C Trumpet Student

[RandyTX]

I tried a 'budget' C trumpet, very briefly, a number of years ago now, and since I mentioned it at the time and ruffled a few feathers by mentioning the brand, I'll just leave that out here, and say you may be far better off trying to 'invest' in a better quality C, knowing if you don't need it after your student use, you can flip it to someone (if you keep it in good shape) far easier... and at the same time, not struggle while you do need it with bad sound, intonation, valves, etc. like is very likely with a low-budget C. they're hard enough to get playing right as is, no need to make it worse, by picking up a Yugo or Trabant version of a C trumpet.

Buy the best quality one you can afford now, and who knows, you might end up holding onto it and be glad you did. Better to buy one good example of something one time, then buy two or three bad ones, and still end up having to buy the good one later. Same advice works for chain saws, cars, you name it.
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"Music is like candy, you throw the (w)rappers away."

[falado]

[mafields627]

This is probably the lowest you'll find on the decent to good end of things:

https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/908980343592511/

Also, it being an Austin Custom Brass horn, maybe he would take it on consignment or trade for a pro quality horn later?
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--Matt--

No representation is made that the quality of this post is greater than the quality of that of any other poster. Oh, and get a teacher!

[Robert P]

Throwing it out there to consider if your budget is tight. I got a Chinese C stencilhorn a while back on eBay because I didn't want to have a couple grand tied up in something I was just going to piddle around with if I didn't have to so took a gamble to see how one played.

I can't say I have any complaints aside from the couple of caveats I offer below. It's capable of playing with a singing, open sound, has nice, buttery-smooth valves. It's the second C trumpet I've played - the first one was an older Bach Strad in a repair shop the shop owner wanted me to try. Based on my 10 - 15 minutes or so of playing the Bach I can't say this one feels inferior. Has a bright sound compared to my Bb horns similar to what I noticed with that Strad and like that Strad the blow is different than any of my Bb horns in a way that's hard to verbalize. Don't know what the bore is. I paid right around $300 for it in silver plate - nice plating job too. It has no brand markings on it whatsoever, which I actually like - gives it a clean look.

It's not going to impress anyone who asks what its origins are, a trumpet teacher might give you grief about it perhaps just out of prejudice. I don't know if anyone would complain about the sound if they heard it without knowing anything about it.

I need to add a couple of caveats - when I got it, it wasn't flawless. I had to remove the mouthpiece receiver and drill the leapipe end out a tad to shorten the horn a bit since it was a hair below in-tune with the main tuning slide pulled all the way in and the mouthpiece gap was ridiculously large. Which means I had to remove, drill out and resolder the receiver and remove and resolder the associated brace. If I had paid someone to do what I did my guess is it would probably be a couple hundred or so. Of course another one might not have this issue, it might have just been a QC issue on this particular horn.

The other caveat is while I feel I scored with this one after making the previously mentioned tweak to it I can't guarantee that another eBay stencilhorn made years apart from mine, maybe not even in the same factory is going to have the same basic characteristics.

A couple of examples of it using a Tascam recorder in my living room. The first one is just noodling around with it. I added some reverb on the abbreviated "Pictures" sample. I land kind of hard on a few of the attacks and it wouldn't win me a chair with the NY Phil but it gives an idea what it can sound like on orchestral literature. One of these days I need to put in some intense work on some excerpts and record them in a nicer space like a church or something.

I was using a Stork Custom Vacchiano 2D on both.


https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-MRvNJHwRDREEZnQ4QQDHaALOjI6BXS1/view?usp=sharing


https://drive.google.com/file/d/1APQtGXmNw2LbdH-sWoqe_vTbx2jiOPy7/view?usp=sharing

Just going by appearances this one looks very similar though not identical in every detail to mine.


https://www.ebay.com/itm/385437383364


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Getzen Eterna Severinsen
King Silver Flair
Besson 1000
Bundy
Chinese C

Getzen Eterna Bb/A piccolo
Chinese Rotary Bb/A piccolo

Chinese Flugel

[Brassnose]

Wondering if the OP checks back at some point …
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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

[Louise Finch]

[Robert P]