My good friends at Thompson Music sent me a couple of Bb trumpets the other day and I would like to share my thoughts. My last couple of posts have been comparisons of mouthpieces and C trumpets. During that process I discovered, and fell in love with the Bach C190 “Cleveland”. Bach has taken some of the concepts in that horn and put out a 190 series in their Bb trumpet line. I believe the initial offering in the 190 series were their Artisan Trumpets. I owned an Artisan C and Bb for a few years and liked them. However, I LOVE the new 190’s. The two trumpets in comparison on this post are the 190 37 and 43, both silver plated.
Technical stuff about the recording
I played in a medium sized room to a Advanced Audio CM49 mic > Focusrite > Studio One. I used an AR Sergei mouthpiece on both horns. For my C trumpet comparison I went back and forth on the horns for each excerpt and I thought I would try something a little different for this comparison. I decided to play all three Charlier excerpts on the same horn then take a break and do it all over again on the other horn. This way I would get more of a chance to settle into each horn before switching, and hopefully be relatively fresh for both horns. Then I used Studio One to splice the excerpts up so you can hear shorter phrases back to back.
Initial thoughts
As of this posting I do not have a clear favorite. I really, really like both horns. There is an intimacy and consistent core with the 37. There is an openness and freeness with the 43. In an ideal world I would have both and use the 37 for brass quintet and the 43 for everything else. Soft, nuanced situations would favor the 37 where loud heroic and perhaps endurance-testing situations would favor the 43. I have not had the chance to play these in large rooms or even with other players yet and that is a big part of the decision. I imaging I will add to this post as I spend more time with these horn. (Actually, I assume Mike Thompson is going to be wanting at least one of these horns back so I need to make up my mind pretty soon!)
Recording
So, I will let you decide what you think about the Bach 190 37 vs. 190 43.