New Bachs

[rjbirnbaum]

[mafields627]

[Jon Arnold]

[quote="kehaulani"]Thanks, Pat. I'll be looking for it.

"I was looking for something more like a Benge and ideally like a Shew, but with the 190-37 sound. The Bach was neither.

When you find a horn that is like this, please let me know.

[BudBix]

Any update on when the new Bachs will be released? Something lighter with "the sound" sounds very intriguing.

[Brad361]

[chef8489]

Rashard Ross recently sold two 19072 horns through jlandress. These were most likely the horns. He is currently playing on a 190 with a 65 bell.
_________________
Current horns
2023 Bach 19072G/43 pipe with 1st trigger
1966 H.N. White King Silver Flair
1965 H.N. White King Super 20 Sllversonic Symphony 1st trigger

[ProAm]

[trompette229]

[quote="Jon Arnold"]

[kehaulani]

[quote="trompette229"]

[Subtropical and Subpar]

[BudBix]

I sent a Facebook message to Bach Brass asking when the horns would be for sale and haven’t gotten a response. I suspect it ain’t gonna happen.

[Jon Kaplan]

[OldSchoolEuph]

[Vin DiBona]

I'm pretty sure Brad361 and I are on the same wavelength.
Neither of us can say anymore.
R. Tomasek

[JWG]

The worst thing that Bach can do is slim down their product line into a "few sizes will fit all" strategy.

The world is trending toward customization; you can custom-order your car, your shoes, and your clothes on line. Trumpets should not differ.

If this new Bach Company thinks that mere endorsements will allow it to thrive, it has erred. The strategy of endorsements always fails in the long run, because what works well for one person only works well for a small percentage of other people. Like a suit, you need a custom fit. Limiting one's offerings analogizes to China's offering its population only Mao Suits from the 50's to the 80's. Eventually, people realized that the one-style of four-pockets, three colors, and half dozen sizes did not fit-all and did not satisfy most peoples' desires and needs for self expression.

The best strategy for the current Bach Company: Educate buyers on how all the parameters of a horn affect the various aspects of playability, revitalize the Build-a-Bach website with all of that information, and require people to custom order their horns in order to give real data about what accomplished players want and actually keep.

I had one custom Bach trumpet and had several horns saved on the Build-a-Bach site when Bach stopped taking orders. I handed down my custom Bach to my son and it still serves him well. I ended up getting Bb and C Flip Oakes horns, because their large bell, large bore, open pipe, and light weight best matched my physical attributes and playing needs . . . needs for which Bach no longer offers a horn since discontinuation of the Selmer Claude Gordon Model Bb and C.

Despite my over 40 years of love for Bach trumpets, I will not likely buy any horns from his "new" Bach company.

After completing his mandatory service in the Austro-Hungarian military, Vincent Bach (a Viennese Austrian) left his job as a mechanical engineer in an elevator company, toured Europe as a traveling virtuoso musician, and fled British imperialist custody to go to the United States aboard the Lusitania during WW1, because he wanted freedom to play and create without the stricture inherent in aristocratic societies. Bach showed no loyalty to the belligerent aristocrats of Austria who triggered WW1 after the assassination of its Arch Duke.

It saddens me to see the legacy of a virtuoso musician and creative mechanical engineer like Vincent Bach ruined by uncreative and anti-intellectual people who appear to value that same stricture and aristocratic-style profits.

Vincent Bach valued understanding the physics of trumpet sound production, valued offering a diversity of options that change sound production, and valued offering customers customization as his company's "shop cards" evidence, all so that people could enjoy making music like he did. Vincent Bach's work was a labor of love that had the personal purpose of fulfillment and the practical purpose of successfully making a living to support his wife and daughter rather than building an empire. Bach grew up in last decades of the age of Austrian imperialism and did not like empires.

Call me an impractical idealist, but I still place my hope in the human spirit. I see this new young generation of musicians as quite passionate, and, due to growing up in a fully digital age, they will demand more customization and more freedom of choice than previous generations of musicians. As with all things, time will tell and either validate my belief in the future of quality custom-ordered trumpets or quash it.
_________________
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]

I apologize in advance if I took the wrong points away, but…
[quote="]The world is trending toward customization; you can custom-order your car, your shoes, and your clothes on line. Trumpets should not differ[/quote]
I think the premise that the world is trending towards customization is wrong.

I could customize any car order back as long as I has been alive. Think the COPO muscle cars back in the 60’s. But any car could have customizations, one just needed to wait for it to be manufactured instead of driving off the lot the first day. Yet the majority of cars are still sold off physical and internet equivalents of dealer lots using the predetermined model options.

Custom order shoes have been around forever. Literally since shoes were invented. But I bet the majority of shoes by number of pairs sold is greater for stock off the shelf models.

But suffice it to say, I didn’t grow up with the internet and online access to custom makers so I could be wrong.

That said, think of the cost of goods for custom trumpets vs standard models. Even assuming the cost of the materials and labor to assemble a custom and a standard model are equivalent there is a lot of extra man hours spent consulting with the purchaser to gather their needs and working with them iterating through evolutions of the custom design.

Then in order to come close to the number of stock models sold Bach would need to hire many extra expert staff just handle the customer interactions. People qualified to do this are hard to find, as are customers who know enough to express their needs, and would be expensive adding a premium to every instrument sold.

I hope the custom makers continue to thrive, it is good for all of us, but I think Bach would be foolish to focus on custom instruments.

[OldSchoolEuph]

[BudBix]

[HaveTrumpetWillTravel]

I think it could be a positive thing. Honestly, they may have figured out that some subset of their audience is people who will collect multiple trumpets. They may also be trying to reach niche audiences. I would guess they've lost market share to new makers and custom lines. They may be responding to Yamaha. Yesterday I was at a Yamaha store that had all the models: Xenos, the Custom series, the Miyarshiro and Shrew models, several 4000-5000 lines, etc., etc. I'm pretty happy with two Bachs (one very worn) but if I fell in love with a Mariachi or Artisan, I might buy it.

[adagiotrumpet]