#Instrument tube bending plus

The decades that followed involved a factory fire and other family members launching their own music products companies. In 1960 the founder sold Getzen to an investor outside the family. For years the trumpeter played the company's horns and worked with designers to develop new ones. In the following years more well-known musicians began to take notice, including Doc Severinsen of 'The Tonight Show' fame. launched in Elkhorn behind the Getzen family residence, in a converted dairy barn-appropriate beginnings for a Wisconsin company. Principal trombonist for John Philip Sousa's band. Getzen worked as plant superintendent at Holton Co., a musical instrument-maker founded by Frank Holton, who at one time was A specialized business, wind instrument manufacturing has flourished where the talent resides. Towns like Elkhart, Ind., Mount Vernon, N.Y., and Getzen's home of Elkhorn are known as historical centers of brass instrument manufacturing. Match that signature with the right player, and Getzen will probably sell another horn.ДЇigure 1: GetzenвЂ™s raw brass coil stock inventory consists of varying gauges and types, from red brass with high copper content to yellow brass that has a significant amount of zinc. The metalworkers on the floor put their signature on the instrument. Put it, that's not what customers demand. Mechanized hydraulic spinning machines may form trombone and trumpet bells to precision, each one identical to the next, but as sources at Getzen Brass instrument players develop a unique sound it's unavoidable, because everybody's lips are shaped and vibrate differently. For the right job, a laser cutting system with a material handling tower can run unattended all weekend.Д«ut as a brasswind manufacturer, Getzen takes an alternative approach, because it sells to a market with unique demands. To compete with overseas manufacturers, precision metal fabricators invest millions in automation to reduce direct labor content and lead-times. In this respect, Getzen reflects the broader metal fabrication business, but it solves the problem differently. Walk into any high school band room and you'll find that many, if not most, of the brass instruments come from China.

Globalization and the Band RoomД«rasswind manufacturing isn't unique when it comes to globalization. Order for a piece of bent, hand-hammered, soldered, brazed, spun, plated, lacquered, and polished brass. It helps them win auditions, get jobs, and support families.

It's an individual relationship and, for pros, a vital one. The company sells to professionals and those who aspire to sound like them, including college students. This has worked, Griego said, because of what Getzen's core market demands. But such an arrangement, sources said, is necessary to maintain the company's hands-on approach to metal forming and fabrication. A significant amount of work-in-process sits on the floor, and a new horn can take weeks to make. There's no evidence of just-in-time practices here. Getzen has held on to this strategy in a niche unique in metal manufacturing. Every meal the chef creates may taste wonderful, but one perfectly prepared filet is likely to taste slightly different from the next. If a trombone or trumpet has an Edwards logo on it, its manufacturing began in the Getzen plant and then transferred over to the Edwards facility for finalДЇitting, assembly, inspection, and testing.ДЄs Griego explained, every horn coming off the line sounds a little different, and the company feels hand-craftsmanship plays a role. The Edwards facility is two doors down from the Getzen plant in Elkhorn, Wis. Griego is director of development at Edwards Instrument Co., a Getzen subsidiary that makes high-end trumpets and trombones-the luxury brands, so to speak. The tube benders have no computer control either they're all manual. You won't see any CNC or even basic hydraulic spinning machines on the floor. It's delicate work.Д¬hristan Griego, the one standing before me while I blew out of tune on the Alessi trombone, pointed out that the shop still manually spins every brass bell.

#Instrument tube bending plus

That resonance all starts with vibration from buzzing lips, plus the 70 workers at Getzen Company who manufacture brass instruments that amplify and shape the tone of that lip vibration.

It sang, so unlike my old ax I drag to community band rehearsal Thursday evenings. Never mind that I sounded like a person who doesn't play for a living, way too loudДespite my shortcomings, the instrument responded. Never mind that the person standing before me had fitted horns for some of the world's greatest symphony players, including Joe Alessi, the model's namesake and principal trombonist of the New York Philharmonic. Holding the new Alessi model Edwards trombone, I was in band-geek heaven.