Travlin

Chinese Trumpets?

I'm new to TM, am an aspiring "comeback player" having not had a mouthpiece to my chops for more than 30 years. I'm in the Philippines for more than a month with time on my hands, so started looking for a 2nd hand trumpet I could honk on. I found none. At the local musical instrument stores I did find new trumpets, no doubt student horns, but all of them, regardless of brand, were made in China. I've got a decent horn in a closet at home, but bought one to get started while I had the time. I'm now just 4 days into my "comeback" (giggle) but sure enough it's a real brass trumpet with 1st and 3rd valve tuning slides. The valves work fine but at this point I can't judge how good or bad it might be.

I'm hoping someone out there has experienced playing one. Are they commonly found these days or did I find little else simply because I'm in Asia? Is a decent Chinese trumpet being made at this time and if so, who makes it?

Part of my rationale for buying it was that I just finished a three year consulting gig in China for a screen printer. We bought a herd of semi-automatic Chinese presses for about $5k per copy but in all respects they were comparable to a press I bought in the States at $22,000. They were not as elegant but they did have all the whistles and bells.

I'd surely appreciate whatever insight or comments any of you can give me.

rowuk

Travlin,
building a decent trumpet is not rocket science. Building an EXCELLENT one is.
The Chinese are capable of building ANYTHING at any quality level that they have tools and trained artisans for. All of that can be purchased or learned, it is just a question of price.
My experience is that the primary market for Chinese instruments is the very low price segment. That means that not much attention can be paid to optimum materials, mechanics, tone or playability. You will not destroy your chops by playing one of these instruments, you may need to get used to less than optimal tone, blow and intonation however. I don't think it is fair to bash the Chinese for building cheap instruments. WE are the ones that order them by the container! Yamaha started out with inexpensive horns that were not optimal too. Today they are state of the art!

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Whenever I feel blue, I start breathing again.

Travlin

Rowuk,
Many thanks for your comments. Everything you say makes good sense. I well realize what the Chinese can do when they put their minds to it. I'm glad to have you confirm that I won't wreck my chops or anything by playing this thing. As for tone comparison I won't know until I get back to my regular mouthpiece and my loveable old Getzen. After just 4 days back, nothing sounds good but I tend to beleive that the squaking is ME not the trumpet. For the money I was greatly impressed.

What you say about materials might be the fly in the ointment. The dealer who sold it to me is a drummer and knew very little about trumpets but made a comment that they were all made of "Chinese Brass". I didn't ask if that was good or bad but I did ping the bell with my forefinger and got more of a ring out of it than I did from a very expensive Conn 22b on the shelf - it was the only non-Chinese horn he had.

Thanks again!

brem

Do Chinese trumpets cause lead poisoning? just kidding folks.

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brem
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NYTC Stage 1 California Light - Schilke 15B mpc
Bach Stradivarius Bb Model 37 * #124xxx (circa 1975) - Schilke 15B mpc
Yamaha YFH-731 Flugelhorn #000xxx - Yamaha 14F4-GP mpc

rowuk

The question is fair as in the old days, the way to bend tubing was to fill it with lead, bend and then melt it back out.

I have a chinese pocket trumpet that has no trace of lead in any of the bends (web cam pushed down into the bore to see). That means that they are using pitch or frozen soapy water. None of the student horns that I have seen have any sign of lead other than the solder joints.

We need to be careful that the posting here does not become troll-like. The local companies importing these horns know EXACTLY what they are doing. I am not an advocate of outsourcing production to Asia, but there are enough people that only accept the cheapest!

__________________
Whenever I feel blue, I start breathing again.

brem

I personally like to buy the most value, as in best bang for the buck. But your're right, unfortunatly, some people will only pay the least for anything. What bugs me is perhaps the lack of profesionnalism in saying that a horn is "pro". Some horns are not pro but advertised as such. Of course, we know these are scams, but that doesn't make it less wrong.

__________________
brem
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NYTC Stage 1 California Light - Schilke 15B mpc
Bach Stradivarius Bb Model 37 * #124xxx (circa 1975) - Schilke 15B mpc
Yamaha YFH-731 Flugelhorn #000xxx - Yamaha 14F4-GP mpc

rowuk

Pro only means "play for a living". That does not necessarily involve the best equipment OR attitude.
I am sure that I could use a Chinese horn and get away with it, but getting away with it is not the reason that I play trumpet.
I remeber an ad in the late 60s or early 70s where Bud Herseth plugged Bundy trumpets, saying he could use them in the orchestra and hardly anyone would notice. That is possible, but how long could he have kept that up??????

__________________
Whenever I feel blue, I start breathing again.

J. Landress Brass

I still use lead when I bend my bells. I have blood testing done every couple of months to keep safe.

As far as a good trumpet. I have spent quite a bit of time in China working with instrument factories designing and tooling. If you would like drop me a pm and I can give you the email of a music store owner in China ho can hook you up.

Josh

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Josh Landress
J. Landress Brass
Wooden Sleeve Sound Enhancement System
Hand-made Trumpets & Trombones
Hand-made mouthpipes
Mouthpiece alterations
Expert Brass repair and restorations
www.myspace.com/jlandress
516-521-7101

Brian H. Smout

Hi,

I always thought that the Bud quote re Bundy trumpets was really more of a joke on conductors, than an endorsement of the sound quality.

Cheers,

Brian

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"Swift Current - where we're neither swift nor current"

Laowai

I visited two of the big Chinese wind instrument factories a couple of days ago. They mainly make trumpets (guess 80 % of total production), but also trombones, euphoniums, saxophones, flutes and clarinets. What I've seen was a shop working exactly the same way as anywhere else on this planet where you make serial production horns. Bells are made from two parts, hand-hammered brass or gold-brass. They use colophonium for tube bending.

What really stroke me was the playability of these horns. I tried many different models (conventional b-flat trumpets) and all of them were actually playing well in tune, opened up easily and had a nice sound. There was absolutely nothing "wrong" with these horns. What they lack is an own character of their sound. Whichever model you try, they all sound very, very similar.