chetbaker

I'll throw my 2 cents in.. for ME Taylors' are geat horns, but as with other brands, probably not for everyone that tries it. FWIW, I play a Taylor Chicago II STANDARD Model with a 5 1/2" yellow brass bell. I have to agree with just about everything my friend Trevor said about Andy's horns. The only difference, from my perspective, is that I'm coming from a mindset of a leadplayer...approaching it as I would a Schilke, Benge, & so on. Any horn that I buy/own HAS to be on the bright side and HAS to have an open, easy upper register, but with SOME resistance. I don't care about bore size because I also own a Bach Medium bore, a Kanstul "Mariachi (small bore) & a Schilke B1L (ML bore), and I love each of them for what that particular horn gives back to me.

Most of what you read about Taylors are that they're heavy; dark sounding; tone spreads alot; you can ONLY use a heavyweight mouthpiece; and they will only work well in a jazz setting. If all (actually ANY) of this was true I wouldn't be playing one because it wouldn't come close to fulfilling my needs! Let me start by saying that I ALWAYS use a normal, regular-weight piece. I find that it works VERY well on the Taylor. I, personally, have always used small diameter, VERY shallow pieces. The ONLY thing that I vary is the backbore....sometimes on the tight side...sometimes on the open side. With MY setup the sound of the Taylor is HUGE; bright; and has the biggest sounding upper register of any horn I've played. In fact it seems that the higher you go the bigger the sound gets. I find the sound quality to be a little more "pure" than my other horns...quite a bit bigger sounding...& yet it still maintains a good fundamental core to to the tone. If I'm in a playing situation where I need to blend in, rather than stand out...say in a big band section, concert band, etc. the Taylor alows me to do that WITHOUT having to switch to a deeper piece which, in my case, is a blessing due to the fact that I'm kind of stubborn and have always been of the philosophy in using ONE piece to play everything. I just don't feel a need, nor do I like, to switch.

As for fit and finish. This is my 2nd Taylor Standard Model. I bought one 2-3 years ago and ended up selling it for whatever reason. That horn had a "less than perfect" fit and finish! I purchased my current Standard Model about 4-5 months ago (ser. #39XXX) and it was considerably better in regards to the overall construction. As with all of my horns that I en up keeping I sent it to Wayne Tanabe at "The Brass Bow" for a PVA and the ONLY other adjustment that he had to make with the horn was to tighten the tuning slide, which was rather loose. This would had to have been done even if the slide was of "normal" tightness as I like my tuning slide EXTRA tight. In fact Wayne always questions me on this! BTW...The valves were out of alignment to a certain degree (I've seen MUCH worse)and, as I sent him an already good playing horn, he sent me back an EXCELLENT playing horn after his PVA (as always!).

As with other horns the Taylor line might not be THE horn for everyone...just like the Eclipse wasn't for me...but if the majority of players gave it a chance and disregarded the "stigma", or pre-formed notions as to what they THINK the horn is going to play like I feel alot of people will realize that the Taylor Standard Model is one of the GREAT all-around horns on the market today and that it's capable of doing MANY things VERY well! Again...MY 2 cents!

Butch

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Kanstul Mariachi Premier
Kanstul 1525 Flugelhorn
Pieces - Warb. 6ESV top/Black #3 BB - Warb. 6FLM

NYTC

Has anyone played a Rio model?

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www.NewYorkTrumpetCompany.com
Stage 1 Trumpets