Hercules Stands Tuba, Euphonium, And Baritone Stand

I have a Conn 25J recording tuba, which is a giant monster of a tuba. I’ve been in enough band halls to know what happens to tubas that are left on the floor: they get damaged. I also want to keep my music room somewhat tidy (that’s still very much a work in progress), so I wanted to get something that would hold my instrument off of the ground and keep it secure.

This stand delivers on that front. Despite this being one of the largest tubas I’ve ever seen, the stand supports its weight quite well and stands very stable. It was easy to set up and use. I recommend that you carefully “test” the sizing of the stand by setting your instrument down, rotating it in place to make sure that you manage to line it up with the soft, padded parts of the stand so that you don’t damage the finish unintentionally. This was pretty easy for me using a 6/4 tuba and should be a simpler matter for those using smaller horns – don’t just try to stand the instrument completely upright on the stand. It’s supposed to lean a bit.

This isn’t a performer stand. That being said, the way my tuba sits in it, I can actually stand up and play it. However, this won’t be the case for smaller instruments.

I am amongst other things a tuba player and collector, and have a bunch of tubas in various configurations from old to new. Most are helicons that can be ‘worn’ by the player, or are upright bell models that sit on the player’s lap in chair between his legs. But I have this old Conn 24J, which is a ‘monster’ or 6/4 tuba, also equipped with an over-sized forward facing “recording” bell. It is the bulkiest upright tuba I have, and also the only one that I cannot comfortably hold on my lap for a whole gig, and which is so wide and deep that it is hard to reach around it to turn music pages without dropping it. Because of its bulk and bell shape, it is cumbersome to lay down next to the chair in between musical selections if I have to use clothes pins on the music during an outdoor concert, etc.

In short, this one tuba really needs a stand to hold it while I play it.

When I was a kid starting out in band, I always used a tuba playing stand because the band director did not trust me to hold such a large horn without dropping it, and because my lap was too small to support a tuba. These playing stands had a tripod base that supported a large bracket (cradle) into which the bottom of the tuba rested, with secondary curved brackets (crooks) that cradled the sides of the tuba. The tuba’s weight was centered over the tripod so it was stable. The base was such that at least one of the three legs could be under the player’s chair, so that the tuba itself was close to the chair and therefore the player did not need to lean forward to play.

Looking for a stand for the big Conn, I first hoped to find one of the old stands, but no such luck. Then I looked into the currently available stands. The Wenger Tuba Tamer is a massive and heavy stand that is intended to support tubas in the band room, and is not practical for transporting easily to playing gigs. The DEG product that is widely used and sold is not a playing STAND, but is rather a playing REST; it is a small tripod base with a small padded rest on top unto which the tuba balances, but the player although freed from supporting the tuba’s weight must still be present and active to keep the tuba from slipping off or falling over to the side. There is a well build product called the M&M Tuba Tamer, sold on eBay-only as far as I can tell for something like $150. I bought one of these and it did hold the tuba, buy it also has a tilt swivel between the tripod base and the cradle onto which the tubas rests, and this puts the tuba’s center of gravity nearly over the edge of the tripod base, so the whole thing is prone to tip over easily.

The only other playing stand I could find was this Hercules DS552B, but I could find no good pictures of it holding a tuba; it always seems to be pictured holding a euphonium, with the horn tilted way over in a way that would not be desirable for a tuba. But after I returned the M&M Tuba Tamer stand, this was my only recourse, so I bought it from Amazon.

I am pleasantly surprised by the Hercules stand. I think the manufacturer has done itself and players a disservice by not doing a better job of depicting the utility of the stand, how it adjusts, and how the tuba fits onto it. It is an adjustable tripod base, but unlike the DEG and M&M products, the tripod footprint is very wide, each leg extending 17″ from the center. The tripod can be adjusted so that the legs are more or less angled, but due to the geometry this makes only slight difference in footprint and/or stand height. I measured the base of the stand’s cradle (where the very bottom of the tube rests) at between 22″ and 24″ from the floor. There is no other height adjustment, but this dimension is about the same as how high the tuba would be sitting on the average lap on the average height chair.

The bottom of the cradle does NOT pivot or swivel to adjust tuba position. However, there are two extensions that do adjust. First, a horizontal extension slides sideways from the base of the cradle, and it is equipped with two curved and padded crooks onto which the bottom of the tuba and one side are supported. Then there is the second extension,which goes up at a shallow angle from the cradle base, and terminates in a third padded crook that is intended to support the bell tube up near the mouth pipe. The tuba cannot slide out of the cradle, and cannot fall out either, and with the center of tuba gravity right over the center of the wide tripod base, it is not likely to fall over either. Note that both extensions ARE adjustable; the first one allows tuba bottom bow widths of about 17″ – 23″, and the second extension’s crook moves vertically between 12″ and 17″ measured from the cradle base.

On a horn as large as my 24J, the Hercules stand’s crooks are slightly too small when compared to the diameter of the bottom bow tubing that is supposed to fit into them. The crooks are made from solid metal rod bent into a curved shape and padded with dense foam rubber. I intend to put some strong tubing over the ends of the crooks and bend them into a slightly wider arc to better fit my over-sized tuba. Most normal sized tubas should fit the Hercules stand pretty well.

The stand is fairly heavy, and seems to be made of steel tubing. The only plastic parts are the three adjustment knobs, the feet at the ends of the tripod legs, and the latch handle that allows the whole thing to collapse into folded formation. Finish is black paint, except for the yellow paint used on the center element of the tripod.

To collapse the stand, you retract the side extension, pull the latch handle that allows the vertical extension to fold down against the bottom of the cradle and simultaneously the whole cradle flips over sideways to rest against the vertical center tube of the tripod. Then after the tripod legs are retracted, you have a fairly compact cluster of tubing that measures about 22″ long, 5″ wide one way and 9-1/2″ wide the other way. I think Hercules sells a carrying bag for the folded stand, but I have not obtained one.

The tripod legs can be adjusted so that they are almost horizontal, making it easy to slide the stand up close to a chair without the legs getting in the way of the player’s legs too much.

My quibbles are:
– I wish that the three crooks were somehow more easily adjustable, but again for most normal sized tubas they should fit well enough as-is.
– I wish that there was more height adjustment, perhaps to allow holding the tuba at a height matching a standing player. The DEG tuba ‘rest’ has an optional extension for this purpose, but Hercules does not.

Update September 11, 2012: I did in fact adjust my Hercules stand to better fit my 24J tuba. I documented the procedure on YouTube at:

websitename/watch?v=ltd45LU8Mmo

where ‘websitename’ is actually YouTube with the three w’s in front and the dot com after but before the ‘/’. For some reason Amazon blanks the URL if I write it correctly.

This stand is exceptional in quality and construction. Super easy to set up straight from box. No assembly needed. Solid construction. This thing will definitely last. Happy to have my son’s back-up instrument on display and off his bedroom floor. Worth the price.

I have a Miraphone tuba and this stand works great. Nice and sturdy. Easy to use. I am very happy with this tuba stand and recommend it as trustworthy and well made.