musicandbeautyislife

I've had my Strad (model 37) for about three years now. It has played a little stuffy from the beginning, but I was told it was only because it was a new horn and needed to be broken in. I started having complaints about my intonation, first just common problem pitches, and then in general on every note. the horn seems to have gotten stuffier and stuffier and the intonation seems ot be getting worse. I've had it to our area specialist, who was unable to find anything wrong with it. Many different teachers and students from my school and several surrounding schools have all the same complaints and something just does not feel right about the horn. It's been cleaned recently, and has been looked at by a few other experts who just don't know what to make of it. I've done nothing to cause any damage to the horn, and no one has found anything that throws up a red flag. We've done minor things like changing mouthpieces, which resulted in little or no change, and we traded tuning slides, which seemed to help a little, but not enough to call that the solution to the problem. We put a piece of tap around my mouthpiece and that seemed to help a little as well, as if something is wrong in the receiver as well as somewhere else, because it wasn't enough for me to say it played like any other strad i've played on. I have another horn, so i'm in not in a bad position of not having a horn to be playing on, but i would like to know if anyone has any ideas as to what could be causing this or what i should do about it. any help would be greatly appreciated!

cornetguy

Have they looked for solder blobs? Maybe have it taken apart and put back together to get rid of tension. Possibly try an new leadpipe but don't replace it permenetly just try to see if that helps. (some of them on the newer Bachs are defective to be charitable) valve alignment? If nothing else seems to help, you may just have to turn it into a lamp and try something else. (if the horn is that bad I wouldn't sell it to anyone)

A.N.A. Mendez

You have taken each slide out and blocked one end and blown through it to check for leaks? You have checked each valve for hole and or cracks in the "tunnels" (ports) running through ? Water key corks of course. The only other possiblity is a crack or small hole somewhere....

stchasking

Sounds like a leak. Put a cork in the bell. Get a piece of tigon tubing from your local building center that fits over the lead pipe. Put the horn under water and blow into the tube to pressurize the horn. Work the valves and look for bubbles. Use your breath support to pressurize so you don't blow open the spit valves.

You can check for bad solder joints in the pistons by fitting a hose over the hole in the bottom and pressurizing the piston from the inside. Bad solder joints will bubble.

Let us know if this shows a problem.

rowuk

A trumpet is made of metal and any changes by only playing it take a fairly long time! The chance of a horn getting "more and more out of tune" without any obvious mechanical damage or leaky corks is very close to zero. These are all things that a specialist checks first!
I have played many older badly taken care of Bachs and even with valves out of line and an unbelievable amount of grunge in the horn, less stuffiness is the only major improvement after cleaning - not any serious intonation issues.
There is no "common problem pitch" on a Bach 37.
So what to do?
Check the spitvalve to see if it seals (cover the hole with your finger and play - if the problem goes away, you have found the most common problem)! As you have changed tuning slides this is probably unlikely though.
The next thing you will need to have checked by a pro - the valve alignment.
Solder blobs or bad solder joints do not change with time, the problems that they cause would be pretty constant!
If your breathing is not together, the 37 could just be a tough blow for you - that will cause screwy intonation as fast as anything mechanical!!

musicandbeautyislife

Thanks for all the advice, but my trumpet teacher finally found something that's made a difference. Somewhere along the line, someone had put in the older kind of valve springs, which were rubbing and was causing the horn to act almost like a tuning fork, vibrating a concert D Pitch. This accounts for the intonation aspect. The horn still plays a little stuffy, but is significantly better!

stchasking

How much do you practice with it? I have to play mine for two weeks to get my ear trained for the pitches. You would be surprised at how out of tune you play if you have not coordinated your ears with what you see on the sheet music.

TopGun

When you play your friends' horns do you notice any of the same issues?

R.A.S.

I don't know if you have access to different leadpipes to try, but a guy from the Bach factory came to my campus when I was an undergrad. He had many pipes (as well as many tuning slides, etc.), and when we replaced mine with a #43 leadpipe the stuffiness was gone immediately.
Make sure that you tape on ones you're trying for a while each. Then have your choice soldered on.

Vulgano Brother

How was it cleaned? Have you run a snake through it? Sometimes a chemical cleaning won't remove weird things like pencil stubs inside the bell crook, which really make the instrument play strangely. Good luck!