The Nickel plate I'm sure adds considerably to the weight of this horn - way heavier than my Yamaha YTR 634 or 732 which are lightweight horns.Īs with most nearly every Olds horn of the time, bore is. With its cornet-style valves, there is plenty of room in the wrap of this horn - I'm able to fit the first three fingers of my left hand around the casings, which I struggle to do with many other horns (I'm 6'2' - 188cms, with hands to match.). One thing that can be said for Olds trumpets is that they were built to last - the valves never seem to wear out, and they have a general feeling of solidity about them.įirst impressions of this horn are - big and heavy. My Studio was built somewhere around 1967, so is now over 45 years old. The Olds trumpet lineup in the mid-late '60s went something like this (from cheapest/student to expensive/professional) - Ambassador, Special, Studio, Super, Recording, Opera, Mendez, Custom - so it can be seen that the Studio was bridging the gap between the more student horns (Ambassador/Special), and the pro horns (Super upwards). The marketing material emphasized the sonorous tone, increased resistance, and the ability to blend with cornets in a concert band setting. Around 1966 the conception of the trumpet changed - long cornet-style valves were added, and rather than having a Nickel Silver bell flare, the whole trumpet was plated in Nickel. As originally conceived in the late '40s, this was an instrument of yellow brass with a spun Nickel Silver bell flare, with the advertising material emphasizing a brilliant tone. The Olds Studio went through some significant changes throughout it's construction life at Olds. I'm not sure if this received wisdom is really all that accurate - I've had contact with several Fullerton horns, even some made in the '70s, and they've all been good horns for what they were. There is a general opinion out there in the 'trumpet world' that the early Los Angeles made Olds are better quality than the later horns made in Fullerton, with quality deteriorating markedly in the 1970s. A good resource for finding out more about Olds is Olds Central. Over their history they produced many legendary horns, being noted mostly for their Super Recording and Recording trumpets and cornets (they also made fantastic Trombones, but I won't go into that here). For those that don't know, Olds was one of the major brass instrument manufacturers in the USA.

Olds ambassador trombone review