Long slide short slide?

[whitbey]

So a I 547/562 brass long slide and a 547/562 nickle short slide. The nickle brass thing is the most notable difference. My horns are in my profile.
I like the long slide in 6th and 7th as the slide works better. And I like the short slide because I always have to cut my horns shorter so the short slide is less of a cut.
I am guessing there are other reasons for a shorter slide and I am wondering why the shorter slide is the new thing.
Any one know?

[greenbean]

Are you talking about Conn slides? Or slides in general...

[whitbey]

Mostly the Edwards Bach slides.

[Matt K]

Hard to say sine there are a lot of variables between your slides. It isn't the same as say, a Shires TB47NL vs. a TB47N (bass/nickel crook, nickel outers, "Bach" length vs. a bass/nickel crook/nickel outers/"regular" length).

In general, the shorter slide is to compensate for a longer/wider bell section as many contemporary horns have. The longer slides provide more of a 'slot' for notes but come at the expense of a little flexibility. Given the other set of compromises, the additional flexibility is welcomed vs. other considerations at a general level.

[timothy42b]

Hmmm. The alto has proportionally an even shorter slide, right? The length of slide tubing as a percentage of the total length of the horn?

[Matt K]

Hmmm. The alto has proportionally an even shorter slide, right? The length of slide tubing as a percentage of the total length of the horn?

I'm not sure about that (not measures) but on the surface it seems reasonable. That's partially why the TIS horns are so common for Altos. Need to add some length to them to get a good 7th depending on the bell section dimensions.

[hornbuilder]

That's partially why the TIS horns are so common for Altos. Need to add some length to them to get a good 7th depending on the bell section dimensions

That's just not true. Neither TIB nor TIS have any effect on the proportions of bell to slide in any particular design. Making an instrument TIS does not give a longer handslide, versus TIB. The choice of TIS over TIB by some manufacturers is to eliminate the steps in the bore associated with having a tuning slide in the bell. The proportions of bell length to slide length are design choices by the instrument designer. A longer bell will allow a longer taper from the end of the slide to the bell flare, which "may" be seen as beneficial.

FWIW.
M

[hornbuilder]

Regarding the idea of different flexibility and slotting between "long" and "short" slides, that is also not true. We're talking about @ 1" to 1.5" difference here. But using that concept, we would have zero flexibility and incredibly tight slotting in 7th position compared to 1st, which just is not the case.

M

[Matt K]

Perhaps my misunderstanding is coming from my lack of comprehension regarding something that Ben Griffin said in the Shires Q&A thread from the tbf on both fronts. In the first case, he says of the Shires altos:

Our TIS enables us to use a longer slide and have a full 7 positions, yes, but people use the valve for different reasons.  For some, it's to be comfortable with closer positions, for others, they want that register.  Others use the valve to facilitate lip trills in the middle/upper register of the instrument.  It's highly personal.

I don't want to put words in his or Steve's mouth, so take this with a huge grain of salt, but I had talked to both of them about this and my understanding was that they tried TIB tuning, but then the hand slides were too short because of how long they had to make the bells to get the intonation right. That may be me misremembering or just totally not understanding what I was being told.

Concerning longer slides, when asked:

Quote from: davidbinder on Nov 19, 2013, 01:09PMWhat is the difference in length between a normal shires slide and the L (equal to Bach length?) ? Would the standard shires slide have much different slide positions than a 42? Does the tuning slide need to be shortened with the longer slide?
Also curious, as I've wanted to try a shires slide on my bach/greenhoe, could you describe the difference in feel with the L slide? (I know it's subjective...)
Thanks!

Ben responded with:

The difference in length is pretty slight but length brings big differences in feel.  Briefly, the longer length gives a little more security to the slotting.  For some people this is too much, for others just right.  Generally people that come from Bach trombones like this slide, especially if the rest of the horn is balanced like a Bach (i.e. TII bell, TB style slide, TX tuning slide).

Our long slide length should be similar enough with your Greenhoe Bach that intonation should be pretty similar.  many people have purchased our slides for replacements with their Bach bells.  The real question is the bell/slide receiver.  All things being equal, our slides will fit on a 42 bell with no modification necessary.  I do not know about Greenhoe connectors.

I hope this helps.

Ben

Other than the obvious "placebo" effect that people might have when trying something more "Bach like" or similar, I might guess that it's the extra 1.5" of smaller tubing? That can make a relatively big difference in a leadpipe. So in other words, it isn't the outer slide that is causing the difference, but the inner slide, which is a constant 38"ish instead of say, 36.5" whether the slide is in 1st or 7th position. That's probably not the most eloquent way I'm explaining those thoughts but I'm drawing a blank for a better method of doing so.

[hornbuilder]

I guess my design philosophy is different then. My take is a designer (should) make a conscious choice as to what the proportions are between bell and slide. Basically, do you want a "full" 7th position or not? Certainly the move over the last few years, particularly on bass trombones, has been to make the bell longer and slide shorter, to the point where playing a low C on one valve is right at the end of the slide, quite the opposite of something like the 72H which has room to spare.

I believe the same decision exits on alto, however the "level of difficulty" is increased, since you have a much shorter overall length of tube to fit everything into. There are certainly enough TIB altos out there that "do" have a 7th position (one of the Laetszch altos almost has an 8th position!) so it is obviously doable.

Re leadpipe lengths vs cylindrical tube lengths. A small length change in a leadpipe can have a very obvious effect, however, that is because it is a "tapered" tube. As I mentioned above, if the idea of making each slide tube .5" to .75" longer were to make "that" much difference, our instruments would be MUCH more difficult to play due to the very dramatic change that would happen going from 1st position to 7th.

M

[hornbuilder]

To counter Ben slightly, the choice of using TIS is not what allows the full 7th position. The choice of making the slide longer and the bell shorter is what allows the 7th position. It is easier to make a TIS bell section when you are dealing with shorter, tighter dimensions such as found in an alto. (Compared to a Contrabass where you have HUGE wiggle room) This was their design choice which makes perfect sense.

The big issue for alto design, is making an instrument that plays at the required pitch, but works with large bore American tenors and basses. An "ideal" alto would be much smaller in the bell than most altos made today (think the old Olds alto, or the Conn alto from the 20's, or the Bach 39, small bore, small bell) They play magnificently, but do not work so well with big horns.

M

[whitbey]

Thanks Horn builder.
So the slide length is more of what is left over for the bell section? Or vice versa depending on the goal of the horn design?

[LeTromboniste]

TIS doesn't give you a 7th position on an alto in and of itself, because it doesn't change the length of the inner tubes, which is obviously what defines how far out you can play on the slide. You could very well design a TIS and a TIB trombones that have the same effective slide and bell length. What TIS does however is negate the need for a cylindrical section in the bell to accommodate a tuning slide, thus giving more wiggle room to take length away from the bell section and make a longer slide (including the inners). So TIS does allow for a longer slide more easily, but it has to be designed that way.

I used to have a Weril alto. Not a great instrument and the TIS assembly made the slide really heavy (also, the inners would bump and scratch against the edge of the female tubes of the tuning slide when coming back from 7th position, very poor design), but the bell was all in one piece, from the slide receiver to the flare - that was interesting.