Silence is Golden (at least according to my wife!)

iiipopes · Post by **iiipopes** » Mon Apr 10, 2006 12:42 pm

When the weather is not too bad, I get exiled to the garage. If wife & child are in a tolerant mood, I go into the guest bedroom and shut the door, but like you say, it can still be perceived as loud! I cannot play after my son goes to sleep; it does wake him up.

Lew · Post by **Lew** » Mon Apr 10, 2006 12:49 pm

I own a Yamaha silent brass that I purchased when my children were still living at home, and have tried practice mutes. The silent brass does a better job in sound attenuation and it has electronics that allow you to hear your playing better than on other practice mutes. Although any practice mute will make the horn feel stuffier, and potentially affect intonation, I find the silent brass to suffer from these problems less than others.

On the downside, the silent brass is much heavier, making the horn top heavy, and it is relatively expensive. If I were buying something today I would probably just get a regular practice mute, like one of these:

http://www.dillonmusic.com/accessories_ ... mutes.html

The Wick works best for me, but I don't think that it's worth the extra money over the Trumcor.

tubeast · Post by **tubeast** » Mon Apr 10, 2006 1:18 pm

I practise in the bandÂ´s room (situated in the basement of the local school). I can leave my stuff there too, so itÂ´s quite convenient.
Other than that: IÂ´d go for the attic (yeah, it GETS hot in the summer) or a small room in the basement. Cover all flat surfaces (including the door) with several alternating layers of styrofoam and hard material (plywood, plastics or whatever). (Why multilayered? because the flat, hard surface will reflect most of the soundwaves, while the styrofoam will dampen vibrations. Chances are that a fairly large portion of the sound you emit will get trapped between those layers.)

Dean E · Post by **Dean E** » Mon Apr 10, 2006 2:11 pm

tubeast wrote: . . . . Cover all flat surfaces (including the door) with several alternating layers of styrofoam and hard material (plywood, plastics or whatever). (Why multilayered? because the flat, hard surface will reflect most of the soundwaves, while the styrofoam will dampen vibrations. Chances are that a fairly large portion of the sound you emit will get trapped between those layers.)

The mass of a wall is what stops sound energy. A surface texture, such as an eggcrate, can absorb and dissipate some amount of sound.

Here's a post from the old Tubenet archives:
http://www.chisham.com/tips/bbs/feb2004 ... 65548.html

I have a Yamaha Silent Brass, which is OK. The negatives are that my horn plays out of tune, complicating any playing along with recordings. And the horn becomes very top-heavy.

Donn · Post by **Donn** » Mon Apr 10, 2006 3:53 pm

Or a tumbleweed houses "vardo"

Things on wheels may be less permit hassle (or not, I'm just guessing), and easier to get rid of later.

MartyNeilan · Post by **MartyNeilan** » Mon Apr 10, 2006 5:19 pm

TubaTuck wrote:Hey Dean:

They say the new version of the Silent Brass is considerably lighter.

If this doggone thing works, it seems like the perfect solution.

Maybe the new version has better performance overall.

When did this "NEW" version come out??

Dean E · Post by **Dean E** » Mon Apr 10, 2006 6:25 pm

TubaTuck wrote:Hey Dean:

They say the new version of the Silent Brass is considerably lighter.

If this doggone thing works, it seems like the perfect solution.

Maybe the new version has better performance overall.

If I can find a place that will take it back if I'm disappointed, I may give one of these contraptions a try.

Tuck

The silent brass tuba mute on the European web site (link below) is the same top-heavy mute that I have, which changes intonation of my horns. However, correcting intonation is not so difficult now that I have a pro horn with lots of travel, for pulling and pushing, the tuning slide.
http://www.yamaha-europe.com/yamaha_eur ... index.html

Any of Yamaha's "new, improved" language evidently refers to recently marketing a lighter, simplified electronic control unit, still called "ST9." The newer unit does not have as many input and output receptacles as does my older, larger unit.

MartyNeilan · Post by **MartyNeilan** » Mon Apr 10, 2006 6:52 pm

Well, I decided to bite the bullet and order one for myself to try. I don't give a rat's patootie about the electronics, but just want to be able to blow my face off on excerpts on my big horn while at home. At my old apartment, I could often get away with MF and lower on the F tuba only, for limited amounts of time.

Wait til the wife sees the credit card

tubatooter1940 · Post by **tubatooter1940** » Mon Apr 10, 2006 11:25 pm

If you get a six night a week gig, you won't practice more than two or three times in a week.

tofu · Post by **tofu** » Tue Apr 11, 2006 1:14 am

Cheapest solution -- buy everybody else in the family earplugs!

Industrial earplugs -- $1.79 at Farm & Fleet

tubatooter1940 · Post by **tubatooter1940** » Tue Apr 11, 2006 9:43 am

I wonder what it would be like to have a wife that liked things quiet.
I married a mountain woman and she and her whole family yell like they're still up a hill in ordinary conversation. They play all radios and T.V.s wide open.
My wife never complained when I rehearsed my rock band in our living room at full volume. The kids loved it. One night an old man in his pajamas walked, unannounced into our living room. He said he lived six blocks away and since he couldn't sleep with all this going on, he decided to drop in and listen to some pretty good music.
We got him a coke and continued rehearsing.

Rick F · Post by **Rick F** » Tue Apr 11, 2006 10:39 am

I have a Yamaha SB mute system for my euph. I only use it when I'm visiting the kids and the grandkids are napping. It works pretty well and I use the electronics as well. You can select different effects which helps kill the muffled sound you normally hear with a mute. I would say the Yamaha SB muffles about 90% of the sound. It is heavy even for the euphonium.
______________

P.S. Given the topic of this thread, "Silence is Golden", I think it's appropriate to add that I wish I was silent when I posted that "Letter to President". I got that in an email yesterday and thought it was funny... and topical. I forgot about Sean's rule of no political - or political humor posts until Bloke raised the question. Then I thought the thread was doomed for deletion. I never thought Sean would lock the whole 'off topic' forum.

I PM'd Sean with my apology for that post. Hopefully he'll re-open the 'off-topic' forum soon. Sorry guys .

iiipopes · Post by **iiipopes** » Tue Apr 11, 2006 10:37 pm

Hey, Rick F --

It's OK. I got to read it before it was deleted. I for one was not offended, but I work in a place where differences of opinion and cleaning up the resulting mess are job security. I've also had to apologize for really getting on the sizzling edge here and there as well. Please PM me if you'd like to talk more about it. I'm more than willing to "listen" to opinions or rants that need to be aired, as I vent my spleen occasionally as well, and usually have to clean up my own mess as a result.

adam0408 · Post by **adam0408** » Tue Apr 11, 2006 11:26 pm

If you are going to "soundproof" a room of your house, (I put that in quotes because it is pretty difficult to actually do this in a cost-efective manner) hang up some carpet and heavy blankets on the walls. If there is a little space, say 1/2", under the door, more sound will pass through that space than the entire rest of the door. Putting something in that crack will help, and hanging soft and heavy stuff on the door will also help.

A big problem a lot of people have with casual acoustical treatments is isolation of vibration. When you think about it, this is all that sound waves really are: vibrations in air. If you can stop the vibrations, you can stop the sound. This is very important especially where tubas are concerned, because the low frequency notes that we play produce a lot of vibration that can be very difficult to dampen.

The reason why hung ceilings are so prolific in many classrooms and schools around the country is that they can be pretty effective at damping vibration for several reasons: They create an airspace between the ceiling and the floor above, and the material actually absorbs some sound waves itself. So if you are really committed to soundproofing, this could be an option, especially in a basement area.

Also, don't discount the effect that the heating system and ductwork in your house has on the distrubtution of sound. Plug up any vents in the room in which you are practicing and you should hear a big difference in the level of sound that is escaping.

Good luck man, and I hope that you can get your problem figured out! I sure wouldnt want to practice for any length of time with a practice mute in if I had a choice in the matter.