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Vintage / Classic Yamaha comparison (ytr634 ytr732)



 
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p76
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Joined: 15 Jun 2006
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Location: The Golden City of OZ

PostPosted: Sun Jul 11, 2010 7:59 pm    Post subject: Vintage / Classic Yamaha comparison (ytr634 ytr732) Reply with quote

Hi All,

Everytime a member of my family heads Stateside to visit my sis in Seattle, I become an Ebay junkie, and get them to bring something home for me.

This time around, my mum brought back a Yamaha ytr732, which means I'm part way to having a "set" of Yam professional trumpets from the 70's. Got the horn on Friday, so haven't done too much playing on it yet, but thought I'd start a thread on my thoughts, as they might be interesting to some, and there doesn't seem to be too much info on the web about these (IMO) under-rated horns.

For those that don't know, the Yamaha ytr634 is a .460 bore 5" bell Red Brass lightweight horn finished in lacquer, years made 1969-1978. The ytr732 is a .445 bore 5" bell Yellow Brass bell lightweight horn in silver plate, years made 1969-1978.

Some people consider the 732 the forerunner of the Shew horns, while I like to think of my 634 as a very poor man's Olds Recording (because it's the same colour...).

Both horns came out of Yamaha's association with Renold Schilke in the 70's - the horns have the same look as Schilke horns, but without the hexagonal valve caps etc. Other more knowledgeable people than me on this august forum have suggested that the ytr634 is based on the Schilke B5, while the ytr732 is based on the B6. Having never played a Schilke, I'll leave that for other people to judge.

The ytr634 I own has a pretty well known history - I am it's second owner, I (well, Mum and Dad) purchased it at the end of 1979, at which time it was (I was told) three years old. It was as new when I got it, and has grown old with me. It's been pretty well looked after, has had a crease and a ping rolled out of the bell after it fell off a bike , has had some light valve-work done, and has a new tuning slide (created from a 8310Z slide soldered to the original connectors) after the dreaded red rot took the first one.

I don't really know much about the history of the ytr732. I have a feeling the person I purchased it from via Ebay is also a member of this forum. The horn is in good condition, with very little loss of silver plate (just where the fingers rest). The third valve slide moves of it's own accord when pointing down, which suggests a compression issue there, and there are signs that the forward brace may have been re-soldered at some stage in the past.

What is quite interesting are the small differences in construction. There are two possible reasons for this, IMO. One could be that we are looking at early and late construction horns. The serial no. on the 732 is 114xxxA, while the 634 is 034xx. This might suggest that the 732 is newer, but again thanks to this forum, it seems that Yamaha serial nos. are not sequential, and no record of them was kept until the mid 90s, so there is no real way of telling which is the newer horn.

The other thing that the serial nos. tell us is that despite both horns being Yamaha, they were made in two different countries. The "A" in the serial no. of the 732 tells us it is an American made horn, while my 634 is made in Japan (which makes sense, as it is an Australian delivered horn). I'm wondering if the American built horns were actually made in the Schilke factory? Who knows...(probably someone here!)

Now I'm a tech gumby, but I'm going to try and post some photos with the comparisons between the horns, to give an idea what I'm talking about, so here's hoping it works - I'll do them in a separate post.
_________________
Bb - Selmer Radial, Yamaha YTR634, Kanstul 1001, Kanstul 700.
C - Yamaha 641.
Cornet - Olds Ambassador A6T, Besson 723, Olds Ambassador Long.
Flugel - Kanstul 1525
Mpc. - ACB 3CS, ACB 3ES, Curry 3BBC, Kanstul FB Flugel


Last edited by p76 on Sun Jul 11, 2010 10:47 pm; edited 3 times in total
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ldwoods
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Joined: 26 Sep 2004
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PostPosted: Sun Jul 11, 2010 8:16 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

You might find this discussion interesting.

http://www.trumpetherald.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=58463&highlight=yamaha+schilke
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Larry Woods
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p76
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Joined: 15 Jun 2006
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Location: The Golden City of OZ

PostPosted: Sun Jul 11, 2010 8:40 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Here are some pics

The ytr634 - note the Bach style 3rd slide adjuster, and the rounded ferrule/brace between the main and third valve tubing.



ytr732 - note Schilke style 3rd slide stop screw / brace



ytr634 brace between tubes on 3rd valve slide



ytr732 brace between tubes on 3rd valve slide



ytr634 valve casings



ytr732 valve casings



ytr634 receiver



ytr732 receiver (apologies for blurry photo)



Another thing to note, that I couldn't quite show, was that the valve bottom caps on the ytr634 are flat, while on the ytr732 they bulge down slightly (convex? concave?).

Oh yeah, and one other thing - brass valve guides in the ytr634, but plastic ones in the ytr732!

I find these construction differences quite fascinating - I had assumed that from the outside they'd look identical. I'd now love to see a pic of an American made ytr634, or a Japanese made ytr732, to see whether these differences are due to the model of horn, or the place of construction....

Oh, and thanks Idwoods, that's the post I got my Schilke / Yam info from (actually have it bookmarked, for the day I get to buy the real thing )
_________________
Bb - Selmer Radial, Yamaha YTR634, Kanstul 1001, Kanstul 700.
C - Yamaha 641.
Cornet - Olds Ambassador A6T, Besson 723, Olds Ambassador Long.
Flugel - Kanstul 1525
Mpc. - ACB 3CS, ACB 3ES, Curry 3BBC, Kanstul FB Flugel
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p76
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Joined: 15 Jun 2006
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Location: The Golden City of OZ

PostPosted: Mon Jul 12, 2010 3:07 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

OK, so I got home from work tonight, and in between bathing kids, feeding kids, and reading to kids, I got to have another blow on the ytr732, even if it was partly accompanying some children's music!

The ytr732 is one sweet sounding horn. I would characterize it as being a very compact sound compared to the ytr634, not necessarily a brighter tone, but a sweeter one. It is not as dark as the 634, and not as loud, which would make sense, being a smaller bore. The sound is more together than the 634, more surrounding, with less sense of projection. I felt like I was swimming in a warm trumpet sound - in the middle of the sound, whereas with the 634 it's more a feeling of projecting the sound forward.

(At this stage I should point out that so far I've been limited to playing the horn in my bedroom, and that I use a Monette B2 mpc.)

I'm still getting used to the blow, so overblowing to go loud, but I think it will bark if pushed. I'll post again when I've had a bit more time on it. Hope this may end up useful to someone at some stage.
_________________
Bb - Selmer Radial, Yamaha YTR634, Kanstul 1001, Kanstul 700.
C - Yamaha 641.
Cornet - Olds Ambassador A6T, Besson 723, Olds Ambassador Long.
Flugel - Kanstul 1525
Mpc. - ACB 3CS, ACB 3ES, Curry 3BBC, Kanstul FB Flugel
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Tom K.
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PostPosted: Mon Jul 12, 2010 4:53 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I have the 738, which is the Schilke X3 clone of the same period (.463). A silver beautiful sounding sweet horn. It has the flat bottom caps and plastic guides. The only problem with these is the Yamaloy curse, which slows down the valves. I have that on mine and am planning to get them replated.
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"At the round earth's imagined corners, blow
Your trumpets, angels" -John Donne
50s Olds Ambassador
70s Yamaha 738
80s King 650 flugel
90s Bach 184 cornet
90s Bach Strad 37
10s Carolbrass 5060 C trumpet
10s Schilke B5 trumpet
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p76
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Joined: 15 Jun 2006
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Location: The Golden City of OZ

PostPosted: Tue Jul 13, 2010 5:29 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Tom K. wrote:
I have the 738, which is the Schilke X3 clone of the same period (.463). A silver beautiful sounding sweet horn. It has the flat bottom caps and plastic guides. The only problem with these is the Yamaloy curse, which slows down the valves. I have that on mine and am planning to get them replated.


That's interesting Tom, so you've got my "Japanese" valve caps, but "American" valve guides.... Busts my theory a bit....back to the drawing board - the mystery deepens - such a shame that the serial nos. Can't shed light on the comparative ages of these horns - maybe that's the explanation.

Not sure if the valves on either of these are the dreaded Yamalloy - they're faster than I am, which is all that counts I guess
_________________
Bb - Selmer Radial, Yamaha YTR634, Kanstul 1001, Kanstul 700.
C - Yamaha 641.
Cornet - Olds Ambassador A6T, Besson 723, Olds Ambassador Long.
Flugel - Kanstul 1525
Mpc. - ACB 3CS, ACB 3ES, Curry 3BBC, Kanstul FB Flugel
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