I have been playing on my Selmer Special 23 (K modified) for a while now and was reading about people mating different slides and bell combinations. I have no real idea what I would be getting myself into and I need some advice/recommendations.
The horn that I'm looking to play around with has a .490" slide. Does anyone have personal suggestions as to what slide I should try combining with my bell? (Or if I should attempt it at all)
Mating A New Slide To My Current Bell
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Beanett
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Posaunus
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Re: Mating A New Slide To My Current Bell
As far as I know, very few of these "creative" Frankenbone combinations end up much better (if at all) than the original donor trombones, which were, after all, developed by professionals with lots of time and resources to devote to their creations.
What are you trying to achieve (other than just having fun playing the swap game)?
What are you trying to achieve (other than just having fun playing the swap game)?
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Beanett
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Re: Mating A New Slide To My Current Bell
My main focus was just to experiment and see what happens. I'm more or less trying to achieve a larger, warmer, and darker sound mainly. The horn I play is pretty bright so I'm trying to blend a little more with my section.
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Posaunus
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Re: Mating A New Slide To My Current Bell
Probably easier (and more predictable) to obtain a different trombone (used can be great - and affordable) - not just a slide - that is more in the size range of your section. I believe that your Selmer is 0.485" (12.3mm) bore with perhaps a 7.37" (18.7cm) bell. Probably feels small relative to a section of 0.500" bore (or larger) Conns or Kings.
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Matt K
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Re: Mating A New Slide To My Current Bell
I tend to disagree that this always ends up poorly. The absolute best horns I’ve played almost all seem to have a mix of different slide from bell section. However, to have a good slide you do need, well, a good slide. A mediocre slide and a mediocre bell are probably going to be a mediocre combo.
The problem with this is the slide receiver. I’m not aware of anything compatible so if you go through with this, you’d probably need to do something permanent that would invalidate the current slide. Remove the slide tenor and put it on the new slide. Or swap out the bell side receiver. Or both. So either expensive or not easily irreversible. Will it be worth it? That’s hard to tell. You need to get something a similar length. Or shorter, but then the overtones change and positions will be wonky. Takes a lot of research.
When I was building my Franken Yamaha slide, I had a donor slide that was exactly the same length as my Shires, so it was easy. No cutting the slide to fit, etc. it’s absolutely the best slide I’ve ever played, period. I’ve also had a Shires 508/525 that played awesome on a Mt Vernon bell I had but… it was too flat to be usable. Didn’t want to cut it although in hindsight I wonder if I’d still be using that combo if I had!
Someone recently was selling a similar combo to what you’re trying to do. I think it may have been the same bell section with a Shires slide that had been modified to fit the bell. Something like that is probably going to be a good setup but it’s also not cheap.
So there’s some context for kind of what you’d be getting yourself into. If you really love the bell section and have a healthy budget to optimize it, it might be worth it. It probably won’t increase resale though. So you won’t ever get a positive ROI on it. Most of my projects have been that I played a slide and then really liked some aspect of it so I sought a similar slide or had some other aspect of multiple things I wanted. Like the above Yamaha slide. I wanted a 525/547. I could have ordered a T2547 from Shires although it would have been a lot more expensive than what I ultimately paid for my slide because I could trade around. But I also had played the Yamaha models that went into this slide and knew they worked well for me. So I ended up with a YSL646 upper, at the time a YSL645 leadpipe, and a YSL8820 lower slide and crook, plus the Shires tenon since I used Shires bells. I’m hind sight; I’m not sure if I like it so much because of the unusual weight of the outer slides (top half is essentially light weight, bottom has a large nickel cork barrel). I wouldn’t have necessarily thought to ask to have a new slide built that way. But for whatever reason, this slide runs circles around everything else I’ve ever tired.
In other words, I agree with other posters that in this circumstance… you’re probably better served looking into other models since you don’t necessarily have anything you’ve compared it to that you like more or a specific goal in mind.
However, even with that said, I tend to like pulling lead pipes. I’ve yet to not improve a horn by switching as far as I can recall. But .490 is a weird bore. You’d not be able to find much available. You could permanently alter 484 and 485 pipes to be larger but then you’ve spent a lot of cash on pipes and no guarantee it would improve… and you definitely aren’t getting a factory original replacement if something goes wrong.
The problem with this is the slide receiver. I’m not aware of anything compatible so if you go through with this, you’d probably need to do something permanent that would invalidate the current slide. Remove the slide tenor and put it on the new slide. Or swap out the bell side receiver. Or both. So either expensive or not easily irreversible. Will it be worth it? That’s hard to tell. You need to get something a similar length. Or shorter, but then the overtones change and positions will be wonky. Takes a lot of research.
When I was building my Franken Yamaha slide, I had a donor slide that was exactly the same length as my Shires, so it was easy. No cutting the slide to fit, etc. it’s absolutely the best slide I’ve ever played, period. I’ve also had a Shires 508/525 that played awesome on a Mt Vernon bell I had but… it was too flat to be usable. Didn’t want to cut it although in hindsight I wonder if I’d still be using that combo if I had!
Someone recently was selling a similar combo to what you’re trying to do. I think it may have been the same bell section with a Shires slide that had been modified to fit the bell. Something like that is probably going to be a good setup but it’s also not cheap.
So there’s some context for kind of what you’d be getting yourself into. If you really love the bell section and have a healthy budget to optimize it, it might be worth it. It probably won’t increase resale though. So you won’t ever get a positive ROI on it. Most of my projects have been that I played a slide and then really liked some aspect of it so I sought a similar slide or had some other aspect of multiple things I wanted. Like the above Yamaha slide. I wanted a 525/547. I could have ordered a T2547 from Shires although it would have been a lot more expensive than what I ultimately paid for my slide because I could trade around. But I also had played the Yamaha models that went into this slide and knew they worked well for me. So I ended up with a YSL646 upper, at the time a YSL645 leadpipe, and a YSL8820 lower slide and crook, plus the Shires tenon since I used Shires bells. I’m hind sight; I’m not sure if I like it so much because of the unusual weight of the outer slides (top half is essentially light weight, bottom has a large nickel cork barrel). I wouldn’t have necessarily thought to ask to have a new slide built that way. But for whatever reason, this slide runs circles around everything else I’ve ever tired.
In other words, I agree with other posters that in this circumstance… you’re probably better served looking into other models since you don’t necessarily have anything you’ve compared it to that you like more or a specific goal in mind.
However, even with that said, I tend to like pulling lead pipes. I’ve yet to not improve a horn by switching as far as I can recall. But .490 is a weird bore. You’d not be able to find much available. You could permanently alter 484 and 485 pipes to be larger but then you’ve spent a lot of cash on pipes and no guarantee it would improve… and you definitely aren’t getting a factory original replacement if something goes wrong.