Haskell Tuba Mirabilis

[Ben Madison]

Is anyone familiar with the Haskell Tubal Mirabilis? I have read the patent and no one seems know about it.

[Terpodion]

I have never encountered one in 30 years of servicing organs. That's not to say that it is a mythological creature, I've seen the drawings and read the descriptions in the literature too, I've just never bumped into one. Plenty of Haskell, flues and "reedless reeds" just never the Haskell Tuba Mirabillis. Perhaps they were more common in New England, which is outside of my area, where Estey's sphere of influence was greatest - William Haskell worked for Estey.

[Ben Madison]

I have never encountered one in 30 years of servicing organs. That's not to say that it is a mythological creature, I've seen the drawings and read the descriptions in the literature too, I've just never bumped into one. Plenty of Haskell, flues and "reedless reeds" just never the Haskell Tuba Mirabillis. Perhaps they were more common in New England, which is outside of my area, where Estey's sphere of influence was greatest - William Haskell worked for Estey.

I think what the man did was brilliant, such a shame, its right under our nose for the using and no one is using it! from what i heard it sounds better then the Reed counterpart i want to make a set of my own to hear it in person, in fact when i am writing stop list and specification to gain of understanding of how things work i always include one Haskell Tuba Mirabilis.
That man gets buried under the "Greats" what a shame indeed.

[VaPipeorgantuner]

I think what the man did was brilliant, such a shame, its right under our nose for the using and no one is using it! from what i heard it sounds better then the Reed counterpart i want to make a set of my own to hear it in person, in fact when i am writing stop list and specification to gain of understanding of how things work i always include one Haskell Tuba Mirabilis.
That man gets buried under the "Greats" what a shame indeed.

Using the phrase "from what I have heard" is troublesome unless you can identify the source of the comment that it is 'better' than the reed type of this voice. While Haskell obviously could make a working example of the pipe (which is a requirement of the patent) It remains a question in my mind as to how costly it would be to construct a set of 61 of these pipes versus the cost to build a conventional pipe of the same tonality. I couldn't find the patent, so I can't see the construction particulars, but if it is anywhere near as complicated as the reedless Saxophone, a full set would be very labor and materials intensive to produce a full 61 note set.

Haskell was indeed a great innovator in the organbuilding world, and contributed a lot to the success of the Estey firm as related to pipe organ building.

Rick in VA

[Ben Madison]

Using the phrase "from what I have heard" is troublesome unless you can identify the source of the comment that it is 'better' than the reed type of this voice. While Haskell obviously could make a working example of the pipe (which is a requirement of the patent) It remains a question in my mind as to how costly it would be to construct a set of 61 of these pipes versus the cost to build a conventional pipe of the same tonality. I couldn't find the patent, so I can't see the construction particulars, but if it is anywhere near as complicated as the reedless Saxophone, a full set would be very labor and materials intensive to produce a full 61 note set.

Haskell was indeed a great innovator in the organbuilding world, and contributed a lot to the success of the Estey firm as related to pipe organ building.

Rick in VA

It works its works regardless here is the like to the page i found the link to the patent from, i need to call back the patent office but i am not getting good service their. the Haskell Tuba Mirabilis reed less reed design is their.

http://www.organstops.org/t/tubamirabilis.html

[Terpodion]

I forget which book I have seen that drawing in. It looks very "Audsley".

I think Rick has a darn good point in that there is a reason why it is as rare as hen's teeth. Some years ago (decades) I had a correspondence with a young man on another forum who seemed to be obsessed with perfecting 'reedless reeds' stating that they would be a vast improvement with real reeds because they wouldn't fly off pitch, wouldn't be susceptible to dirt or such things as loose wedges. He could never get his experimental pipes to sound exactly like real reeds, particularly those in the trumpet family. I explained that he never would because the production of tone is completely different in reed pipes. The tongue slaps against the shallot producing a harmonically rich pulse wave. Flues produce waveforms closer to triangle and square waves. As extreme examples, think of the two theater standard organ stops; the Kinura, a type of regal and very buzzy, and the Tibia Clausa which comes very close to producing a sign wave.

The Haskell tuba looks like a dolcan / melodia hybrid. I have no doubt that it will only sound the way Haskell intended when on high pressure and it is probably a pain to get the voicing right. And because it is a flue, won't sound exactly like a real tuba stop, particularly in the mid to low range where the nature of the pulse wave is most obvious. To some this might be an advantage, explaining the quote that they thought it better than the real counterpart. The name "Tuba" does not refer to the orchestral instrument. Irwin states that it instead refers to the ancient Roman instrument and that the stop is not imitative. It is intended to be a very smooth but powerful solo voice, in many examples able to overpower the tutti of a large organ.

When reeds are made and maintained well, they really are not that much trouble. I have known trumpet stops which were so stable that you could use them as tuning stops.

[Ben Madison]

I forget which book I have seen that drawing in. It looks very "Audsley".

I think Rick has a darn good point in that there is a reason why it is as rare as hen's teeth. Some years ago (decades) I had a correspondence with a young man on another forum who seemed to be obsessed with perfecting 'reedless reeds' stating that they would be a vast improvement with real reeds because they wouldn't fly off pitch, wouldn't be susceptible to dirt or such things as loose wedges. He could never get his experimental pipes to sound exactly like real reeds, particularly those in the trumpet family. I explained that he never would because the production of tone is completely different in reed pipes. The tongue slaps against the shallot producing a harmonically rich pulse wave. Flues produce waveforms closer to triangle and square waves. As extreme examples, think of the two theater standard organ stops; the Kinura, a type of regal and very buzzy, and the Tibia Clausa which comes very close to producing a sign wave.

The Haskell tuba looks like a dolcan / melodia hybrid. I have no doubt that it will only sound the way Haskell intended when on high pressure and it is probably a pain to get the voicing right. And because it is a flue, won't sound exactly like a real tuba stop, particularly in the mid to low range where the nature of the pulse wave is most obvious. To some this might be an advantage, explaining the quote that they thought it better than the real counterpart. The name "Tuba" does not refer to the orchestral instrument. Irwin states that it instead refers to the ancient Roman instrument and that the stop is not imitative. It is intended to be a very smooth but powerful solo voice, in many examples able to overpower the tutti of a large organ.

When reeds are made and maintained well, they really are not that much trouble. I have known trumpet stops which were so stable that you could use them as tuning stops.

wooden flue stops do not suffer from the effects of tuning wires and extra "Baggage" that reed pipes come with and at the same time told that reed stop are major wind guzzlers, I totally get it that. but i do not understand how the Kinura nor the Krummet got lumped into the Regal family it is not a stop that simply was experimental it is still used today is was only invented in the 20th century for the unit orchestra.

Just look at his saxophone pipes people say it sounds closer to the real deal in fact it may sound like the real deal. Should we just turn our noses at an inferior product or we going to take them and bring them up to par.
And bedside Irwin was wrong big time The ophicleide was their in 1852 the Tuba stop came afterwards and besides the dulcan has no harmonic bridge, the harmonic bridge imparts a reedy tone to the rank to which it applies, this is also present in string stops.
If you voice string stops far enough you get reedy and possibly going into reed land, how do i know this, in the contract that formulated the worlds largest pipe organ, that the string stops are to voiced to imitate strings such but keeping it away from the division for being too "Reedy"

So you basically your saying that Haskell was a fraud, maybe we need to go in and rename his stops Faux Tuba, Faux Oboe Faux Saxophone. All other stops besides the clarinet and the Oboe are not initiative of their orchestral counterparts.

[APipeOrganist]

..I do not understand how the Kinura nor the Krummet got lumped into the Regal family it is not a stop that simply was experimental it is still used today is was only invented in the 20th century for the unit orchestra...

The regal family of pipes merely denotes reed stops whose resonators are not normally of the speaking length of the pipe (Double Trumpets, Posaunes, Fagottos and other 16' stops with 1/2 length resonators in the bass are, of course, excluded). This includes, Regals(obviously), clarinets, Krummhorns, vox humanas, kinuras, dulzians, Fagott Regals and Ranketts.

[VaPipeorgantuner]

wooden flue stops do not suffer from the effects of tuning wires and extra "Baggage" that reed pipes come with and at the same time told that reed stop are major wind guzzlers, I totally get it that. but i do not understand how the Kinura nor the Krummet got lumped into the Regal family it is not a stop that simply was experimental it is still used today is was only invented in the 20th century for the unit orchestra.

If reed stops are CORRECTLY tuned, there is little to no ill effect from the tuning wire. Who ever told you that reed pipes are 'wind guzzlers' has misinformed you...in fact they are very efficient users of wind compared to flue pipes, especially as the flue pipes get larger. Kinura stops are basically a variant of the trichterregal...a funnel-shaped resonator with no extending stem, the funnel is soldered directly to the block in the kinura. Kinura and Krummet stops are correctly classified into the regal family. Kinura stops are almost exclusive to theatre organs.

I would be careful about labeling certain authors (i.e. Audsley or Stevens Irwin) as absolute sources of information. Both have useful information, but neither were actually organbuilders, but rather very enthusiastic organophiles. Only a couple of organs were built to Audsley specs, one of which bankrupted the builder in completing the instrument, and there are enough errors in the Stevens Irwin book that one has to take much as opinion rather than fact.

Credit where credit is due, Wm. Haskell was a very inventive man, and contributed significantly to organbuilding. Some of his 'reedless' stops were successful for others to copy, but make NO mistake...the reedless oboe (in reality a very slim scaled gamba) and other 'reedless' stops do NOT sound like their brass-tongued namesakes. I have tuned a lot of Estey reedless stops - enough to know what I am talking about.

Rick in VA

[Terpodion]

"So you basically your saying that Haskell was a fraud, maybe..."
Quite the opposite. I think he was brilliant - both of them. Don't forget William's father was Charles who ran his own company out of Philadelphia and invented a few things himself. I restored one of his organs. An experienced organist would at first glance think it was an old Estey with the keyboard style stop controls. It had been pretty badly hacked up by a dilettante trying to "modernize" it, cutting down the strings which I replaced with vintage Estey stock. The wind pressure was way off as well which made the oboe very unstable. I added a regulator, got the pressure right and went over the pipework, cleaning, repairing and regulating. The oboe stabilized and now only gets tuned a couple times a year. It's a real oboe - with reeds.

[Ben Madison]

If reed stops are CORRECTLY tuned, there is little to no ill effect from the tuning wire. Who ever told you that reed pipes are 'wind guzzlers' has misinformed you...in fact they are very efficient users of wind compared to flue pipes, especially as the flue pipes get larger. Kinura stops are basically a variant of the trichterregal...a funnel-shaped resonator with no extending stem, the funnel is soldered directly to the block in the kinura. Kinura and Krummet stops are correctly classified into the regal family. Kinura stops are almost exclusive to theatre organs.

I would be careful about labeling certain authors (i.e. Audsley or Stevens Irwin) as absolute sources of information. Both have useful information, but neither were actually organbuilders, but rather very enthusiastic organophiles. Only a couple of organs were built to Audsley specs, one of which bankrupted the builder in completing the instrument, and there are enough errors in the Stevens Irwin book that one has to take much as opinion rather than fact.

Credit where credit is due, Wm. Haskell was a very inventive man, and contributed significantly to organbuilding. Some of his 'reedless' stops were successful for others to copy, but make NO mistake...the reedless oboe (in reality a very slim scaled gamba) and other 'reedless' stops do NOT sound like their brass-tongued namesakes. I have tuned a lot of Estey reedless stops - enough to know what I am talking about.

Rick in VA

Emerson Richards was a senator and he still found the time to take on organ building, he created the worlds largest pipe organ somehow we put him in the pipe organ building world are you saying that Audsley is somehow an organ "Organophile" degrades Richards as well, in mere fact it sent the midmer- losh company down the tubes.

The reason why i question the mere fact that we have lumped the Kinura and the Krummet and other stops into the regal family is because they have taken a different direction of their own. Is sodering a funnel onto the boot of a reed some how a sin?

It must really drive people crazy to find reeds that do not belong to the swell division in a expressive subdivision that belongs on the Great manual.

But of course i will make NO mistake the reed less oboe does not look like a Gamba if you look at the patent you see the difference, BIG DIFFERENCE. Haskell was a smart man, he would have not called it an reed less oboe is if in fact did not sound like an oboe.

[rjsilva]

...Haskell was a smart man, he would have not called it an reed less oboe is if in fact did not sound like an oboe.

Have you heard one of his reedless oboes? Did he actually say it sounds indistinguishable from an equivalent reed? I don't know the answers to those questions, but I do know that very smart people use descriptions figuratively or optimistically when at face value the words aren't totally accurate. That happens constantly in every industry. Perhaps he used the term 'reedless' to describe his intention in the creation of a potentially new class of pipe rather than as an undetectable replacement for a reed pipe? I know nothing about these reedless reed pipes, so these are just some thoughts.

[APipeOrganist]

The reason why i question the mere fact that we have lumped the Kinura and the Krummet and other stops into the regal family is because they have taken a different direction of their own. Is sodering a funnel onto the boot of a reed some how a sin?

I really don't understand what you mean. Regals are just a subset of reed pipes, such as how flutes are subset of flue pipes. If I can quote the encyclopedia of organ stops, "...The name Regal is used as a generic term for a whole family of reed stops, typified by short, often oddly shaped resonators, and having a wide variety of tones, usually lacking in fundamental...". All it means is that it has a short resonator. It is not sin, they can still sound good. I don't see what your problem is with calling a reed stop a Regal. It is literally a description of the physical shape of the pipe. It has nothing to do with the tone, it is just how the pipe is shaped. Is this clear now?Paddy