TromboneChat

I have a Holton 169 that I would love to play more.
Sadly she plays quite flat. Up to 20 cents flat!
She has a D valve birdsnest courtesy of Terry Pierce (NYC). The handslide has been worked on by McAlexander and Upchurch. Quite good now.

Could I encourage input from the forum as to what mods would be at the top of your list?

I am not opposed to making this horn an indi set up. The question there would be what valve set would you use and why?

Looking forward to reading input.

It's drastic, but I'd send it to M&W.

Other than shortening the main tuning slide to bring it up to pitch I'd leave it alone. With the updated Plugin/birdsnest valve you already have a nice updated Holton. I belive the original smaller Holton valves are an important part of the Holton sound and fear modern valves might compromise that. That said I've seen Holton conversions made by Matthew/ M&W that look fantastic.

I’m not familiar with Holtons to the level of detail; but similar vintage Bachs have the straight tuning slide legs just plain too long. The design was eventually changed shortening them by ~3/8” (off the top of my head). It would not surprise me that a 169 would need the same minor surgery.

For a major surgery, I wouldn’t feel too bad swapping out bits for a more modern setup, but I wouldn’t want to modify anything that would involve cutting any of the other tubing. Try to make the work reversible.

Cheers,
Andy

Andy - if that is possible, that would be fantastic!

I've owned an indi modded 169....it was good, but I've preferred the singles over the years. Sending to Matt would lead to a mega horn for sure, but you could get a mega new one from him...he has a prototype. Otherwise, just get the tuning slide cut.

I'll chime in here. Good Holton basses are good! The fact that yours plays that flat is certainly interesting but I'd do what's been suggested already. First go ahead and have the tuning slide cut. Please have the legs and tuning slide tubes cut and please DON"T have the main tuning slide crook cut down. Hopefully that will solve your problem and you can play it until you wear it out. NOW if you want to go the full monty send it to M&W and have single or double valve conversion done. Matthew did one for me on a 185 and it turned out to be a wonderful instrument. He used the original Holton slide receiver, Holton tuning slide and the coordinating bits and joined them together with his valves and valve tubing. Maybe I'll post a pic.

I mounted my bell and slide from my 169 on to my M&W after really longing to be able to play with 2 valves- Mine doesn’t have a drop in valve. While it sounded and played great, I lost some of the characteristics that I liked when it was stock. I think something with the tapers, tubing size and materials component to give a very unique big but vibrant sound. I ended up putting that horn back to stock for now.

I ended up buying a 183 to mount the bell on my M&W and now have the extra tubing and valve to build a drop in for my 169. An improvement Holton made to the 183 is the length of the instrument’s outer tuning slide tubes. My 169 plays perfectly in tune in hot Texas weather with the slide pushed all the way in. My plan is eventually transplant the outer tuning tubes to help out playing colder rooms.

I’ll include pictures comparing the slides below.