Miraphone 670 CC Contrabass Trombone

Item Details

This is a very rare contrabass trombone pitched in CC.  It's a variation of the Miraphone model 670 in BBb that is the archetype when people think of a contrabass trombone.  With its double looped slide and double loop bell section, the Miraphone stands out among all others.

It was late one night, alcohol may have been involved, that I/Steve wrote to Miraphone with some ideas about how to modify their BBb contrabass trombone into a CC model.  My thoughts arose from the fact that many tuba players switch from BBb to CC tuba because a CC tuba, being shorter, is slightly easier to play.  If a BBb contrabass trombone requires a Herculean effort to master, maybe a CC model would have an easier response and be a good match for CC tuba players.

I didn't get a reply right away, but a few months later I received this email:

Thank you for your patience in waiting for our evaluation of your CC contra bass trombone request. This certainly is a very intriguing idea and we haven't hesitated a second to start investigating our options. Now I am writing back to you to let you know that we were able to finish a first prototype of a CC contrabass trombone with slide and body but no valves yet. So far it works great as far as sound, intonation and response are concerned!

A few months after that, the beautiful trombone like the one pictured here arrived at our door.  It's everything we asked for, and is a major improvement in fun over the BBb model.

Features

• Double slide with 6 positions and lightweight bracing, conical bore 14.0 - 15.6 mm (0.550 - 0.613 inch)
• First rotor is a traditional quart valve, lowering the pitch a fourth to G
• Second rotor can be tuned several ways:  2 whole steps (to Ab), like most bass trombones, 1 whole step to BBb, or the linkage is easily reversed and you can pitch it in BBb, then raise the horn to CC when you need to.
• Gold brass body and bell with nickel slide tubes and all nickel trim (yellow brass available by special order)
• 2 water keys
• TU03 mouthpiece
• Lacquer finish
• Sold with Cronkhite leather soft case

A reversible ascending rotor:  that's the trick to this one.  You can stand it in BBb for the normal slide positions, or you can stand it in CC for an easier open blow.  It works the same way on German double French horns.  Some have adjustable change valve linkages to allow the horn to easily stand in either Bb or F.

This is the big daddy, and is one of the rarest contrabass trombones in existence.  Only a handful have been made.  It's a horn that suits tuba players well and has the classic booming wide tone that the F contrabass trombones do not quite have.

The last photo is William Roper playing this trombone, and he said it well:  "I have tried it...and it is good."