Shorty is a multi instrumentalist !
A while back I got a chance to pick a trombone player's brain about the actual functionality of our Shorty trombone wallmount. His name is Dan, from Vermont, USA. I knew he had a large tenor and a bass too , so I asked him how it worked out with those on the rather compact Shorty stand, and if he thought a wider version of the stand would be required to accomodate the larger trombones properly. Pleased to get such an extensive and detailed reply, and with his conclusion, share it here! Thank you Dan!
Dan replied:
I think the short answer is that it would be complicated, because when you get larger, different manufacturers (and different individual's preferences) have different styles. Bass trombonists can often adjust their finger trigger to fit where their middle finger goes, so there isn't a single standard——different from the small-bore tenor trombones that all have pretty similar slide width and no triggers.
So for example, my alto, large tenor, and bass are all K&H trombones, and K&H uses the curved slide brace... and the reason that your stand worked for my curved braces was that the extra width of the bass or large tenor trombone slide means that the point where it holds the trombone is (mostly) before the brace starts to curve:
So if you'd made a wider stand with the same design, it wouldn't have actually fit my tenor and bass trombones. But this is an ergonomic thing K&H does on their trombones, and I don't think it's standard with other manufacturers (which use straight braces).
Similarly, the way K&H positions their second-valve finger trigger, and the wooden paddle that I placed on it, happens to be exactly the same distance away from the braces as the diameter of the metal tube-plus-foam-cover you use in your stand...
...so the finger trigger can go slightly behind and to the right of the stand when it is resting normally:
In other words, having a wider stand based on the same design would work for some bass trombones and some configurations (if you like, I can pull out my old Bach bass trombone and see if it fits, for comparison), but not all of them. There is a Hercules floor stand on the market (some trombonists love it, others hate it) that has the advantage you can put your horn on the stand with a mute in the bell. For example if you need to make a fast instrument change in a pit orchestra and you want the mute to already be in your horn when you pick it up; the disadvantage is that it takes up a lot of floor space and is a little bit difficult to get the trombone on and off in a hurry... it will always be easier to stick your trombone on a bell-mounted stand than on one that grips the slide braces of course; I've never been interested in this particular stand because it doesn't work for bass trombones with a finger trigger at all) where the width is adjustable to match your horn.
But the fact that your stands are all one piece, with no moving parts, is part of what makes them so solid and elegant. So trying to design adjustable trombone stands sounds like a headache to me. Plus, the customers that buy these kinds of specialised stands have very particular standards and are a little bit obsessive (just look at this email of mine!). I expect we would complain a lot if you marketed something for our trombones and then didn't fit :-)
Anyway——probably a lot more than you were asking for, but those are my musings on the question of a wider stand. Hope that's helpful and good luck!
Dan.
