards 2 is best. Bach 50 slide? VG50 is best.

Sorry for the super long answer, just my findings with a zillion horns, slides, and leadpipes.

Burgerbob wrote: Mon Apr 13, 2026 1:54 pm Sorry for the super long answer, just my findings with a zillion horns, slides, and leadpipes.

I appreciate your thorough answer!!

That's a shame. My original Minick pipe is good in many trombones. I almost think of the Minick pipe and mouthpiece as one unit.

I agree with Aidan. When I was playing Shires I flirted with a BrassArk/Close MV50 and liked some aspects of it, but ultimately went back to a B2 - it was just more even all around the instrument.

blast wrote: Mon Apr 13, 2026 2:34 pm That's a shame. My original Minick pipe is good in many trombones. I almost think of the Minick pipe and mouthpiece as one unit.

I've got a pipe marked Minick L that I think is the O'Malley copy of the Minick L. It's very good in my Stephens, but I think the Bach 50 pipe Steve mounted for me is overall better. My mouthpiece is probably a lot bigger than anything Minick had in mind to go with his pipes.

My experience too has been along the same lines as Aiden and Gabe's "stay in your lane" advice

I've yet to play a copy that is anything like the original, and indeed originals vary, who ever is making them.

WGWTR180 wrote: Tue Apr 14, 2026 6:44 am

felixbone wrote: Mon Apr 13, 2026 1:29 pm anyone have chance to try O’Malley's VG50 or the Minick “legit” bass leadpipes? Trying to figure out where they sit compared to Shires/Edwards stuff (like B1, B2, etc). Also happy to hear thoughts on how they play/sound otherwise. Thank you!!

I have 3 of the O' Malley "Minick L" pipes. The first I purchased on it's own and have used it in a Holton TR 180 custom inline instrument. It works well but does sound and play differently than a good original Minick L pipe that I own-not bad just different(mostly the O'Malley is less open).
The other 2 I received later and each is very different. The main difference between all 3 is mouthpiece insertion depth. Each is different-wildly different. So depending on your mouthpiece choice different players will have different thoughts on these individual pipes. I want to be clear-they're not bad but my results are wildly different.
When I ordered my original Minick lead pipes many moons ago Larry asked me what mouthpiece I played on. Once I received the pipes that mouthpiece fit perfectly into the pipes. Not to go down this hot topic again but mouthpiece insertion depth does matter and you know instantly whether it's correct or not.
My 2 cents.

THIS

Oh wow, those O’Malley pipes are quite a bit out. Though I haven’t noticed myself how far my mouthpieces go in my Rath

the VG50 works well on my Benge 290. the outer registers just happen instead of having to search for the slots like with the stock pipe and articulations are very clear. But there is definitely less color in the sound. If I had to guess, it felt like the venturi is closer on the stock pipe than on the VG50 but I'm just a dude, what do I know. Seamed pipes were pretty solid too, just not right for my setup. Minick "Legit" pipes were VERY squirely with a lot of room to play with vowel shapes but quite unstable at least on this horn. It was also just the test kit. I am still waiting for them to ship a new pipe out to me so I can't comment on consistency between from one to the next.

edit: sentence order

Bassbone11 wrote: Tue Apr 14, 2026 5:32 pm the VG50 works well on my Benge 290. the outer registers just happen instead of having to search for the slots like with the stock pipe and articulations are very clear. But there is definitely less color in the sound. If I had to guess, it felt like the venturi is closer on the stock pipe than on the VG50 but I'm just a dude, what do I know. Seamed pipes were pretty solid too, just not right for my setup. Minick pipes were VERY squirely with a lot of room to play with vowel shapes but quite unstable at least on this horn. It was also just the test kit. I am still waiting for them to ship a new pipe out to me so I can't comment on consistency between from one to the next.

edit: sentence order

Are you talking about Minicks own pipes ??

blast wrote: Tue Apr 14, 2026 6:34 pm

Bassbone11 wrote: Tue Apr 14, 2026 5:32 pm the VG50 works well on my Benge 290. the outer registers just happen instead of having to search for the slots like with the stock pipe and articulations are very clear. But there is definitely less color in the sound. If I had to guess, it felt like the venturi is closer on the stock pipe than on the VG50 but I'm just a dude, what do I know. Seamed pipes were pretty solid too, just not right for my setup. Minick pipes were VERY squirely with a lot of room to play with vowel shapes but quite unstable at least on this horn. It was also just the test kit. I am still waiting for them to ship a new pipe out to me so I can't comment on consistency between from one to the next.

edit: sentence order

Are you talking about Minicks own pipes ??

sorry the O'Malley pipes! edited original for clarity

bassbone1993 wrote: Tue Apr 14, 2026 3:35 pm Oh wow, those O’Malley pipes are quite a bit out. Though I haven’t noticed myself how far my mouthpieces go in my Rath

That does look pretty significant. Assuming the venturi is in the approximate normal place, that much of a change in insertion depth will make, at the mouthpiece level anyways, the horn feel like it has a lot more resistance and possibly feel tighter.

But, Bill also mentioned that he tried modern mouthpieces that insert further. That would imply to me that the O'Malley pipes are machined to the specs of such modern mouthpieces, and that Bill's Bach piece has a larger shank dimension, compared to those modern pieces. It isn't an apples-apples comparison..Larry Minick was able to make a pipe that fit "correctly" because he knew the dimensions of Bill's mouthpiece shank. The O'Malley pipes are made to suit modern shank dimensions. O'Malley would have no problem making a pipe that had all of the desired dimensional qualities *if they knew the dimensions of the Mt Vernon shank*. Easily done if they had the mouthpiece to measure. This is not an "O'Malley leadpipes are wrong" situation.

harrisonreed wrote: Wed Apr 15, 2026 6:49 am

bassbone1993 wrote: Tue Apr 14, 2026 3:35 pm Oh wow, those O’Malley pipes are quite a bit out. Though I haven’t noticed myself how far my mouthpieces go in my Rath

That does look pretty significant. Assuming the venturi is in the approximate normal place, that much of a change in insertion depth will make, at the mouthpiece level anyways, the horn feel like it has a lot more resistance and possibly feel tighter.

That’s part of the problem; this isn’t a good assumption. At least, looking at mouthpiece insertion depth you don’t know if they screwed up Venturi size, Venturi location, or just the trim location. Impossible with only the one measurement. And getting the others isn’t the most repeatable process in the world for most average folks, and honestly even for most shops without good metrology tools.

Cheers,
Andy

I find it somewhat odd that O'Malley uses machined receivers on their large tenor leadpipes (very consistent insertion depths), but swaged/formed receivers on their bass pipes. I have one of my VG50 pipes out on loan currently, so I can't immediately compare consistency between the two, but the one I have on my shelf is a bit shallower (~1/16") than most of my pipes from other makers. Not quite as shallow as WGWTR180's examples, but still noticeably different. Of course, as has been pointed out recently on another thread, apparent insertion depth can be independent of the relationship between the venturi in the mouthpiece and leadpipe.

elmsandr wrote: Wed Apr 15, 2026 7:42 am

harrisonreed wrote: Wed Apr 15, 2026 6:49 am

That does look pretty significant. Assuming the venturi is in the approximate normal place, that much of a change in insertion depth will make, at the mouthpiece level anyways, the horn feel like it has a lot more resistance and possibly feel tighter.

That’s part of the problem; this isn’t a good assumption. At least, looking at mouthpiece insertion depth you don’t know if they screwed up Venturi size, Venturi location, or just the trim location. Impossible with only the one measurement. And getting the others isn’t the most repeatable process in the world for most average folks, and honestly even for most shops without good metrology tools.

Cheers,
Andy

I'm sure WGWTR180 can just immediately tell us if they are indeed different playing and if the effect I described is appearing on those pipes. Seems like he confirmed it. Annecdotal, of course, but valuable. And that doesn't necessarily mean that the effect is negative, depending on what the player wants.

At the very least, if the venturi *isn't* where it normally would be (distance from the end of the leadpipe / distance into the slide), such that the end of the shank actually *is* the normal distance from the venturi despite the visual we see ... with the mouthpiece sticking out that far you've now altered the length of the instrument.

In other words, either the mouthpiece really *is* sticking out far, giving the effect described above, or if that's not the case you've made the horn longer for some reason. Maybe it's not accoustically significant (the extra length, that is), but a quarter inch of extra length between your face and your slide arm might be surprising or unexpected.

Ok, I checked my Markey 87 in all my slides and leadpipes. That's 9 bass slides and 16 leadpipes out of slides.

I put a sharpie mark right where the mouthpiece sits in one of my stock 50 slides.

Half of the time, the mouthpiece sits very close to that mark.

A quarter of the time, the mouthpiece sits farther out.

A quarter of the time, the mouthpiece sits farther in.

And it's a random distribution- one of the farther out is a stock Bach 50 leadpipe I have, nearly exactly the same as my O'Malley VG50 depth. Also similar to a Butler carbon fiber bass pipe!

Holton 185 sat hilariously far in, as did a couple others (Kanstul L).

Maybe we should start another thread about this, since it doesn't have much to do with the original topic.

It doesn't take much -- .001" difference of diameter on the receiver taper (or mouthpiece shank) will give you something like .02" change in the insertion depth. So even having the receiver be off by 5 thousandths of an inch will make the mouthpiece go in or stick out, depending, by a tenth of an inch.

My point is more that many of these pipes play great despite being "far out." My best Edwards 2 is almost as far out as my VG50.

Just to clarify some things here,

Yes the mouthpiece insertion may vary from pipe to pipe in our production. It is a hard thing to convey that mouthpiece insertion is not as important as it may look. What matters is the distance between the end of the mouthpiece and the venturi, which is consistent on our pipes regardless of the insertion depth.

We use a machined receiver on our .547 pipes with great success, but haven't made the change on the bass pipes due to being concerned that customers will get scared away when they see the receiver. But it is something we are considering very heavily now. The receiver does not sacrifice or gain anything for the player compared to a swedged pipe. It just improves the consistency of the manufacturing process. It's important to note that we would use the same receiver that we do on our large bore pipes, which will be the closest modernization to a swedged bass pipe.

If anyone isn't happy with the swaged bas pipe from us please send it in and we will put on a receiver at no charge.

Burgerbob wrote: Wed Apr 15, 2026 10:31 am My point is more that many of these pipes play great despite being "far out." My best Edwards 2 is almost as far out as my VG50.

No doubt. I think it was Chuck McAlexander at Brass Lab who would make leadpipes to your request, and do them in sets of 3's. You could play all three, which were supposed to be similar but weren't because of the manufacturing processes he used, and it was one price if you only wanted to keep one, and progressive 'discounts' if you wanted to keep two or all three. When you are making leadpipes by pulling through lead washers or if they are hand brazed, they are going to each have their own character I think.

It looks like O'Malley is keeping the venturi distance consistent so the only real difference would be the negligible variations in overall length. .1-.25" of length added or removed is really nothing.

I knew I'd regret making the insertion depth point. "F" it.

WGWTR180 wrote: Wed Apr 15, 2026 1:32 pm I knew I'd regret making the insertion depth point. "F" it.

As you and I know, it's not simple. O'Malley is doing what any good manufacturer should do....going for consistency. We have messed around with pipes and pieces for longer than many people here have been alive, and if we hadn't learned at least something, we would be pretty stupid. Pipes and mouthpieces behave very differently in different combinations and in different instruments. Hard to say anything really accurate and meaningful here as there are too many variables.

My experience is that two leadpipes labeled as having the same specs will play very, very differently if I can see different insertion depths with my naked eye.

Bassbone11 wrote: Tue Apr 14, 2026 5:32 pm the VG50 works well on my Benge 290. the outer registers just happen instead of having to search for the slots like with the stock pipe and articulations are very clear. But there is definitely less color in the sound. If I had to guess, it felt like the venturi is closer on the stock pipe than on the VG50 but I'm just a dude, what do I know. Seamed pipes were pretty solid too, just not right for my setup. Minick "Legit" pipes were VERY squirely with a lot of room to play with vowel shapes but quite unstable at least on this horn. It was also just the test kit. I am still waiting for them to ship a new pipe out to me so I can't comment on consistency between from one to the next.

edit: sentence order

got the VG50 in the mail finally. the outer diameter seems to be a little larger than the test pipe (fits more snug in the...receiver?...as opposed to being almost completely loose). seems to have a LITTLE less clarity than what I remember, but loses less color. I would like to attribute at least some of that to the pipe being more secure in the instrument but again, I'm just a dude. In all, both pipes seems to have very similar playing characteristics but they are definitely not exactly the same.

what would be REALLY cool is if O'Malley would send 4 copies of the same pipe (instead of 4 different ones) and let you keep one of them instead of shipping out a brand new one at a later date.