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Among my activities I like to work on horns, continuing the type of projects I was doing during my sabbatical (more here). I enjoy especially bringing horns back to life, not heavily restored but certainly playable and in much better shape.
Recent projects I’ve been working on include three vintage horns (I’ll post about them in a few weeks) that won’t fit in any conventional, modern case. I have cases I can use with them but they are smelly, and my wife (wisely) banished them from the house. What to do? Eventually I went shopping for gig bags.
It is also helpful to me, with multiple horns in the house, if horn cases look different. I settled in on these two gig bags.
Don’t you mean “dent bags?”
Yes, gig bags have a deserved bad reputation, and really you should use a hard case of some type. Also, for sure you should not fly with a fixed bell gig bag, the risk of damage to your horn is much too high. But for some out there they still make sense in relation to unusual horns, storage situations, etc.
The Gard Gig Bag
I ordered the two gig bags the same day from different vendors, and the first to arrive was the Gard bag. I want to compliment Houghton Horns for the quick shipping and that it came in a very substantial box with no damage at all!
This case has several big positives
- Similar look and feel to vintage Giardinelli
- Metal clips and reinforcements on the bag
- Straps with metal parts
- Plenty of padding
- Feels very substantial; could be used on a daily basis if necessary
On the negative side, if it is a negative, the case has “…Gard’s patented mid-bag suspension system to provide ultimate protection for your horn.” This became a negative as I could not get a horn in the case with the system in place, so I had to take it out. The three project horns I needed cases for are all large wrap and “fat” due to their design. I believe for a smaller horn it would work well. For me another “negative” was the pouch on the side was too small for the Eb crook which I needed to store with a particular horn. So that horn went in this next case.
ProTec “Explorer” Gig Bag
This is my fourth ProTec case, and I’ve been happy with the previous three.
The gig bag is set up so the horn fits in the opposite direction (up and down) as the Gard case. The mouthpiece receiver is “up” on this case, and “down” on the Gard.
I’ll go to the positives first; this bag has plenty of room for that Eb crook I needed to store with a horn. Tons of room for music storage, mutes, etc. And the horn I needed a case to store it in is really light, so some of the negatives below are mitigated, but you might want to consider them carefully. Chief among them,
- Plastic clips on the gig bag
- Straps with plastic parts
It is some years ago now, but I had a plastic part on a case strap fail, and a pretty valuable horn hit the ground. (It was, for disclosure, a different brand and it was literally 20 years ago). The price for this gig bag is really nice but the presence of plastic parts (no matter how solid they may be), combined with the tendency that people have to load cases up with too much music and stuff, I’d be very hesitant to recommend the use of this case as your main case.
Since I mentioned shipping on the Gard case, I’ll share that this case came from a different vendor in a plastic bag rather than a box. It was not damaged in transit, but was at more risk for sure.
Bottom line
I’m happy with both cases overall. It’s great having those horns in the house in these nice gig bags instead of the garage in their old smelly cases. If a gig bag makes sense for you, do check these options out.
