rdt1959

What is the advantage of having the main tuning slide located in this position? <if it is not a trade secret>

Castle Bravo

The big one as far as I can see is that it doesn't screw up the standing wave; the closer you are to the receiver end of the horn the more critical it must be to ensure a smooth air stream.

lonelyangel

There are many advantages to having the back bow tuning slide - in fact, once players have experienced the way an Eclipse trumpet handles, many are asking to have their other horns convereted to this system.

The main advantage is that with the rear tuning slide you do not need to have a tuning slide at the front.

With all Eclipse trumpets, the lead pipe and the extended front bow leading into the valve section are, in effect, a single, solid and uninterupted construction (the two component parts are butted up with no internal gaps).

On a traditional trumpet this section of the tubing is constructed of seven seperate parts (lead pipe, outer sleeve, inner tube, front bow, inner tube, outer sleeve, tube into valve block) which cannot have the structural integrity of the Eclipse design.

On a traditional trumpet, when you pull the front slide out to tune the instrument, you create two sections of tube with a much larger bore (around 15% larger at a guess) at either end of the smaller bore front bow. This means that the air moving through the pipe hits a hard edge twice on its way round to the valve section which causes air turbulence, disruption to the air column, distortion and loss of energy.

You need to bear in mind that all the notes in the staff and above are formed in this first crucial part of the air column. That is that the first nodal point or standing wave in notes higher than a bottom line E occurs before the valve section. Now, depending exactly how far out you ususally have your slide, some of these nodal points will coincide in a very unfortunate way with the air turbulence and disruption to the air flow as outlined above.

This has a very detrimental effect on the slotting and , crucially, the intonation of many notes on a traditional trumpet. Typically the fifth harmonic notes, G Fsharp and F on top of the staff are sharp and fourth harmonic notes, E, Eflat, D and Csharp are flat. You will have to work the notes with your embouchure to get them in tune but the price you pay is in an inferior tone quality on these notes and a reduction in volume/air speed ratio.

On an Eclipse you do not have any of these problems. There is no interuption to the air stream, no distortion of or disturbance to any of the nodal points. The intonation is spot on, the slotting is superb and the tone of each note remains true and constant as does the volume/air speed ratio. Due to the elegant and sturdy construction - much more of the energy you put in to creating and forming the notes gets transfered to the bell - the amplification side of the instrument - leading to outstanding projection even when playing very quietly.

Eclipse trumpets speak very quickly and respond with great precision to the input from the player. Because the intonation is so good and the slots so accurate, you will find that they seem much easier to play. You become more confident about pitching and hitting notes cleanly and with accuracy. You are not wasting energy and as a result your endurance will improve.

There you are then. No it is not a trade secret and nor is it a cheap trick or marketing ploy. I will not be suprised if this design innovation is picked up by some of the 'big boys' in the very near future!

All the best. Noel.

Mr. Stomvi

Check out the Schilke tuning bell design and the Stomvi Master series horns. The Stomvi's have the coolest system. (OK - I'm a little biased - I have 3 of their horns).

1. Interchangeble (I have 3 different leadpipes and they really make a difference) 1 piece leadpipes that plug into the receiver and have no gaps between joints. One smooth air passage from receiver to valve block. A super smooth blow.

2. Interchangable (different tapers) and adjustable tuning crooks on back side of valve block. All the benefits of a tuning bell design along with the interchangability.

3. Interchangable bells - different tapers and materials. Screw into horn and not bell crook. Makes for much more solid mounting than Schilke system. This is a really cool (and useful) system. I change bells all the time depending on the gig.

Might be nice for the Eclipse guys to take a good look at Stomvi's system.

Seth Moore

eclipse trumpets

Hi Seth

we do actually have a changable bell eclipse!

It was in fact developed long before the Eclipses you see today.
It has what i think is an advantage over some changable bell horns, in that ours still has the front and back brace to give it the stability it needs.
Schilke horns are great, but the tunable bell ones do tend to damage very easily halfway down the bell just in front of the vlave section due to it being very weak at this point from the lack of a brace.

I'll try and remember to get you a few pics of the way we do ours if you like ?

Regards

Leigh

Jarrett

I think what Stomvi has is probably one of the best changeable bell systems out there, but, that's not what Eclipse goes for. The bell is permanently attached and I don't think I'd change anything as far as the construction of the horn. Your essentially talking about two completely different concepts.
-J

Mr. Stomvi

I was really just tryin to prime the pump so that when I win my new Eclipse super horn Leigh won't be caught off guard when I ask him to put all the bells and whistles on my new cornet . Ya better put on your thinkin cap and prepare yourself Leigh - I'm feelin mighty lucky. I'm already gonna name it for ya - "The Saber" or maybe "The Sabertooth" Copywrite 2003

Seth Moore

Liad Bar-EL

Seth,

I'm curious to know if in stead of screwing your bells on and off, you could just ask Eclipse to mount all of them together on a rotator so that you could just turn and set the bell in place during a rest stop or spin them around like a gun barrel while playing to get that "special" effect that no other horn could with a fixed bell.

Times are changing. :)

Liad Bar-EL

Tootsall

Oh cool, Liad. I can just picture the audience now...watching the spinning bells. Around and around and around and arrr....zzzzzzzzz............ *lights out*!