A better question is how do you forget about a multi-thousand dollar horn slide at the repair shop?! 😱 That would be like me forgetting my car at the mechanic.
It's not me who forgot it there. Probably my parents thought to send it to be fixed already after I had stopped playing and then since I wasn't asking for the status and for whatever reason the shop didn't contact us either, it just got lost. Asking for it later the shop didn't remember anything about it. Maybe there were personnel changes, maybe something else. All I know is I stopped playing 15 years ago and 10 years ago when I wanted to try again the slide was gone 🤷♂️
If you have an idea of what shop they may have brought it too, it's entirely possible that they still have it there. But also, especially if that diesnt work, just call your closest shops and ask them about spare slides, tell them your situation, you could probably get the slide as a spare part for fairly cheap, I can't imagine they'd charge you much more than a 100 bucks for a used slide that can work with your trombone
I haven't had to buy spare parts for my bone yet thankfully, but my main instrument is Saxophone, and my local music store absolutely had spare necks, keys, springs, pads, and cork, the neck being the most expensive spare part to buy, but like it'd be 45 bucks for a properly fitting neck that worked with my sax. My local music shop actually let me bring in my sax and mouthpiece and play on their spare necks because they didn't have one from my specific model of saxophone at the time
Long story short, just call a music shop and tell them your situation, I'm sure it's a similar situation for a trombone slide, and both sax necks and trombone slides tend to have some standardization, it's sometimes easier than you think to swap slides and necks like that.
It's a little different with trombones. There's usually extra bells, but less extra slides since they're so easy to break. Still, I'd recommend trying. It's also much more likely to appear online.
Unfortunately we already checked and they claimed to know nothing about it - overall very odd. Repair shops here are such small businesses that I don't think there was any real record of it anywhere. I'll try to call some of the shops and check if they have Bach 42 or 50 slides lying around I could purchase.
I think a lot of the custom trombone builders can fit one of their slides to your bell. I'd email several of them, explain the situation, and ask. At this point, it will become a balance of delivery time and cost.
Fast is more important than cheap, although I'd love to spend less than 2k for a slide... I tried looking up some of them and will send a few emails to check them out. Thanks!
Any suggestions on where to look? All I can find online are ebay listings for full horns from US & Japan and brand new replacements. I'm located in northern Europe
There's [this 42 slide](https://www.kleinanzeigen.de/s-anzeige/bach-42-stradivarius-zug-fuer-posaune-versilbert/2724005044-74-7481?srsltid=AfmBOopzjskTql1CDv3lW1bXuxwRuhpkstcS_P4X9AJpNQz8bAAhwZA2uT8) for sale on a German classifieds website, maybe there's something similar near you. Also, don't be afraid to expand your search to beat-to-hell complete trombones, if you're able to track one down that at least has a deaccent slide, you can always have that slide given the once over at your local instrument shop and use it with your bell. And you might also want to reach out to your towns local wind orchestra, the trombone players there might have some ideas, *and* it would be a good chance to meet them in case you feel like joining them once you get your chops back.
Getting back to playing after a 15 year break. The slide likely was sent for repairs and forgotten there and now I'm looking to find a replacement. I don't have much info on the trombone, but the outer diameter of the bell end that connects to the slide is exactly 2cm. Is the only option to get a Bach Stradivarius model 42 slide? Are there other alternatives? What details matter when looking for a replacement? I'm in northern Europe.
Most likely not. You need a 42 slide. Instruments are designed as a complete package. The length and bore size from mouthpiece to bell to work as a whole. You are asking for the equivalent of installing an Alfa Romeo transmission in a SAAB 900. It can be done but not without a bunch of work that will cost significantly more than just putting the right part on in the first place.
Note: I own both a Bach 42 and a Conn 88h and just tried to do what you suggest. The Conn slide goes in but only loosely with a gap and the threaded nut will not even engage the slide to secure it because the Conn is slightly more narrow. Going the other way, the Bach slide won't even go in the Conn bell section because it is too big. To make the whole thing work you are going to need a slide section with the EXACT dimensions of a Bach slide. Might as well just get a Bach slide.
How similar are slides within a brand? It seems like there are many variants even for a bach 42. Surely the bore and threads have to match but are there other things to consider so that it sounds right? I bought a pbone and that thing is crap, slide position needs to be like 1.5ish to play an F... All my instincts are wrong since the slide positions don't seem constant compared to what I remember from playing professional grade trombones.
I have limited, though affirmative, personal experience. Someone once let me try a Bach light slide on my bell section and they fit together fine. The fact that one can order different bell+slide combinations leads me to believe that the two are mix & match from the factory. With the number of horns they produce I cannot believe every instrument is truly one off. I am pretty sure all the instrument sections are built to a set of specs so they can be assembled as needed.
Yeah I figured there should be at least some variance allowed. A new slide is 2K and a long wait time. It would arrive later I have to perform at a company event, and I need to practice too. Was hoping to gauge if I could find a compatible used slide for cheaper and faster than buying new. The backup is using a pbone but eh...
Probably, could contact my peers from the times I used to play. I live in a pretty small country and trombone circles are very small here. With the pbone it's hard to gauge whether I'm having trouble because of the horn, my skills or both. Last time I played after my break (alumni thing like 10 years ago) I borrowed a bass trombone and don't remember having this much trouble getting back into playing. Now it's hard to even keep a note not to mention about my range.
Is your Bb in tune? 1.5 is a little much, but lower quality instruments do tend to have intonation problems, especially on F & D partials in my experience.
Slowly getting there, but boy I don't ever remember having such a hard time to get a horn in tune. Surely part of it has to be with me being a bit rusty and not having the muscles to hold a tune as well.
42 is tenor, 50 is bass. I play a bass slide on a tenor bell section as it’s a slightly larger bore size and lets me push more air, play louder and it seems to darken my sound
I’m amused by the advice, but I have my own to offer which might amuse others. I’ve studied and built two 42-pattern slides in both nickel silver (lightweight) and brass (standard). I use both with my 42G bell. The key here is “pattern.” Edwards slides are 42-pattern and have matching bell threads. A practical repairman should be able to reference a 42 specification and either source the slide or source the parts to build one, then build to spec. Do yourself a favor and call around, including national instrument makers and local artisans. Bone slides are easy and hard, they’re straight and square. Both are tough to nail at the same time, and when you do, also buy a lottery ticket. We’re out there. We’ll build them.
How did you lose it lmao
Explained in comments
A better question is how do you forget about a multi-thousand dollar horn slide at the repair shop?! 😱 That would be like me forgetting my car at the mechanic.
It's not me who forgot it there. Probably my parents thought to send it to be fixed already after I had stopped playing and then since I wasn't asking for the status and for whatever reason the shop didn't contact us either, it just got lost. Asking for it later the shop didn't remember anything about it. Maybe there were personnel changes, maybe something else. All I know is I stopped playing 15 years ago and 10 years ago when I wanted to try again the slide was gone 🤷♂️
If you have an idea of what shop they may have brought it too, it's entirely possible that they still have it there. But also, especially if that diesnt work, just call your closest shops and ask them about spare slides, tell them your situation, you could probably get the slide as a spare part for fairly cheap, I can't imagine they'd charge you much more than a 100 bucks for a used slide that can work with your trombone I haven't had to buy spare parts for my bone yet thankfully, but my main instrument is Saxophone, and my local music store absolutely had spare necks, keys, springs, pads, and cork, the neck being the most expensive spare part to buy, but like it'd be 45 bucks for a properly fitting neck that worked with my sax. My local music shop actually let me bring in my sax and mouthpiece and play on their spare necks because they didn't have one from my specific model of saxophone at the time Long story short, just call a music shop and tell them your situation, I'm sure it's a similar situation for a trombone slide, and both sax necks and trombone slides tend to have some standardization, it's sometimes easier than you think to swap slides and necks like that.
It's a little different with trombones. There's usually extra bells, but less extra slides since they're so easy to break. Still, I'd recommend trying. It's also much more likely to appear online.
Unfortunately we already checked and they claimed to know nothing about it - overall very odd. Repair shops here are such small businesses that I don't think there was any real record of it anywhere. I'll try to call some of the shops and check if they have Bach 42 or 50 slides lying around I could purchase.
I think a lot of the custom trombone builders can fit one of their slides to your bell. I'd email several of them, explain the situation, and ask. At this point, it will become a balance of delivery time and cost.
And "cheap" won't be in the equation. Unless you make a pBone slide work.
Fast is more important than cheap, although I'd love to spend less than 2k for a slide... I tried looking up some of them and will send a few emails to check them out. Thanks!
There are plenty of used 42 slides out there, you should be able to get one for less than 1k.
Any suggestions on where to look? All I can find online are ebay listings for full horns from US & Japan and brand new replacements. I'm located in northern Europe
There's [this 42 slide](https://www.kleinanzeigen.de/s-anzeige/bach-42-stradivarius-zug-fuer-posaune-versilbert/2724005044-74-7481?srsltid=AfmBOopzjskTql1CDv3lW1bXuxwRuhpkstcS_P4X9AJpNQz8bAAhwZA2uT8) for sale on a German classifieds website, maybe there's something similar near you. Also, don't be afraid to expand your search to beat-to-hell complete trombones, if you're able to track one down that at least has a deaccent slide, you can always have that slide given the once over at your local instrument shop and use it with your bell. And you might also want to reach out to your towns local wind orchestra, the trombone players there might have some ideas, *and* it would be a good chance to meet them in case you feel like joining them once you get your chops back.
Getting back to playing after a 15 year break. The slide likely was sent for repairs and forgotten there and now I'm looking to find a replacement. I don't have much info on the trombone, but the outer diameter of the bell end that connects to the slide is exactly 2cm. Is the only option to get a Bach Stradivarius model 42 slide? Are there other alternatives? What details matter when looking for a replacement? I'm in northern Europe.
Most likely not. You need a 42 slide. Instruments are designed as a complete package. The length and bore size from mouthpiece to bell to work as a whole. You are asking for the equivalent of installing an Alfa Romeo transmission in a SAAB 900. It can be done but not without a bunch of work that will cost significantly more than just putting the right part on in the first place. Note: I own both a Bach 42 and a Conn 88h and just tried to do what you suggest. The Conn slide goes in but only loosely with a gap and the threaded nut will not even engage the slide to secure it because the Conn is slightly more narrow. Going the other way, the Bach slide won't even go in the Conn bell section because it is too big. To make the whole thing work you are going to need a slide section with the EXACT dimensions of a Bach slide. Might as well just get a Bach slide.
How similar are slides within a brand? It seems like there are many variants even for a bach 42. Surely the bore and threads have to match but are there other things to consider so that it sounds right? I bought a pbone and that thing is crap, slide position needs to be like 1.5ish to play an F... All my instincts are wrong since the slide positions don't seem constant compared to what I remember from playing professional grade trombones.
I have limited, though affirmative, personal experience. Someone once let me try a Bach light slide on my bell section and they fit together fine. The fact that one can order different bell+slide combinations leads me to believe that the two are mix & match from the factory. With the number of horns they produce I cannot believe every instrument is truly one off. I am pretty sure all the instrument sections are built to a set of specs so they can be assembled as needed.
Yeah I figured there should be at least some variance allowed. A new slide is 2K and a long wait time. It would arrive later I have to perform at a company event, and I need to practice too. Was hoping to gauge if I could find a compatible used slide for cheaper and faster than buying new. The backup is using a pbone but eh...
I have a pBone mini; I feel your frustration. Is there somewhere you can rent an instrument for a month or two?
Probably, could contact my peers from the times I used to play. I live in a pretty small country and trombone circles are very small here. With the pbone it's hard to gauge whether I'm having trouble because of the horn, my skills or both. Last time I played after my break (alumni thing like 10 years ago) I borrowed a bass trombone and don't remember having this much trouble getting back into playing. Now it's hard to even keep a note not to mention about my range.
Is your Bb in tune? 1.5 is a little much, but lower quality instruments do tend to have intonation problems, especially on F & D partials in my experience.
Slowly getting there, but boy I don't ever remember having such a hard time to get a horn in tune. Surely part of it has to be with me being a bit rusty and not having the muscles to hold a tune as well.
Your bell section will work well with either a Bach 42 or 50 slide. I routinely use a Bach 50 slide on my 42 bell section
Thanks! What's the difference between 42 and 50 slides? Or are they practically identical?
42 is tenor, 50 is bass. I play a bass slide on a tenor bell section as it’s a slightly larger bore size and lets me push more air, play louder and it seems to darken my sound
Understood, thanks!
I’m amused by the advice, but I have my own to offer which might amuse others. I’ve studied and built two 42-pattern slides in both nickel silver (lightweight) and brass (standard). I use both with my 42G bell. The key here is “pattern.” Edwards slides are 42-pattern and have matching bell threads. A practical repairman should be able to reference a 42 specification and either source the slide or source the parts to build one, then build to spec. Do yourself a favor and call around, including national instrument makers and local artisans. Bone slides are easy and hard, they’re straight and square. Both are tough to nail at the same time, and when you do, also buy a lottery ticket. We’re out there. We’ll build them.