Modern instruments are pitched in the same B♭ as the tenor trombone but with a larger bore, bell and mouthpiece to facilitate low register playing, and usually two valves to fill in the missing range immediately above the pedal tones.

[4] Other late 16th and early 17th-century specimens of basses survive by Nuremberg makers Anton Schnitzer, Isaac Ehe, and Hans and Sebastian Heinlein.

[5] These instruments match descriptions and illustrations by Praetorius from his 1614–20 Syntagma Musicum, by which time he only described basses in E or D, a fourth or a fifth below the tenor, and an octav-posaun which referred to a very large, rare, and unwieldy predecessor of the contrabass trombone.

[6][7] Based on Praetorius' descriptions, Canadian trombonist and early music specialist Maximilien Brisson proposes that a quint-posaun with an extra whole-tone crook resulted in an instrument in C, capable of playing down to the lowest G1 open string of the G Violone.

[8] By the late 17th century, the bass sackbut was mainly in D; German scholar and composer Daniel Speer only saw fit to mention the quint-posaun in his 1687 Grundrichtiger Unterricht treatise.

[12] Late Romantic German composers specifying Tenorbaßposaune in scores intended a B♭/F trombone capable of playing below E2; Arnold Schoenberg called for four in Gurre-Lieder (1911).

From about the mid-nineteenth century, the bass trombone in G enjoyed a period of extended popularity in Britain and throughout most of the British Empire, and also a limited uptake in France.

[15] Instruments were made as early as 1869 in France with a Quartventil valve attachment in D, which extends the low register below D♭2, the lowest (non-pedal) note in seventh position.

In 1961, American maker Vincent Bach released their double-valve "50B2" model with a second dependent E valve (later E♭ and D), based on an instrument modified in 1956 for the bass trombonist with Minneapolis Symphony.

[21] The bass trombone has typically two valves that lower the pitch of the instrument when engaged, to facilitate the register between the B♭1 pedal in first position and the E2 second partial in seventh.

French composers in the 19th century and early 20th century wrote third trombone parts for tenor trombone, writing as high as A4 (Bizet L'Arlésienne, Franck Symphony in D minor), and omitting notes below E2 except for occasional pedal notes (Berlioz in the 1830s used pedal B♭1 and A1 in Symphonie fantastique , and G♯1 in his Grande Messe des morts ).

[15] The 20th century saw further extensions of the bass trombone range, such as the fortissimo pedal D1 in Berg's Drei Orchesterstücke (1915), and the high B4 in Kodály's 1927 Háry János suite.

[27] Contemporary orchestral and solo classical pieces, as well as modern jazz arrangements, often further exploit the wide tonal range of the bass trombone.