Tromba TP1-MR Plastic Bb Trumpet-metallic Red

I've played trumpet and other brass instruments for 15+ years. This trumpet is incredibly light, but still feels very solid. The silver finish makes it easy for this instrument to visibly blend in with an ensemble. Most people assume it's a standard silver/nickel trumpet. The included plastic mouthpieces feel strange, and make the trumpet sound airy. I recommend using a standard metal mouthpiece. When played with a metal mouthpiece, it has pretty good tone, a bit mellower than a brass trumpet. To the player, it feels a little fuzzy. But, in recordings you can barely tell a difference between this trumpet and a brass horn. An amateur probably wouldn't be able to tell the difference in sound. There is a noticeable difference in back pressure with certain valve combinations. Without any valves depressed it is essentially a straight shot through the valve block. Depressing each valve introduces tight turns in to the air's path. Most trumpets have a purposefully convoluted path through the valve block to make these changes less noticeable. But, this does come with advantages. The open horn is free blowing, and the valves appear to be interchangeable. The valves are a bit louder than a typical horn, and feel slightly scratchy. But, they move easily and I haven't had any jam yet. I might try replacing the rubber washers in the valves with standard felt washers to see if they help quiet down the action. The valve caps do not screw on and off, but lock into place. This simplicity is pleasant, and for younger players is probably much easier to manage than carefully screwing caps in place. It has the same tuning tendencies as a regular trumpet. The partials feel a little bit more flexible than on a metal horn (it's a little easier to bend pitch). This can be an advantage or disadvantage depending on your skill set and how you expect the instrument to play. With decent slide grease the third valve slide moves easily. The manufacturer recommends Ultra Pure products. I've used Ultra Pure valve oil for years (it's my favorite) but I don't have their slide grease. I used a thick liquid slide grease made by Selmer with great results. I think this would make an excellent pep band/marching band/goofing around horn. I use it in class as my demo horn. This way I don't have to worry about a student accident ruining one of my expensive personal instruments. I'll also use this as my busking horn come christmas time. Given how expensive it is to repair brass instruments, and the relative durability of plastic this might make a decent beginner horn. I'm not quite sure on this yet though. I'm going to wait until I've played it to death before I recommend it to anyone. But, from what I've experienced so far, this horn plays better than many of the "instrument shaped objects" you see sold on Ebay and Amazon for a couple hundred bucks. This certainly isn't a pro horn, but it's much better than I expected for the price.

I know it's a plastic trumpet, and I know it won't be as good as a brass instrument ... but this thing ain't even close! After reading other reviews and watching some YouTube videos, I knew that I would need to grease the slides and oil the valves before playing. The top caps of the valves twist off and I cleaned the cylinders and pistons. They still had metal dust on them from manufacture. I oiled and replaced pistons and they seemed to move OK. Then I snapped the top caps back on. The second valve would go down but not come back up. The valve stem was rubbing on the hole through the valve cap. I unsnapped the valve cap and the piston moved, but not when I snapped it back. After rotating the cap 180 degrees I at least got it to go up and down (sort of). I greased the slides, but it really isn't possible to use the third valve slide while playing. The finger hole is positioned wrong and the slide isn't free enough to move easily. And because of the design it's hard to get any grease on the slide (the support for the finger hole covers the slide). I tuned it - not easy because you can't make small adjustments to the tuning slide. It played OK but with the plastic mouthpiece it sounded like I was playing a PVC pipe. A metal mouthpiece helped, but didn't sound good at all. If you play loudly, the whole horn vibrates which is distracting. The medium register was OK but low notes were really bad - partly because I couldn't slide out the third valve slide. Upper register started the vibrations again. This one came in a hard-sided plastic case with a styrofoam insert into which the horn, accessories, and mouthpieces fit. When I went to put it back into the case, I discovered that it won't fit with the tuning slide pulled out. I had to push it all the way back in to get the case to close - after so much effort to tune it. It wasn't that fun to play, and I can't see myself ever using it for a gig. I played it for about an hour and printed the return label to send it back. A real waste.

I got this as an inexpensive, light, and colorful instrument to march in a local street band. I'm new to trumpet, having payed French horn before. It sounds OK for casual street stuff. Haven't tried playing anything with any finesse yet but I don't think it would be all that great. But as a fun thing you can actually play, it does the job! The valves did need breaking in and cleaning as they were sticky out of the box but now that they are clean and oiled they work great. One minor problem for Amazon/Tromba, though. I'm fairly certain my trumpet wasn't new off the factory floor. The trumpet and stand had signs of prior use. It was fine after I cleaned it but if you're going to sell stuff in refurb condition, please lower the price and don't fob it off as new.