Decible meters, anyone use them? and how?

[Matt G]

Have any of you folk used one of these in regular practice?

If you did, what were the requirements of the tool?

Where did you pick yours up?

Thanks!

[CJ Krause]

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[WoodSheddin]

Have any of you folk used one of these in regular practice?

If you did, what were the requirements of the tool?

Where did you pick yours up?

Thanks!

You can pick them up at Radio Shack. I prefer the cheaper one with the needle. The digital one gives less visual feedback I feel and costs more

Many uses.

If you buzz with it then you get a pretty good idea of when your buzz is getting more efficient. If you are using the same air flow and effort today as yesterday but registering a stronger dB reading then you are buzzing with more efficiency.

If you play some scales very slowly with the meter on then you can find dead notes which need some quality buzzing and other work to make better. Play a Bb scale and if the G is registerring 10 dB lower than the other notes average than that note is not working for you. Hint, check that notes intonation next.

Also helps when working on the lower range. For example, play a decending scale at forte starting on an F or E below the staff. As you decend keep the needle within +/- 3-5dB. As you decend you may notice that you are playing the lower note with less volume than the upper notes. Balance this out and your lower register should become more robust. This is good work for Prokofiev 5 or the Lincolnshire Posy lower section.

The decibel meter is also good to remind you that the tuba REALLY cuts through once you get up into the staff. You don't need as much effort as you might think to really cut on Berlioz excerpts.

Finally on pieces with higher volume markings which contain longer notes the decibel meter will let you know if your sound is carrying through these long notes or if it is instead decaying. Keep the needle steady unless you are choosing to crecendo or decrecendo. Don't let the horn dictate what you do. Make your own concious decisions.

Remember that audition committees and audiences will almost always assume that every note you play was a choice of yours and not a limitation or mistake. If your low range is softer than your middle range than they assume that you interpretted it that way. Try to stay out of autopilot whenever possible.

[Shockwave]

I use one for loudspeaker work, and the one I have is the same as Sean's, the analog Radio Shack model. It's universally regarded as the simplest and easiest to use SPL meter. Such devices don't really measure the absolute power of sound at a particular point as you might expect, but they are designed to weight different parts of the sound spectrum in varying degrees to approximate the sensitivity of the ear and provide some reasonable measure of the apparent loudness of sounds. The Radio Shack meter has two settings: A weighting and C weighting. The A weighting approximates the human ear sensitivity for soft sounds such as rustling leaves and normal speech, while the C weighting is more appropriate for louder sounds like driving in a car on the highway. The weighting reduces the meters sensitivity to high and low frequency sounds, with A weighting attenuating the extremes more than C. Bear in mind that the sounds produced by a tuba are in the range (below 1kHz) that is most attenuated by the weighting. That's why, at one meter distance, I can register 121dB on the indicator with a trumpet but only about 110dB with a much larger and more powerful tuba. The weighting really isn't valid at such high sound levels.

It's all very confusing, but in general, sound level meters try to produce a subjective measurement.

I find the sound meter most useful when I'm practicing shaping the notes. Having visual feedback from a moving needle, or even from a glowing LED I sometimes rig up, is quite useful.

-Eric

[clarke]

i dont own or use this device but earlier this year at a masterclass with Nick Atkinson from U of Ottawa and NAC Orch...anyways he had me blow through a straw over a decible reader and use it as a visual stimulant...so i blew over it and got a reading...then he said ok now make a higher reading...it was really helpful

[imperialbari]

Even one of the most known faces in the tuba community has had his own special display developed and mounted on the bell rim of his former hugaphone. The short arm displays the noise level at the attack, whether the long arm displays the noise level of the sustained note.

According to an obscure Egyptian tuba scientologist, from Memphis I think, that would define our bespectaculated tuba phenomenon as a member of the older Chihuahua school.

For verification please follow this link:

http://tinyurl.com/2t7cn

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Imped baritone