I really like the tone of a euphonium, but I can't get that conical bore on a trombone until you get to the bell section due to it using a slide. The closest thing to that would be a dual bore if I'm not mistaken. BUT I also wanna incorporate the usefulness of valves into the instrument, hence the mention of a superbone. If something like this already exists please let me know! I'm really curious because if it doesn't exist I'd like to maybe make one in the future just to see.

Technically there have been conical trombones made in the past by Couturier, but no amount of conicity on a slide trombone will make it sound like a euphonium. It's a different instrument.

Having said that, apart from the dual bore the existing Holton TR395 superbone is probably the closest you can get to "conical". It starts with a quite small .484" slide bore and ends with a 9" bell from a symphonic tenor. Can't get much more "smallest to largest" in a tenor trombone than that.

I think you would eventually get into trouble with intonation and response irregularities, long before you start really approaching a euphonium sound. A euphonium is a conical bore instrument that has some added cylindrical portions (notably in the valve circuits). A trombone is a cylindrical bore instrument with some conicity added in some places (i.e. in the bell section, and with dual bore slides adding some slight element of conicity). Those added segments of the opposite bore profile affect the intonation and bring it partly away from the natural behaviour of the primary bore profile. For example, a trombone, as a cylindrical tube open at one end, "should" overblow at the 12th, not the 8ve, but the conical bell compresses the partials. There's a balance to strike though, and past a certain point, more conicity can start becoming detrimental. You don't want to have the partials compressed to the point where none of the notes in 1st position above . Conversely, add too much cylindrical tubing to a Euphonium and you'll also start having wonky intonation

Traditional German trombones have a lot of expansion in the bell section, often without interruption (no tuning slide). It's typical to have 9"+ bells even on the very small bore instruments with a first slide leg bore as small as 0.450". That's pretty much as extreme as it gets, and they still don't sound anything like a euphonium.

A lot of Bb/F players never use the outer positions, and might as well have a 5-position slide. With a full superbone valve cluster, you could probably shorten down to 3 or 4 positions, get more conicity, and still play it like a trombone.

Robb Stewart built an instrument in 1984 with a Euphonium body, valves, and a trombone slide, but it was in Eb, so more like a slide tuba.

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[quote="AtomicClock"]A lot of Bb/F players never use the outer positions, and might as well have a 5-position slide. With a full superbone valve cluster, you could probably shorten down to 3 or 4 positions, get more conicity, and still play it like a trombone.[/quote]

Memory serving, that's what the Maynard Ferguson "Firebird" trumpet (by Holton?) was like, just an octave higher than trombone.

The end result for 9' Bb might sound more like a British baritone than American "baritone", let alone euphonium. But I'm hypothesizing here.

Such an instrument is going to end up being a publicity stunt, just like the Firebird trumpet.

[quote="Kevbach33"]Memory serving, that's what the Maynard Ferguson "Firebird" trumpet (by Holton?) was like, just an octave higher than trombone.[/quote]

Yes, the production Firebird had 4 positions. Maynard's personal horn had a telescoping slide that gave him 7 positions, but as far as I know that was only on his horn.

Unless you absolutely need to do full-slide glisses, I don't see why you would need a full-length handslide on a superbone. You have multiple valves to cover the outer positions.

I always thought it would be kind of neat to make a half-superbone with the first 2 valves and a 4-position handslide. That would require you to use both the slide and valves together all the time, rather than just switching back and forth like is typically done.

So….. current project in my hopper:

Desire: to have a dual valve large bore tenor; for those tweener gigs. Well, if I go Bb/F/G… why not add a half step valve and get to my more bass friendly Bb/F/G/A. Well, neat, I’ve got two of three valves there, why not package the F so that with a slide change (like some old King wraps) and the F could also be Ab. Huh. Bb with Ab, A, & G…. That sounds like a superbone!

I’ve got valves and a neckpipe now. Need to figure out the wraps and levers, will be a haynor like setup.

So, why have a full length slide? So that it stays compatible with everything else. And doesn’t need anything silly.

Hopefully this doesn’t suck… if it does, I’ll just scavenge the bits and start over.

Andy

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[quote="elmsandr"]So….. current project in my hopper:

Desire: to have a dual valve large bore tenor; for those tweener gigs. Well, if I go Bb/F/G… why not add a half step valve and get to my more bass friendly Bb/F/G/A. Well, neat, I’ve got two of three valves there, why not package the F so that with a slide change (like some old King wraps) and the F could also be Ab. Huh. Bb with Ab, A, & G…. That sounds like a superbone!

I’ve got valves and a neckpipe now. Need to figure out the wraps and levers, will be a haynor like setup.

So, why have a full length slide? So that it stays compatible with everything else. And doesn’t need anything silly.

Hopefully this doesn’t suck… if it does, I’ll just scavenge the bits and start over.

Andy

IMG_0054.jpeg[/quote]

Very cool! If it works well I might think about adding a superbone valve section to my modular 3B project. I was actually thinking about just that the other day.

Though, what are you going to do for actuation? Bass trombone thumb/finger paddles don't allow for anything like the finger dexterity or speed of a standard 3-valve set. It would have to be a setup like the Schagerl superbone for it to really work as a superbone and not just a slide trombone with 3 valves, IMO.

[quote="elmsandr"]So….. current project in my hopper:

Desire: to have a dual valve large bore tenor; for those tweener gigs. Well, if I go Bb/F/G… why not add a half step valve and get to my more bass friendly Bb/F/G/A. Well, neat, I’ve got two of three valves there, why not package the F so that with a slide change (like some old King wraps) and the F could also be Ab. Huh. Bb with Ab, A, & G…. That sounds like a superbone!

I’ve got valves and a neckpipe now. Need to figure out the wraps and levers, will be a haynor like setup.

So, why have a full length slide? So that it stays compatible with everything else. And doesn’t need anything silly.

Hopefully this doesn’t suck… if it does, I’ll just scavenge the bits and start over.

Andy

IMG_0054.jpeg[/quote]
that valve setup distinctly reminds me of the schagerl james morrison superbone <LINK_TEXT text="https://schagerl.com/en/p/schagerl-supe ... 3030-lack/">https://schagerl.com/en/p/schagerl-superbone-james-morrison-lacquered-Web143030-lack/</LINK_TEXT>

[quote="Finetales"]<QUOTE author="elmsandr" post_id="269219" time="1741212615" user_id="147">
So….. current project in my hopper:

Desire: to have a dual valve large bore tenor; for those tweener gigs. Well, if I go Bb/F/G… why not add a half step valve and get to my more bass friendly Bb/F/G/A. Well, neat, I’ve got two of three valves there, why not package the F so that with a slide change (like some old King wraps) and the F could also be Ab. Huh. Bb with Ab, A, & G…. That sounds like a superbone!

I’ve got valves and a neckpipe now. Need to figure out the wraps and levers, will be a haynor like setup.

So, why have a full length slide? So that it stays compatible with everything else. And doesn’t need anything silly.

Hopefully this doesn’t suck… if it does, I’ll just scavenge the bits and start over.

Andy

IMG_0054.jpeg[/quote]

Very cool! If it works well I might think about adding a superbone valve section to my modular 3B project. I was actually thinking about just that the other day.

Though, what are you going to do for actuation? Bass trombone thumb/finger paddles don't allow for anything like the finger dexterity or speed of a standard 3-valve set. It would have to be a setup like the Schagerl superbone for it to really work as a superbone and not just a slide trombone with 3 valves, IMO.
</QUOTE>
Think Haynor grip with sax keys. Hold slide receiver on your palm, reach over the silver box and fingers on the three green buttons. Red boxes will probably be the spring locations. This will be tricky and probably require about six tries to get right.

Cheers,

Andy

For reference:
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