Why raw brass?

[hurricane_harry]

I see the more and more topics about raw brass horns on the tubenet lately.

Is taking your horn to raw brass just another fad?

How does one go about taking your horn to raw brass? (at home and in shop)

Why only the bell sometimes?

What and the advantages/disadvantages to doing this?

In what way did it change the sound of the horn?

Any insight into the subject would be greatly appriciated.

Thanks

[Alex C]

Reynold Schilke did a study of this, available on the Schilke website last time I visited there. It is a very readable, understandable article.

He noted, through study, that lacquer does inhibit vibration and that's why Schilke does not sell lacquered trumpets. Plated, raw metal (brass, berillium, etc.) but not lacquered. I decided never to own another raw brass tuba, other people love them.

The question is, does it make enough of a difference to you? I doubt that most musicians could distinguish between a lacquered and an unlacquered instrument in a blind test. On the other hand, having owned several raw brass tubas, I can tell you that raw brass instruments leave your hands smelling like... well, raw brass; exposure to raw brass can ("can" not "will") eventually lead to brass poisoning. That's why mouthpieces are plated.

[SplatterTone]

My logic tells me that the more the metal vibrates, the more sound energy is lost to vibrating the metal, and the less sound sound energy goes out the bell. If you have ever heard an alpine horn, then you know they sound like a magnificent euphonium. But there could be some element of physics of which I am unaware. I do know that Paris Hilton prefers laquered brass, so that's good enough for me. (I'm thinking of having my Conn naked lady redone.)

As far as Schilke's opinion: I have three their tuba mouthpieces (62, 67, 69C4), and I suppose they are OK ... if you view a tuba as a bass trombone with valves.

[Dan Schultz]

...If you have ever heard an alpine horn, then you know they sound like a magnificent euphonium. ....

What makes that Alphorn sound so magnificent is the conical bore with NO turns.

[SplatterTone]

What makes that Alphorn sound so magnificent is the conical bore with NO turns.

Come to think of it, it's got no lacquer either! But I'm still putting my money on the stiff wood walls as reason #1.
...
...
... waiting for the Chinese to start making a concrete tuba.

[Art Hovey]

It's not about the sound of the instrument. The player is the one who determines that.

I like the idea of a raw brass instrument because it's still going to look like raw brass after it has been played for 40 years or more. We all know what laquer looks like after a few years, and even good silver plating wears through eventually.

Silver looks good if you polish it, UNTIL it wears off. Silver looks awful if you don't polish it.

ANY finish looks bad after you have used a torch to make modifications. But brass always shines up nicely when you want to put the time and elbow grease into it. Raw brass also forms a nice brown oxide layer that looks better (to some of us) than tarnished silver, flaking laquer, or spray paint.

[SplatterTone]

or spray paint.

You have obviously never explored the world of glow-in-the-dark paint which adds a wonderfully dramatic touch to your Good Friday tenebrae service. Dress in black and wear white gloves, add a little black light, then everyone will think it's a horn floating in the air. Oh boy, the spirit is moving in this place tonight!

[Alex C]

It's not about the sound of the instrument. The player is the one who determines that.

au contraire, if it was only the player then you wouldn't have taken trouble to pick out the specific instruments you play now. You would have just taken any old horn that fell into your hands.

The instrument and it's finish all play into our choices.

Besides, it is hard to argue with Schilke's research into lacquer and sound, located here:

http://www.dallasmusic.org/schilke/Brass%20Clinic.html

He approached his research with an open mind, after all, it would have been cheaper for him to lacquer his instruments than to plate them. His research proved that there was a difference. Yes, it is a small difference but it is discernable.

ANY finish looks bad after you have used a torch to make modifications. But brass always shines up nicely when you want to put the time and elbow grease into it. Raw brass also forms a nice brown oxide layer that looks better (to some of us) than tarnished silver, flaking laquer, or spray paint.

I believe good silver plate can last a lifetime, e.g. Jacob's York. The instrument I owned for over 20 years showed very little wear through lots of usage. I now have a 14 year old silver tuba that has no wear spots. If you are not over rough in your treatment of your silver finish, it will last.

If a good tech has to unsolder a silver finish, he can put it back so that the repair is almost invisible. I'm sold on silver finishes.

Now gold. I eventually want to gold plate something. That's extravagance! (A Rolex tuba?)

[LoyalTubist]

About twenty years ago, the Canadian Brass had instruments made for them by Yamaha which were gold plated.

[Rick Denney]

Besides, it is hard to argue with Schilke's research into lacquer and sound, located here:

http://www.dallasmusic.org/schilke/Brass%20Clinic.html

Alex, with all due respect, it's quite easy to argue with Schilke's research. He was looking at trumpets, not tubas. Characteristic trumpet sound has a range of very high harmonic content, including some clipped square waves (the brassy sound). Tuba sound does not include these harmonics. In my own sound measurements of a low Bb, I could not find any significant harmonic content above 880 Hz, and that harmonic content was 26 dB down on the highest harmonics (let alone the composite sound).

In observing my own tubas, their brass demonstrates some resonance in low frequencies, but very little resonance in the upper frequencies, no matter what the finish. When I knock on the bell of any of my tubas, all I hear is a clang that quickly attenuates. My Martin fiberglass tuba thuds rather than clangs.

Now, stick with me here, because I'm going to draw a tenuous relationship. Feel free to disagree, but at least try and understand what I'm saying.

If the contribution to the total sound by the ringing of the brass made a significant effect on the sound, then the effect of changing the material from brass to fiberglass ought to make a HUGE effect. Yet that effect is relatively small, especially out front.

The difference between the clang and the thud is probably minimal, in the frequencies that comprise tuba sound. Higher frequencies are basically invisible to the tuba sound, otherwise the tuba would amplify them. It tends, however, to filter out the high frequencies in our buzz. It will also filter out the high frequencies in the ring of the brass.

Thus, you may hear the clang of mechanical contact, but the part of that sound that makes it a clang instead of a thud can't have much effect on tuba sound, because the difference between a clang and a thud is high-frequency stuff that the tuba's sound amplifier filters out anyway.

Again, if the composition of the tuba shape can survive a radical change of materials (and brass and fiberglass are about as different as can be in a structure that can be carried and that can hold itself up) with minimal effect, then how can the coating on that material be expected to have even minimal effect?

Back to Schilke's test to say this a different way: I suspect a fiberglass trumpet would be MUCH different than a brass trumpet, while a fiberglass tuba is only slightly different than a brass tuba. The effect of the coating would scale down from there.

Finally, from a science point of view, Schilke's tests were still anecdotal, just like my review of the Monsterweights. They are a data point, but are not conclusive.

Rick "wondering why German tuba players always seem to have lacquered brass tubas" Denney

[GC]

The different type of brass give different results, too. I've seen plenty of brown tubas that look good. However, my 1963 25J has lots of patches where the bright overplating and lacquer are gone, but there are no brown spots anywhere. The underlying brass is a light-colored alloy that seems to be tarnish-resistant. It's considerably harder than average brass, too. Does anyone know anything about the metallurgy of these 1960's-era Conns?

I'm wondering if removing all the lacquer would help the browning process, or if it would just stay that same unpleasant odd yellow. These horns are tough to work on because of their size, weight, and hardness of alloy. Disassembling it and working out the dents would probably cost a fortune, too.

[Donn]

I believe good silver plate can last a lifetime, e.g. Jacob's York. The instrument I owned for over 20 years showed very little wear through lots of usage. I now have a 14 year old silver tuba that has no wear spots. If you are not over rough in your treatment of your silver finish, it will last.

Some people hate it, because it tarnishes so fast on their silver plated instruments. I don't know if it's the person or the plating. I have no trouble with mine, but I don't eat meat. People who eat meat should probably go for lacquer - it makes for acidic sweat (as I learned here on Tubenet.)

Also note that old silver plate is probably thicker than you'd get on a tuba made today, and conversely the "lacquer" will be better on a modern instrument.

Now gold. I eventually want to gold plate something. That's extravagance! (A Rolex tuba?)

My Pan American Eb Giant Bass and my Evette-Schaeffer tenor sax have gold wash bells, as did many instruments of this era (neither of them were high end lines.) There's enough restoration business that I bet Anderson's or someone like them can do gold plating fairly economically. I'm sure it costs more than silver (especially since you're probably paying for a silver strike coat anyway), but I bet not very much more, compared to the cost of all the finish prep a tuba needs before it gets plated. I personally don't think gold looks all that good by itself, especially after a little tarnish (yes, it does go a little brown), but the gold wash bells on silver horns are sweet.

[GC]

Everything that touches the gold plating that I've seen on horns leaves tiny scratches. Even the soft stuff inside cases. I have only seen local replate jobs, though. I don't know what results lowering the carat rating of the gold would do, though.

[MaryAnn]

Walter Lawson (horn maker) did a test of a horn with and without lacquer. Same horn; he measured the frequency spectrum that it produced with and without. He found about 5% fewer highs in the spectrum after he lacquered it. With horn players, that translates to a slightly more closed hand position in the bell. So the unlacquered horn had 5% more highs in the spectrum than the same horn did lacquered. I presume he tested it with no hand in the bell, with the same player.

Walter chose to lacquer his horns because of the acidic sweat eating the brass problem. Those of us who don't eat a lot of animal foods don't have acidic sweat and consequently don't get green hands when we hold unlacquered brass instruments.

MA

[iiipopes]

I am proud to say that the lacquer on my two lacquered tubas has naturally mostly worn off from use and from the occasional (or probably with the Besson knowing from whence it came, seasonal) repairs. I neither purposefully strip the remainder, nor try to "preserve" what isn't there. Some lacquer still remains. It will all wear eventually. I'll figure out if anything else is needed then. There is enough gone that I don't worry about it one way or the other. On my souzy, there is exactly the right amount of worn plating for its age and use: not so much you wonder if it was abused, although there are the obvious prior repairs from probable and expected field or street marching bumps and accidents; but not so little you would wonder why the horn wasn't played more. And it sounds fantastic, period.

Folks, if you gotta go to one extreme or the other about either preserving the finish at all costs or stripping bare, you're depriving your own instrument of the opportunity to age gracefully, bloom and patina on its own to what could be expected to be about a century's worth of use if as much attention were paid to the internal, seasonal, regular, preventative maintenance of a tuba.

[SplatterTone]

He found about 5% fewer highs in the spectrum

One important point: I suspect the player knew which horn was being played, which renders the test completely subjective.

Another point: Although I am extremely skeptical that a thin layer of lacquer will make a noticable difference in metal vibration, assuming it did, I suggest what was happening was X percent less bass because of sound energy being wasted vibrating the brass.

Rather than waste sound energy by stripping lacquer to get a brighter tone -- if that is what one wants -- it seems a much simpler approach is to use a shallower mouthpiece or buy a smaller horn.

[windshieldbug]

Well, I'll take a different tack. I felt that it did liven up the horn, to the point where I could hear and feel a difference, as has been described.

Then again, how far did that effect carry out into the hall, particularly with higher brass, strings, winds, and percussion using up that bandwidth?

My justification was simply that if I felt better response (real OR imagined) then I was likely to perform better, regardless.

And just like sports, the largest barrier to performance lies between your ears...

[pierso20]

just to kinda change topic-ish.....

I know that brass mouthpieces are plated due to the brass toxicity. This of course causes neuro problems and etc. I suspect mouthpieces are more sensitive to this due to being placed on and around the mouth.

Does the raw brass have a toxicity soley based on the touch? Such as, holding onto a raw brass horn??

Just curious....because I may remove the lacquer from my horn considering the lacquer is almost half gone anyhow.

[Dan Schultz]

.... Does the raw brass have a toxicity soley based on the touch? Such as, holding onto a raw brass horn??

Just curious....because I may remove the lacquer from my horn considering the lacquer is almost half gone anyhow.

Humans are alergic to many things at different levels. Many folks can't wear anything but gold. Some can't even tolerate that. It's a fair guess that since your horn already has exposed raw brass, you probably aren't sensitive to it. All of my horns, with the exception of a couple of silver-plated ones, are raw brass. I don't seem to have any alergic reaction to them. I do, however, insist on a mouthpiece with good plating simply because I don't like the metalic taste of brass. Plus.... I probably ingest more than my fair share of brass hovering over the buffer most every day!

BTW... raw brass is my choice of finish. For absolutely no reason other than the fact that all of my horns are AT LEAST 40 years old and have suffered various degrees of abuse and wear in their lifetime. In my opinion, raw brass looks better and is easier to maintain than spotty lacquer. As far as I'm concerned, there is no difference in the quality or timbre of the sound.

[Rick Denney]

Another point: Although I am extremely skeptical that a thin layer of lacquer will make a noticable difference in metal vibration, assuming it did, I suggest what was happening was X percent less bass because of sound energy being wasted vibrating the brass.

I don't think so. The same energy is going into the brass. The difference is that the brass lacquer will damp some of that energy instead of the brass radiating it. The question is what is the impedance of the lacquer coating at which frequency. Given that high frequences involve smaller excursions at the same power level, I'm assuming it will have more effet at high frequencies.

Reinforcing that is the experience of trying to build surfaces that absorb sound. The high frequencies are easiest, and the low frequencies nearly impossible.

Rick "thinking it's a moot point" Denney