Reasons for and against Bb / C switchable horns

[adms]

If you look at vintage horns, sometimes you come across things like a King Improved cornet (and I believe other brands) that had a rotor valve that allowed you to switch the air flow path, shortening or lengthening the tubing to switch between Bb and C. Most obviously this helps with avoiding the need to transpose. Is there a reason these horns fell out of favor? Did they not perform well? Were they just too expensive to produce for the value? Did people prefer to learn transposition (fix the software) instead of doing that work in hardware?

I have a King Improved from the ~1910s, and it sounds nice. Any one else's experience or ideas why these went away?

Thanks for any insight.

[Brassnose]

There are a lot of similar instruments over here. Mostly they are rotary horns with a Bb/A switch. I think they fell out of favor because there was no need for the A side anymore and also because intonation on one (or both) side(s) may be poor. Not only is it necessary to switch the switch but you also have to adjust all slides to have the horn in tune. And then of course if you don’t switch often and don’t take care, the valve will be stuck. It probably is the same story with the switchable Bb/C piston trumpets where you have a tuning slide extension for Bb but no Bb slides.
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2019 Martin Schmidt eXcellence
1992 Bach 43GH/43
1989 Kühnl & Hoyer Model 15 flugel
1980/2023 Custom Blessing Scholastic C 😎
1977 Conn 6B
1951 Buescher 400 Lightweight
AR Resonance, Frate, Klier

[Didymus]

[Jaw04]

I'm not an orchestral player, but for me I want my C to have a much different character than my B flat. I think most players want to use the different characteristics of each instrument. If you want the same sound and feel on everything, it's not that hard to just transpose. IMO

[Crazy Finn]

In general, most C/Bb horns play poorly in C.

Period Bb/C almost always play poorly in C. Sometimes they play poorly in Bb.

The most common multi-key horns are the D/Eb horns. They are:
- higher pitched and thus shorter horns
- only a half step apart
- still often play better in one key than the other,
- some are pretty solid in both
- most decent ones have different sets of slides, some different bells as well

The above poster mentioned that orchestral C players want a C to have certain (and different) character as opposed to a Bb Trumpet. It's difficult to get that in a multi keyed horn.

I haven't played an older Bb/A horn - or maybe cornet, but I've heard some Ok things about some of them. They are only a half step apart. Back in the day, I was tempted to get one because transposing A parts on my Bb horns gave me a headache.
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LA Benge 3X Bb Trumpet
Selmer Radial Bb Trumpet
Yamaha 6335S Bb Trumpet
Besson 709 Bb Trumpet
Bach 184L Bb Cornet
Yamaha 731 Bb Flugelhorn

[HaveTrumpetWillTravel]

Of course there are modern Bb/Cs also (Yamaha, Courtois) but I know of no one who uses one of these as their main instrument and they clearly aren't/weren't big sellers (I had a cheapo Amati Bb/C at one point). I think it was a mix of need (little need for A trumpet) and specialization (better tone on specialized Bb and C) that led to their demise.

[JoseLindE4]

Rather than transposition, the biggest advantage a Bb/C trigger might be the alternate fingering possibilities to help awkward passages or have some other tuning options. Some less reliable trills might play a little more easily, for example.

Simplifying transposition doesn’t seem to have enough applications, considering many transposition situations involve more than just Bb and C. The limited applications might not justify the trade offs of the extra mechanism (cost, more stuff to break, extra weight, unevenness of the Bb vs. C side).

If you’re going to the trouble of adding extra stuff to the horn, a 4th valve (the same as the 1 & 3 combination) seems to have more applications. Tuba and euphonium players use the 4th valve quite a bit. The trigger on a trombone is even more handy due to the physical requirements of moving a slide. And the 4th valve is pretty standard on the piccolo.

Of course there’s pretty limited Bb trumpet literature that goes below concert E below the staff, so again, it’s probably usually not worth the trade offs. It’s more important to do the things players actually need the horns to do well.

[Eliot]

FWIW ...

I have a dual pitch (Bb/C) Yamaha 2420 Trumpet purchased back in the early 1990s.

Personally, I found when playing it as a Bb instrument I needed to adjust the valve slides to cope with the longer Bb tuning slide.

Playing it recently as a Bb instrument convinced me to swap the Bb tuning slide out and replace it with the C tuning slide. Played it the other day as a C instrument and it seemed to work fine ("more fine" than as a Bb horn).

It, together with a Conn 83B are now decorating my "music" room as near ancient artifacts while my newer Yamaha YTR 6335RC gets played every day.

BTW transposition for my level of playing is no sweat. When I bought the 2420 I made a point of concentrating on transposition, and, for what I play, succeeded in becoming reasonably proficient with it.

My latest transposition challenge is transposing music written for a C instrument (piano etc) while playing an Eb Tenor Horn.
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Eliot
Rank amateur, still upright and trying hard.
Yamaha YTR6335RC
B&S 150A Alto-Tenor Horn
Yamaha FZ8n (motorcycle)
Conn 83B (trumpet)

[THE BD]

I've had a few dual key horns in the past. They always play better in one key than in the other. That is all the reasoning I need to just get a separate horn if I need that second key.

It is not worth my time or frustration to fight a horn that plays poorly.
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Martin D Williams

Yeah, I did that!

[bike&ed]

Actually, transposition can be exceptionally difficult for those of us with even a very mild dyslexia. There are more than a few folks with this issue. I worked my a— off at transposition for nearly two decades, with it always being a ‘2 steps forward, 2 steps backward’ battle through university and professional life. Never understood why I failed to make real progress at it, until doing a bit more diagnosis that went beyond the “just practice it more” mantra. Anyway, I’m no fan of those wonky C/Bb horns, but I do have to be more choosy about horns than some when dealing with parts in E/F etc.

[adms]

Thanks all.

I've only done a quick check of tone on the King Improved and will have to study it closer to see if one or the other suffers in tone. Certainly a Bb / C trumpet is best as a swiss army knife: Can do everything somewhat, but perhaps nothing as well as a dedicated tool. In this case, I can transpose hymns in church from Bb to C to play with a piano, but it simplifies either a bad key signature or sight-reading less familiar pieces.

[lipshurt]

it is not hard to get a C/Bb horn that plays good in both keys:

the most common setup is:

Bach 239 C trumpet with 25s leadpipe (that is a full length Bb pipe)
A set of correctly made Bb slides that fit right and butt up inside. Not just C length slides that are pulled out a certain amount. That setup plays great in C and Bb

Some really great Players played convertible C trumpets and spent most of thier time on the Bb side. Donald Bullock and a bach239 and sounded stunning all the time in Bb. His was a 25C pipe if i remember right

Ed Harkins.... who played better than Ed Harkins anyway...played a schilke C convertible on the Bb side.
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[LittleRusty]

[adms]

I'm confused. If you use Bb slides that fit right and butt up inside, how would you shorten the tubing length to shift up (sharper) to C? I understand a C slide pulled out a certain amount to hit Bb, but how could you have a Bb slide pushed in all the way and still get up to C? Am I missing something obvious?

Thanks,

[Dale Proctor]

There’s no quick change from Bb to C possible. Those old quick-change rotary valves just changed a trumpet from Bb to A, a half step. I have an old cornet that plays in A, Bb, and C, but all the valve slides are C length and the fixed Bb leadpipe and tuning slide are bypassed with a short C length leadpipe to play in C, so that’s not quick. For Bb, all the valve slides have to be extended and a longer slide between the tuning slide and 3rd valve has to be installed.

I used to have a 4-slide set (made by Bach) to convert my Bach 239 C trumpet to Bb, but that was not a quick change either, and played a little wonky in Bb.
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"Brass bands are all very well in their place - outdoors and several miles away ." - Sir Thomas Beecham

[LittleRusty]

[delano]

I am quite sure that (almost?) all of yhe French Selmer C trumpets came also with Bflat slides and were used for that by at least some players.

[RETrumpet]

[JWG]

Manufacturing-wise, C to Bb does not work out as well. A well-tuned C and a well-tuned Bb hard to achieve as standalone horns. Combined . . . I could not imagine anyone manufacturing great combo C to Bb horns. Perhaps combo horn will work fine in an emergency, but better to bring two horns on stage that will reliably play in tune and give you the sound that you want from each.
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Flip Oakes Wild Thing Bb and C with 1.5 TCC, XT, C, C-O, O, & L mouthpieces
Bach 183S (undersprung valves & straight taper pipe) with 1.5 Flip Oakes XF

[LittleRusty]