You definitely should continue working on this. I have personally held the opinion that the superbone is the most ingenious musical instrument that humanity has designed and has incredible untapped potential in the world of music for quite a long time.
I'm amazed at how seemingly effortlessly you achieved this! Obviously still needs some work, but a superbone for the price of two cheap horns and some soldering knowledge is quite a feat.
I'd revisit this Trent. Take the valve section off and turn it around so the cluster knuckles point towards the bell. Take the first and third valve slide sections off, and reverse them. Then you'll have a third valve that's now a first valve and a first valve that's now a third. That should let you have a bit more room for your face. I'd also look into taking some of the gooseneck out of the slide section and add a leadpipe extender to your mouthpiece, giving you a bit more face room. This homemade concoction has promise, but you can definitely turn it into something awesome! it's already super cool, but I know you can turn it into an instrument you use a lot more.
I recall when these cam out in 1972. It always seems a bit weird, in that on a normal valve trombone, the second valve (for instance) lowers the tone a half step because the length of the second valve slide in relation to the open horn lengthens the overall instrument enough to lower the tone a half step. But in the case of the superbone (or firebird trumpet) once the slide is out of 1st position, the overall length of the horn is longer and the relation of the valve tubes no longer represents half, whole, and one and a half step. I'm not sure how this instrument would work in an ensemble if you were using it to transpose, but I"m more than sure you're swimming in an ocean of micro-tones.
Nothing that can't be overcome. Trombone players already make the adjustment for the trigger (just a 4th valve). Ears, lips, and lots of practice to learn the muscle memory. And really...think about the length of the compensating tubing on a 3V comp Euph. You're never going to be all that far off.
If using for purposes of transposition, it would probably make more sense to learn slide positions in one key and use the valves to transpose whatever interval is necessary and compensate for length with the slide (though this only offers 6 other keys to play in and wouldn't make up for not knowing how to transpose, and may not give the timbre you would want as a result of having a lot of cylindrical tubing). Instead of learning "new" slide positions for each valve configuration, on could probably learn slide positions for the open bugle and 1+3 valve combo, and then just estimate positions for other valve combos in between there and use their ear
yeah keep working. I think the instant transposition is a key feature. You could look at any horn music, saxophone music, etc. and just set the slide and play in that key. No brainpower really required to read off of any random part.
I had a Hilton Superbone and sold it. Wish I didn’t. Trent, you are my hero! You made and played on the sketchiest instrument ever, and made it sound OK. Kudos, chap!
As a woodwind player, I heartily approve of any process that involves taking two brass instruments and turning them into a single, useless brass instrument. This may be the best use of brass instruments ever devised! :) Next, I think you need to make a trumpet sized version of this. Maybe put a tenor trombone slide in place of a trumpet's tuning slide.
Hey, haven't watched your videos in a while. Just wanted to say you're looking good man. As a big ol' tuba player trying to lose a bit of weight it's very motivating to see people like you. Well done (not so) big man
I've wished for so long to even have something like a proper valve Bass Trombone (w/ 4 valves, not the 90G). They kind of exist, but they're SUPER rare. Seems like all of the old ones from WW1 and WW2 have long since been destroyed.
I love this! I think new creative ways to build a better superbone are awesome! And I would definitely enjoy more videos of fiddling with instruments in the workshop
Congratulations! That horn sounds fine. You have another career as a maker of brass instruments. It occurs to me that a superbone could also be made by taking a valve trombone and adding a slide to it.
@@sameman6884 Yeah. I am a newbie at this. I've tried buying a couple of broken brass instruments, and tried to fix them. Mixed results. Trent has obviously done this a lot.
How about rotating the valve section around the 2nd valve so that the 2nd valve slide is on the opposite side and then swapping the 3rd and 1st valve crooks? That would solve the "space for your face" problem and also give you the opportunity to re-install the locking ring for the bell-to-slide joint.
Could you take a trombone that's already a valve trombone and replace the first turn with a workable slide? Might have to put the handle of the new slide outside the 3rd valve slide attached in a kind of C fashion. I've always wanted to see a slide tuba. I love the slide trumpet. How about a slide French horn. Also love Superbone Meets the Badman.
What if you reversed the valve casing and changed all the tuning slide lengths so that you wouldn't be reversing the fingerings? It'd put everything on the inside of the bell section, allowing you more room for your face.
That's what I was thinking too. That would at least make it so the second valve slide went away from the face. Bit then it would be in the way of the hand on the valves some. A little offset on both sides of the valves light push it over a tiny bit more. But now we are getting into some major plumbing project territory here.
Keep working on it Trent, maybe even try your plan again and not cut off the threads to attach the slide to the bell section using a large bore tenor bell section and see if the slide from the same horn gets your lips on the mouthpiece.Might have to have a good machinist make an adapter to fit a bass t-bone slide to a large bore tenor bell section. Just experiment with junky nonplayable horns you can pick up for almost nothing. You'll accomplish your dream
Since the musicality of the instrument seems genuinely useful, I think it would be worth it to dedicate time into making it easier to hold and play. If the tonality wasn't their I would say don't waste your time, but it seems that's not the case here. Also, since it reaches deeper notes as you said, having a base trombone tubing and mouthpiece may actually be making the instrument easier to play.
This is so cool! If you wanted something a little more user-friendly to hold, you could de-solder the valves, flip them around, and then reverse slides 1/3 at the ferrules. Depends on the valve block, though.
Nice work! I would love to see you move the valve block toward the bell (and away from your ear). Maybe a double bend section for a leadpipe at the top of the slide to give you a bit more clearance.
On second thought, you have a slide! No need for the 2nd valve tuning slide. Remove it and seal it off. Just keep note to lip it or compensate a little on your slide position.
I would like to thank you for making this video because I went to sleep after watching it and had a dream where I played one of these. Even though I have no idea how the valves would work and never played an instrument that had valves like that, i still played it perfectly because dream logic. 10/10 got to play an instrument I probably will never play, and got to experience playing an instrument with valves that is probably not how valves even realistically work.
Neat idea! Maybe turn the valve block 180° and reverse the 1st and 3rd crooks? That will solve the 2nd valve issue of getting in the way of your face while playing and set the valves more inward, then you can use the normal tenor slide. It might need some different bracing once completed, but worth a go..? Don't forget the slide lock! Lol
I wonder if it would make sense to add a fourth valve that bypasses the slide, effectively making it act like a valve trombone when pressed. I think this would allow for some interesting effects.
Only to improve your soldering and designing skills it is worth to continue working on this horn. And really worth when the horn turns into an instrument. I also can see that you are taking care of your back by moving less weight with you! Congrats on that!
Why not re-located the 2nd valve tuning slide to the opposite side? Or heat it up and bend it into the opposite direction? Cut and seal, relocate? Not sure if the inner chamber would work for that, but worth a shot.
The problem you mentioned with the location of the mouthpiece; I'm trying to figure out how to solve that. At first I thought, "Why not just keep the slide, but make the spacers bigger?" Then I remembered that stretching one end of the slide would just make it lock up when you try to extend it. But, what if you also make the far end of the slide wider? Could you do that without affecting the playability of the instrument too much?
You should definitely sand and polish the metal before you plate and weld it. That soot could be hiding damages to the metal due to the torch being there too long.
What's cool is that you created a 7 position superbone, as most of the others (at least Maynard's) only had six to accomodate the extra space the valves had put in front.
You can try getting a bass trombone reciever for that bell section so the bass slide will fit properly. A bach slide is wider than a 7b slide right? They don't make bass width crooks for small bores. Ask me how I know. You'd have to make your own which is more than a hassle.
Well, other than it falling apart and not having face room, it sounds great, and clearly makes things that would be difficult (or impossible) on conventional trombone easy, so I'd say yes, you should make yourself a working superbone with all those nagging issues (slide lock, face room, ergonomics, etc) addressed.
Can you rotate the valve block around so it's on the outside.? Um. If you're holding the horn in a playing position and regarding the bell as a clock face (alright it is offset from the neck pipe but hang with me) then the slide would be at it's usual 3 o'clock position and the valves would be leaned over say at 10 or 11 o'clock.
I never knew how rare and expensive superbones have gotten until I just looked it up now. I got my Holton superbone from Craigslist around 6 years ago, and now prices are like 5x what I paid for it!
Just a suggestion for a video idea I have here, remember how you did that video on putting woodwind mouthpieces on brass instruments and vice versa? You should put an alto saxophone mouthpiece on the alto trombone and on the soprano trombone, or maybe soprano sax mouthpiece for soprano, and also a clarinet mouthpiece on a piccolo trombone, maybe it'll work for each unlike the tenor sax trombone since they're higher instruments. If it did work this would be a way to easily gliss with the sound of a sax, clarinet, probably not but maybe a flute on a piccolo, that would probably be the hardest to create a sound on.
It's difficult to tell from the video, but you could potentially flip the valve section so that the tuning slides are on the "inside" of the trombone's bell section, though this would mean that the 1st and 3rd valves would be round the wrong way.
I made a similar one, but I unsoldered the first and third valve tubes and reversed then. This allowed me to put the valves on the outside of the bell. Still extremely awkward.
i may be entirely mistaken but the blessing instrument at least appears to be a flugabone (at least its wrapped identically to mine), which i think is really interesting that you managed to use that for this project
Yes! Work on it more and have fun with it. I’m surely impressed with what you’ve accomplished. I could never make anything like that from bits and pieces of harvested instruments.
Perhaps setting it up as a lefty model would work better since all of the valve slides are on the right side of the valve casing. This way your right hand would be on the valves and your left on the slide. For a valve player this may actually be better. I was surprised how good your creation sounded. Perhaps that large bore slide helped.
This almost looks like something Peter Schickele would use in a PDQ Bach performance. But apparently you got it to work to an extent, which a lot of other people probably couldn't accomplish. If you can work the kinks out--what I know about brass I learned from watching you, so don't expect ideas for how to do the fix from me--it just might turn into a viable instrument.
You did go far enough. Think Tuba--six valves, where you can manipulate tubing with right hand valves that route the end of the slide, and/or overlaying a second, smaller slide, so you can thusly create a "double-bone" in the fasion of a double-horn (or would that be a "triple-bone"?)
The first 1,000 people to use this link will get a 1 month free trial of Skillshare: skl.sh/trenthamilton10211
I can see my comment inspired something...
You definitely should continue working on this. I have personally held the opinion that the superbone is the most ingenious musical instrument that humanity has designed and has incredible untapped potential in the world of music for quite a long time.
Agreed
Why are u gae?
What about the recorder though?
Nah its the otamatone
I'm amazed at how seemingly effortlessly you achieved this! Obviously still needs some work, but a superbone for the price of two cheap horns and some soldering knowledge is quite a feat.
I'd revisit this Trent. Take the valve section off and turn it around so the cluster knuckles point towards the bell. Take the first and third valve slide sections off, and reverse them. Then you'll have a third valve that's now a first valve and a first valve that's now a third. That should let you have a bit more room for your face. I'd also look into taking some of the gooseneck out of the slide section and add a leadpipe extender to your mouthpiece, giving you a bit more face room. This homemade concoction has promise, but you can definitely turn it into something awesome! it's already super cool, but I know you can turn it into an instrument you use a lot more.
seconded!
Ooh that's smart
I generally really like your instrument workshop kinda videos, so seeing how you develop that instrument further to really fit you would be awesome.
I recall when these cam out in 1972. It always seems a bit weird, in that on a normal valve trombone, the second valve (for instance) lowers the tone a half step because the length of the second valve slide in relation to the open horn lengthens the overall instrument enough to lower the tone a half step. But in the case of the superbone (or firebird trumpet) once the slide is out of 1st position, the overall length of the horn is longer and the relation of the valve tubes no longer represents half, whole, and one and a half step. I'm not sure how this instrument would work in an ensemble if you were using it to transpose, but I"m more than sure you're swimming in an ocean of micro-tones.
Nothing that can't be overcome. Trombone players already make the adjustment for the trigger (just a 4th valve). Ears, lips, and lots of practice to learn the muscle memory. And really...think about the length of the compensating tubing on a 3V comp Euph. You're never going to be all that far off.
If using for purposes of transposition, it would probably make more sense to learn slide positions in one key and use the valves to transpose whatever interval is necessary and compensate for length with the slide (though this only offers 6 other keys to play in and wouldn't make up for not knowing how to transpose, and may not give the timbre you would want as a result of having a lot of cylindrical tubing). Instead of learning "new" slide positions for each valve configuration, on could probably learn slide positions for the open bugle and 1+3 valve combo, and then just estimate positions for other valve combos in between there and use their ear
I would love to see a version 2
yeah keep working. I think the instant transposition is a key feature. You could look at any horn music, saxophone music, etc. and just set the slide and play in that key. No brainpower really required to read off of any random part.
I'd love to see more developments on the Superbone! It's so cool
I had a Hilton Superbone and sold it. Wish I didn’t. Trent, you are my hero! You made and played on the sketchiest instrument ever, and made it sound OK. Kudos, chap!
As a woodwind player, I heartily approve of any process that involves taking two brass instruments and turning them into a single, useless brass instrument. This may be the best use of brass instruments ever devised! :) Next, I think you need to make a trumpet sized version of this. Maybe put a tenor trombone slide in place of a trumpet's tuning slide.
Hey, haven't watched your videos in a while. Just wanted to say you're looking good man. As a big ol' tuba player trying to lose a bit of weight it's very motivating to see people like you.
Well done (not so) big man
No one has ever made a bass super bone so that could be cool to try and make
Would be cool
I've wished for so long to even have something like a proper valve Bass Trombone (w/ 4 valves, not the 90G). They kind of exist, but they're SUPER rare. Seems like all of the old ones from WW1 and WW2 have long since been destroyed.
I would love to see you continue working on this project Trent!! I’ve recently discovered superbones and this video came at the right time.
I love this! I think new creative ways to build a better superbone are awesome! And I would definitely enjoy more videos of fiddling with instruments in the workshop
Definitely keep working on it! I love watching you make your own instruments!
I would definitely like to see you modify this more to your liking!
Congratulations! That horn sounds fine. You have another career as a maker of brass instruments. It occurs to me that a superbone could also be made by taking a valve trombone and adding a slide to it.
Valve trombones usually have their valves where the slide section would be, so that would probably take a lot of work
@@sameman6884 Yeah. I am a newbie at this. I've tried buying a couple of broken brass instruments, and tried to fix them. Mixed results. Trent has obviously done this a lot.
How about rotating the valve section around the 2nd valve so that the 2nd valve slide is on the opposite side and then swapping the 3rd and 1st valve crooks? That would solve the "space for your face" problem and also give you the opportunity to re-install the locking ring for the bell-to-slide joint.
Could you take a trombone that's already a valve trombone and replace the first turn with a workable slide? Might have to put the handle of the new slide outside the 3rd valve slide attached in a kind of C fashion. I've always wanted to see a slide tuba. I love the slide trumpet. How about a slide French horn. Also love Superbone Meets the Badman.
What if you reversed the valve casing and changed all the tuning slide lengths so that you wouldn't be reversing the fingerings? It'd put everything on the inside of the bell section, allowing you more room for your face.
That's what I was thinking too. That would at least make it so the second valve slide went away from the face. Bit then it would be in the way of the hand on the valves some.
A little offset on both sides of the valves light push it over a tiny bit more. But now we are getting into some major plumbing project territory here.
Well done sir, and congratulations on the body transformation. It’s been a while since I’ve stopped by the channel and you’re looking good buddy.
Trent, What you did takes talent and skill, I appreciate what you did.
Keep working on it Trent, maybe even try your plan again and not cut off the threads to attach the slide to the bell section using a large bore tenor bell section and see if the slide from the same horn gets your lips on the mouthpiece.Might have to have a good machinist make an adapter to fit a bass t-bone slide to a large bore tenor bell section. Just experiment with junky nonplayable horns you can pick up for almost nothing. You'll accomplish your dream
I would flip the valve section around so the tube are on the other side of the horn
Since the musicality of the instrument seems genuinely useful, I think it would be worth it to dedicate time into making it easier to hold and play. If the tonality wasn't their I would say don't waste your time, but it seems that's not the case here. Also, since it reaches deeper notes as you said, having a base trombone tubing and mouthpiece may actually be making the instrument easier to play.
Definetly add to it!
This is so cool! If you wanted something a little more user-friendly to hold, you could de-solder the valves, flip them around, and then reverse slides 1/3 at the ferrules. Depends on the valve block, though.
Nice work! I would love to see you move the valve block toward the bell (and away from your ear). Maybe a double bend section for a leadpipe at the top of the slide to give you a bit more clearance.
On second thought, you have a slide! No need for the 2nd valve tuning slide. Remove it and seal it off. Just keep note to lip it or compensate a little on your slide position.
OMG! You are not merely an artist, you are also a competent technician.
I would like to thank you for making this video because I went to sleep after watching it and had a dream where I played one of these. Even though I have no idea how the valves would work and never played an instrument that had valves like that, i still played it perfectly because dream logic. 10/10 got to play an instrument I probably will never play, and got to experience playing an instrument with valves that is probably not how valves even realistically work.
Neat idea!
Maybe turn the valve block 180° and reverse the 1st and 3rd crooks? That will solve the 2nd valve issue of getting in the way of your face while playing and set the valves more inward, then you can use the normal tenor slide. It might need some different bracing once completed, but worth a go..? Don't forget the slide lock! Lol
I wonder if it would make sense to add a fourth valve that bypasses the slide, effectively making it act like a valve trombone when pressed. I think this would allow for some interesting effects.
Only to improve your soldering and designing skills it is worth to continue working on this horn. And really worth when the horn turns into an instrument.
I also can see that you are taking care of your back by moving less weight with you! Congrats on that!
Keep going Trent. This is certainly a project worth developing further.
yes, please make a continuation video! I'd love to see the finished product!
Why not re-located the 2nd valve tuning slide to the opposite side? Or heat it up and bend it into the opposite direction? Cut and seal, relocate? Not sure if the inner chamber would work for that, but worth a shot.
The problem you mentioned with the location of the mouthpiece; I'm trying to figure out how to solve that. At first I thought, "Why not just keep the slide, but make the spacers bigger?"
Then I remembered that stretching one end of the slide would just make it lock up when you try to extend it.
But, what if you also make the far end of the slide wider? Could you do that without affecting the playability of the instrument too much?
I definitely wanna see what your finished diy super bone looks like
You should definitely sand and polish the metal before you plate and weld it. That soot could be hiding damages to the metal due to the torch being there too long.
Interesting project! Keep working on it!
turn the valve body around, solder the correct pipes to the appropriate valves, and viola.
Dr. Frankenstein of Hornamania..........Trent Hamilton, the mad scientist, and semi-genius of horns.......good job, Sir......
What's cool is that you created a 7 position superbone, as most of the others (at least Maynard's) only had six to accomodate the extra space the valves had put in front.
You can try getting a bass trombone reciever for that bell section so the bass slide will fit properly. A bach slide is wider than a 7b slide right? They don't make bass width crooks for small bores. Ask me how I know. You'd have to make your own which is more than a hassle.
I think that's the same type of marching euphonium I have 😂💀
Well, other than it falling apart and not having face room, it sounds great, and clearly makes things that would be difficult (or impossible) on conventional trombone easy, so I'd say yes, you should make yourself a working superbone with all those nagging issues (slide lock, face room, ergonomics, etc) addressed.
Can you rotate the valve block around so it's on the outside.? Um. If you're holding the horn in a playing position and regarding the bell as a clock face (alright it is offset from the neck pipe but hang with me) then the slide would be at it's usual 3 o'clock position and the valves would be leaned over say at 10 or 11 o'clock.
Try it with a 4th valve or a thumb actuated rotary valve like you'd find on a French horn?
I did this about a year ago, put a trombone slide as a replacement for a marching euphonium tuning slide, it turned out very interesting.
Long live Frankenbone!
I never knew how rare and expensive superbones have gotten until I just looked it up now. I got my Holton superbone from Craigslist around 6 years ago, and now prices are like 5x what I paid for it!
Just a suggestion for a video idea I have here, remember how you did that video on putting woodwind mouthpieces on brass instruments and vice versa? You should put an alto saxophone mouthpiece on the alto trombone and on the soprano trombone, or maybe soprano sax mouthpiece for soprano, and also a clarinet mouthpiece on a piccolo trombone, maybe it'll work for each unlike the tenor sax trombone since they're higher instruments.
If it did work this would be a way to easily gliss with the sound of a sax, clarinet, probably not but maybe a flute on a piccolo, that would probably be the hardest to create a sound on.
i'd love to see youtake this project further!
We all wanted to see Trent's "twiddly bits"
Bro?
It's difficult to tell from the video, but you could potentially flip the valve section so that the tuning slides are on the "inside" of the trombone's bell section, though this would mean that the 1st and 3rd valves would be round the wrong way.
Definitely continue working on it
Love it! Patent the "super duper bone" :)
Keep working on it. It looks amazing.
Oh, keep after it! It's brilliant!
It definitely sounds a lot better than I would have expected
next tape a melodica in between the slide, adding bellows that fill with air and sound every time you move the slide---AccordioBone!
I made a similar one, but I unsoldered the first and third valve tubes and reversed then. This allowed me to put the valves on the outside of the bell. Still extremely awkward.
Flip the valve section 180 degrees (valves still facing upwards-ish)?
Where did you get your four slice toaster?
Would love to see a version 2 of this
Yes sir ! Hybrid Bone. You need to do alot of pipe job, maybe to place the valve section a little lower, and yes, you should continue on this project.
i may be entirely mistaken but the blessing instrument at least appears to be a flugabone (at least its wrapped identically to mine), which i think is really interesting that you managed to use that for this project
Yes, finish the SUPERBONE!
That’s a marching baritone, marching euphoniums are a lot bigger at the bell, but either way awesome video! - A marching euphonium :D
so what you've really done is add a compensating slide and new bell to a marching euphonium. neat!
Please continue working on this and post your results!!
Now you need to build a mechanism where your foot can activate using the plunger when you need it, given you lost the free hand.
Man, now I wanna make one of these- this is probably the coolest thing I've ever seen
please attach the mouthpiece to the bell section by itself (without the slide), and play it like a trumpet.
Do more make one that that you can mix the usage of the valves and the slide, add tuning slides as well. And make a bass and contrabass version
Yes! Work on it more and have fun with it. I’m surely impressed with what you’ve accomplished. I could never make anything like that from bits and pieces of harvested instruments.
Perhaps you could add two slides and make a super duper contra vertical bone tone fonatafone
Perhaps setting it up as a lefty model would work better since all of the valve slides are on the right side of the valve casing. This way your right hand would be on the valves and your left on the slide. For a valve player this may actually be better. I was surprised how good your creation sounded. Perhaps that large bore slide helped.
The marching euphonium getting destroyed hurt my soul.
0:53 as a chinese person i felt that
I would absolutely love to see a follow up video
This almost looks like something Peter Schickele would use in a PDQ Bach performance. But apparently you got it to work to an extent, which a lot of other people probably couldn't accomplish. If you can work the kinks out--what I know about brass I learned from watching you, so don't expect ideas for how to do the fix from me--it just might turn into a viable instrument.
Continue your work!!
would this work with the valves of a trumpet?
Wats the piece you play at 5:03
Isn't a marching Euphonium Conical, yet a trombone is cylindrical?
How much would you charge for something like this if I supplied the parts?
Were did you get your piccolo trombone
You did go far enough. Think Tuba--six valves, where you can manipulate tubing with right hand valves that route the end of the slide, and/or overlaying a second, smaller slide, so you can thusly create a "double-bone" in the fasion of a double-horn (or would that be a "triple-bone"?)
Keep working on it it looks like it could do some pretty amazing things If refirbished
Shargel makes them
Please finish it out! Make it a workable instrument
Trent, ever onward with the superbone !
Question--so I have an old trumpet and an old trombone, but no baritone...can I try using the trumpet valves instead to make this?
No, the bore through the valves will be wrong.
Would it be possible to create a 4 valve superbone?
Make a super trumpet. A soprano trombone and trumpet put together
Fantastic, great job!
How about building a replica of Don Ellis's 4 valve quarter tone trumpet?
I nearly wet myself laughing watching this, you definitely have a way with words Trent. Thankyou!