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what is the average decibels a pro can go.
and/or
who fills the hall best regardless off playing to "decibels"
I know loudness and projection are often two separate subjects

How far are you from the person playing the tuba? Sound decreases with distance (double the distance = 1/4 of the energy). If you are 10 feet from a sound source and you move to 20 feet the loudness will decrease by about 6dB.

Hup

hup,true that's why I also asked about projection. I know trumpeters that can bend the needle on a meter but cannot be heard at the back of the hall.
The reason I am asking is to get a basic baseline goal. I figure if I am close to the average' I am doing part of it right. So for the sake of accurate comparison say the meter is on a stand about 4-5 feet away from bell.

Stryk wrote:683db - loud enough to make you puke....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVlS64b_4K8

Is ... this ... a common thing in the USA?

Stryk wrote:

Wu299 wrote:

Stryk wrote:683db - loud enough to make you puke....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVlS64b_4K8

Is ... this ... a common thing in the USA?

In certain circles, yes. Hopefully most players know this does NOT sound like a tuba/sousaphone.

we had a competition last week during camp. 4 sousas lined up (including me) and we "competed"(in officially) against other high schools.
We won, of course, but at the end most of the people had ran off, and the people that were there had headphones on and had blankets around their heads.lol.

brassbow wrote:hup,true that's why I also asked about projection. I know trumpeters that can bend the needle on a meter but cannot be heard at the back of the hall.
The reason I am asking is to get a basic baseline goal. I figure if I am close to the average' I am doing part of it right. So for the sake of accurate comparison say the meter is on a stand about 4-5 feet away from bell.

I guess your question boils down to; is it possible to make a determination about projection (a subjective judgement) based on a dB level (an objective measurement)? I would say probably not . . . otherwise why would we even talk about projection? For us to discuss projection at all, it must have a different meaning than loudness..

It might be a good idea to start by deciding what projection is. My concept of projection is a sound carries over distance, and that is felt or experienced by the listener with more intensity, regardless of how loud it is played. Good projection doesn't go away when the volume is low.

Hup

hup_d_dup wrote:How far are you from the person playing the tuba? Sound decreases with distance (double the distance = 1/4 of the energy).

Hup

That is only true for a point source radiating omnidirectionally.

I do not believe those conditions apply to a tuba.

Even for a lightbulb, it is only true far away. The "near field" would be quite a bit different.

timothy42b wrote:
That is only true for a point source radiating omnidirectionally.

I do not believe those conditions apply to a tuba.

Even for a lightbulb, it is only true far away. The "near field" would be quite a bit different.

That's true. The 6dB loss at double the distance is somewhat misleading . . . in addition to the size of the radiator, it also doesn't take into account the ambient reflections.

- BUT -

how deeply do you want to get into the dB side of the discussion? We don't yet have an agreed-upon definition of projection!

Hup

brassbow wrote:what is the average decibels a pro can go.
and/or
who fills the hall best regardless off playing to "decibels"
I know loudness and projection are often two separate subjects

brassbow, what is projection? A couple of messages ago I gave my own definition; it may not be a good one, and it may not agree with yours.

Hup

Stryk wrote: In certain circles, yes. Hopefully most players know this does NOT sound like a tuba/sousaphone.

If I get around to using my GI Bill, I want to go to an HBCU and play in their band. This is like drag racing for tubas.

Fritz Kaenzig told me he knew someone who had a sophisticated, high end volume / decibel instrument. Playing as loud as he possibly could, with multiple attempts, the highest reading he was able to achieve was around 7, on a 0-10 scale. When he played as full, rich, as possible, he scored almost 9. He said it’s all about the overtones.

Stryk wrote:

Leland wrote:

Stryk wrote: This is like drag racing for tubas.

It's the sound of a piston blowing through the roof part of drag racing!

Even awesomer!

Stryk wrote:683db - loud enough to make you puke....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVlS64b_4K8

I get that you're joking, but unscientifically I'll guestimate that they're cracking out 120 db or so. 150 decibels is enough to make you deaf and to make you ill. 200 can kill you.

683db would probably kill everyone you know....

PMeuph wrote:

Stryk wrote:683db - loud enough to make you puke....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVlS64b_4K8

I get that you're joking, but unscientifically I'll guestimate that they're cracking out 120 db or so. 150 decibels is enough to make you deaf and to make you ill. 200 can kill you.

683db would probably kill everyone you know....

683db can kill you by the laptop/PC/phone speaker exploding!

Stryk wrote:I am doubting they are close to 120db - an entire 350 piece college marching band is about that.

The actual dB numbers depend a lot on proximity and where they're playing. We had OSHA people come to an indoor rehearsal and do some measurements on our ensemble (about 45-55 brass, depending on the year, plus about 15 battery percussion), and we were hitting 115+ when measured at the podium in front of the group. Back in the percussion, it peaked in the high 120s, I think. We didn't get numbers that high when measured outdoors.

Earplugs were standard issue, and the OSHA results were used to justify the cost.

Pics from a rehearsal break and of my stash of musicians' earplugs:

Antontuba wrote:Fritz Kaenzig told me he knew someone who had a sophisticated, high end volume / decibel instrument. Playing as loud as he possibly could, with multiple attempts, the highest reading he was able to achieve was around 7, on a 0-10 scale. When he played as full, rich, as possible, he scored almost 9. He said it’s all about the overtones.

It seems that many people think that the Chicago Symphony brass section has the capability to play very loud, but what they are doing is playing very well in-tune and resonating very well, which is very powerful at any dynamic level. Resonating, and making the overtones work for you is more important than blowing X - number of liters of air per minute.

Lee Stofer wrote:It seems that many people think that the Chicago Symphony brass section has the capability to play very loud, but what they are doing is playing very well in-tune and resonating very well, which is very powerful at any dynamic level. Resonating, and making the overtones work for you is more important than blowing X - number of liters of air per minute.

+1

That video reminds me of the french style of playing hunting horns

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmQv67CmPf8" target="_blank

It also reminds me of the Tennessee State University marching band which I enjoy watching very much. Their energy and enthusiasm makes me happy.

Interesting thread. There was a broadcast of Science Friday on NPR a while ago that was investigating how many "trumpets" it would have taken to actually bring down the walls of Jericho. They determined that it would take about 170 decibels to do it. They brought in one of the engineers from Altec Lansing speakers and he stated that they could not build a speaker that could go that load. He also mentioned that at 150 decibels, the air around the sound source turns into plasma. Great stuff.

Personally I have been clocked at about 120 db using the meter in Harvey Phillips' studio.

In 1980 I worked as Keystone Kop (tubist) at Valleyfair! amusement park. Another group was the Oom-Pah band, same instrumentation as our band (5 horns, two drums). One day our band was on the far end of the park from the Oom-Pahs, and you could clearly hear them through roller coasters, games of all kinds, lots of din. The euphonium player in particular was quite a breath support player (Roxanne DeBates, as I recall) , and we could hear her about as loud as the rest of the band put together. The memory of it really sticks, we were a long way from where we should have been able to hear even a note of it.

Playing in tune is what makes the sound carry. An unfocused or unclear sound doesn't go far. All summer, school groups would parade though the park, and sometimes we fell in with them and picked up whatever they were playing. We weren't quite as tuned up as the Oom-Pahs but we could equal the smaller school bands without any trouble.