Amado Water Valves

[Bb Brass]

Except for Getzen 300 SERIES horns, seeing amado water valves always made me assume "intermediate" or "professional" grade horn.

Obviously that generalization was misleading. Now I am curious about the reverse.

Are many / a lot of professional horns not using amado valves?

In the past, why was amado the often choice for better horns?

[Riojazz]

You should be able to find several threads here on choice of water key, although I don't recall any discussion in a few years. It's not only Amado versus standard lever; there are other choices such as a Saturn (that I use) and a Pollard (with perhaps similar but better design than the Amado).
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Matt Finley https://mattfinley.bandcamp.com/releases
Kanstul 1525 w/French, Shires Bb Destino Med & C trumpets, Schilke XA1 cornet, Schilke P5-4 picc, Yamaha soprano sax, Powell flute. Sanborn GR66MS, GR 66CT-Z, & Touvron-D.

[Bb Brass]

[LittleRusty]

[Getzen]

I think this is a debate that has raged on ever since the Amado and all similar waterkeys came out. Honestly, I don’t think there is any answer to which is better. Much like there isn’t an answer to which Bb trumpet is best.

There are pros and cons to the use of any of them. Amados (and by that I mean any of the similar variants) have a less impact on internal airflow, levers drain easier (I wouldn’t say better, just less likely to blow moisture past the nipple). Amados have a smaller footprint and, therefore, less impact on vibration within the slide crook, but you can play more with the location and material of a lever allowing you to place it where it has less influence on the nodal points of the slide. You don’t have to worry about damaged cork or rubber on an Amado, but a broken spring on a lever can be patched with a rubber band in an emergency. And on and on and on.

Ultimately I think it comes down to personal preference. It’s why we offer both on most trumpets we make. With the exception of models like the Eterna Deluxes or the X-13. Amados wouldn’t fit the aesthetic on the Deluxes and an X-13 would look weird with levers on the X bend tuning slide.
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Brett Getzen
President
Getzen Company

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If you have a question please feel free to email me at brett@getzen.com.

[Riojazz]

No dispute here. I will say I replaced the Amado water keys on my flugelhorn because the Saturn simply drains better (more). A small concern is that I have to disassemble and clean the Saturn several times a year specifically to remove the green scum that can build up and block it, but you easily hear gurgling when that starts to be a problem.
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Matt Finley https://mattfinley.bandcamp.com/releases
Kanstul 1525 w/French, Shires Bb Destino Med & C trumpets, Schilke XA1 cornet, Schilke P5-4 picc, Yamaha soprano sax, Powell flute. Sanborn GR66MS, GR 66CT-Z, & Touvron-D.

[stuartissimo]

I'll work with whatever comes with the horn. For my Recording, that's trombone-style water keys. They work well enough, not to mention they look cool. I think I would prefer them over traditional water keys but not to the point where it'd influence my choice of instrument.

My old student Getzen comes with Armad keys, and one thing they have going for them is that they keep functioning even with little maintenance...all it takes to get them going again is a drop of valve oil (if they get stuck at all, which they rarely do).
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"...even in their mighty company I shall not now feel ashamed."
Olds Recording trumpet
Buescher flugelhorn
Compositions

[Bb Brass]

[Tony Scodwell]

I have chimed in so many times on the pros and cons of Amado water keys I vowed never to again. However, I think I can clarify some points here.

Brett Getzen is absolutely on the mark with his comments and for those that didn't know, Getzen had the exclusive rights to use the Amado key when Ray Amado first developed them in the sixties. They were standard on the Eterna Severinsen model shortly after the introduction of that model with lever type water keys being used at first. Ray and I were close friends and he gave me much help on all things trumpet including why the waterkey was developed. The main reason was acoustic with the piston filling the gap in the slides where a lever type key would have a much bigger area to disturb the airflow. Also, a like metal (stainless steel) had less effect than a cork covering a larger hole. A huge benefit in my estimation was the lack of a hairpin spring which was always under tension unlike the Amado coil spring which only had tension when the piston was depressed. (How many coil valve springs have you heard of that broke?) Ray sent the patent paperwork to me which was quite the innovation at the time. Another point of information was that the original design had a nipple silver soldered on where the moisture exited and a scalloped screw cap on the end of the waterkey body which due to cost considerations in the machining process proved to be too expensive to produce and was replaced by an end plate held in place by a circlip and no nipple that had to be individually silver soldered on. Admittedly, cleaning the produced key was not trivial and with crud buildup behind the piston, dis-assembling to clean was always a challenge. A quick way to dislodge any crud behind the piston was to push the piston in and blow compressed air through the opening. A snake type brush could not get the crud out by the way.

Ray later on decided to offer a "Pro-Type" version of his waterkey that replaced the end plate and circlip with a plastic end cap that snapped on which facilitated easy cleaning of the waterkey. Monette uses this version today.

I use a similar version produced by Carol Brass today on my Scodwell USA trumpets and flugelhorns which not only has a screw on end cap but a 1/8th drill hole which is slightly larger than the original Amado. I believe Ray Amado would approve.

Tony Scodwell
www.scodwellusa.com

[tptptp]

I think we’re really fortunate on Trumpet Herald. We get the best info from great professionals, don’t we?
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Craig Mitchell

[Ronnman]

[Bb Brass]

THANKS to industry leaders in this thread.

Yes, an exceptional forum.