Sackbut modern orchestra sounds out of tune, but it tunes perfectly well on in a sackbut choir if everyone plays natural harmonics. Plenty of musical understanding can be gathered from reading the original music print. Publishers such as SPES and Arnaldo Forni Edition provide facsimile copies of plenty of music for trombone from this era. To read these it one needs to become familiar with the old clefs, time signatures, ligatures and notational conventions of the era. The sound of sackbuts (and trombones) has long been thought especially solemn and noble, had an association with death and the afterlife. The instrument
Sackbut between the bell stay and the bell is thought key to a resonant bell, and thus a better sackbut sound. Original instruments have a hinge joint. Modern copies with a tuning slide in the bell can need more support for operation of the slide, so either an extra stay by the tuning slide is provided or a joint without play in only one axis is employed. The original way to make the slide tubes was to roll a flat piece of metal around a solid cylinder mandrel, and the joining edges soldered together. Modern manufacturers now draw the tubes. They