speaking of alternate materials...

[KarlMarx]

I'm thinking i would love to have a helicon or some form of tuba made out of a solid block of granite or marble. something very heavy (ok, would have to be built into the concert hall) that would not allow any sound to go anywhere it wasn't supposed to. imagine pedal notes with fundamental.

Existerar pedales senza fundamentals?

Carolus Doubtissimus

[Rick Denney]

Existerar pedales senza fundamentals?

Actually, yes. Most pedals have mostly harmonic content in any case, and it's the difference tone between the harmonics that produces the fundamental pitch in the listener's ear.

Rick "thinking a granite tuba would not sounds much different from a brass tuba of the same shape" Denney

[LOTP]

Build a box for your tuba such that only the valves, m'piece, and the very end of the bell protrude. Fill the box with concrete.

[Dylan King]

How about getting one of these...

[JCradler]

Mmmmmm....Fortress of Solitude.....

Methinks we should all be practicing....

[Rick Denney]

Well, there's no physical way that thin brass can contain energy in the pedal range of a tuba....
Granted, our ears fill in the pedal tone for us, but the difference felt in the seat of the pants out in the audience (please, no 'brown note' jokes) would be most impressive.

We are looking forward to the results of your experiment.

Consider the number of watts of power required to produce 125 db SPL in the infrasonic range. When Mythbusters debunked the myth you don't want to talk about, their audio setup was fed by 25,000 watts of power. Loudspeaker excursions (intensity) were large fractions of an inch, and there were dozens of loudspeaker drivers (quantity). Tuba sound doesn't have anything like that sort of intensity, and it isn't because the brass is absorbing it. And the volume of sound is vastly less--look at the size of the bell. Consider the size of the resonating chamber needed to acoustically magnify that fraction of a watt coming from the embouchure into that much intensity and vibrating surface area.

I know you aren't prepared to believe this, but the limitation is not the material, it's the size of the resonating chamber. And that is limited by what can provide enough resonant feedback to sustain a buzz.

It's an easy experiment, by the way. Take an old sousaphone, put it in a box 4'x4'x4', with the bell rim flush with the top surface, and a mouthpipe that leads out of the box. Fill the box with concrete. Concrete weighs 150 pounds per cubic foot; you box will weigh about 900-1000 pounds. Yes, granite is denser, but I think this will be dense enough. Play the instrument. I think you'll find that the sound is, if anything, substantially deadened.

If heavier tubas were definitely better at producing sound power (i.e., intensity times quantity), we'd be wheeling them around in carts by now. We are, however, buying the biggest tubas that can be made to play the C or Bb harmonic series approximately in tune.

Rick "tuba sound is about shape" Denney

[Dan Schultz]

I'm thinking i would love to have a helicon or some form of tuba made out of a solid block of granite or marble.

As a much easier experiment, you could find an old helicon and encapsulate the entire thing in cast acrylic... leaving only the bell opening and access to the valves, slides, and receiver.

[ken k]

I'm thinking i would love to have a helicon or some form of tuba made out of a solid block of granite or marble.

As a much easier experiment, you could find an old helicon and encapsulate the entire thing in cast acrylic... leaving only the bell opening and access to the valves, slides, and receiver.

where can one acquire cast acrylic?
k-

[Chuck(G)]

Dern it, Rick, ya burst my bubble...

although i know you're right, the power that's coming out of any human-played sound producing device (excluding some sort of hand-cranked air-raid siren) is pretty small, and being a bass player too, i know it takes some rediculous amounts of power to make clean bass tones

Isn't there (too lazy to search for it) some guy who substituted an, er, bathroom fixture of the porcelain type for the bell of a tuba? That'd be pretty close.

Wish I could remember where I saw the photo....

[Kevin Hendrick]

How about getting one of these...

Wow, that must have been quite an earthquake ...

[jlbreyer]

The pic of the organ pipes reminded me of an excursion when I was a (ahem) little kid... My father introduced me to Mary Voigt(sp?), the organist at John Wanamaker in Philadelphia. She showed us around in the back room where they had the pipes mounted. Told us that the largest connected pipe was 32 feet. The insurors insisted that the 64 foot pipe(s) be disconnected to save the structure.

No idea of the truth of the comment, but that's my story and I'm sticking to it

[ThomasDodd]

She showed us around in the back room where they had the pipes mounted. Told us that the largest connected pipe was 32 feet. The insurors insisted that the 64 foot pipe(s) be disconnected to save the structure.

Note that the pipes aren't powered by human lungs. The low frequencies could have effects on the structure over prolonged periods.

Too bad so many of those great organs have been destoried. Many that remain, are not usable either. Sad. Very sad.

[jacobg]

How about a sculpture park where anyone can walk up, instert a mouthpiece into a tuba, and honk away at an unwrapped straight bugle no-valve sousaphone (a cross between an alphorn and the helms deep horn). You could make them out of PVC, granite, marble, brass, tin, leather, balsa, rubber, or carbon. Or an art gallery where these things were all over the walls, floor and ceiling, with bells coming out everywhere. I want one for my carhorn.

[Rick Denney]

How about a sculpture park where anyone can walk up, instert a mouthpiece into a tuba, and honk away at an unwrapped straight bugle no-valve sousaphone (a cross between an alphorn and the helms deep horn).

If you build it, they will come.

Rick "thinking 'you' is the operative word here" Denney

[Chuck(G)]

The pic of the organ pipes reminded me of an excursion when I was a (ahem) little kid... My father introduced me to Mary Voigt(sp?), the organist at John Wanamaker in Philadelphia. She showed us around in the back room where they had the pipes mounted. Told us that the largest connected pipe was 32 feet. The insurors insisted that the 64 foot pipe(s) be disconnected to save the structure.

No idea of the truth of the comment, but that's my story and I'm sticking to it

AFAIK (Moises could corroborate this), the 64' Gravissima on the Wanamaker organ is indeed connected and in good working order.

However

Almost all (Atlantic City Convention Hall and the Hill organ at Sydney Town Hall are the only exceptions I'm aware of)) 64' stops are "resultant" stops; that is, the illusion of a 64' sounding stop is produced by sounding a 21 1/3' stop at the same time as a 32' stop.

You can do a similar thing with two tubas--the ear is fooled into hearing a tone an octave down by two tones, one playing an octave above and the other playing a twelfth above the "tone that isn't there".

[Chuck(G)]

Is that organ pic for real?

Yep, it's a photo of Rosales Op. 24 at the Mickey Mou---Walt Disney Concert Hall in LA.

[Rick Denney]

Almost all (Atlantic City Convention Hall and the Hill organ at Sydney Town Hall are the only exceptions I'm aware of)) 64' stops are "resultant" stops; that is, the illusion of a 64' sounding stop is produced by sounding a 21 1/3' stop at the same time as a 32' stop.

I was told that the Skinner organ in the Washington National Cathedral has 64' basso diapason pipes, arranged horizontally behind the other pipes. I was told that by the organist David Majors while he was conducting the weekly Sundary afternoon organ recital. I didn't lay eyes on the pipe, though.

Rick "who thinks the Skinner is a fine-sounding organ" Denney

[Chuck(G)]

I was told that the Skinner organ in the Washington National Cathedral has 64' basso diapason pipes, arranged horizontally behind the other pipes. I was told that by the organist David Majors while he was conducting the weekly Sundary afternoon organ recital. I didn't lay eyes on the pipe, though.

Rick, Moises would know for certain, but I believe the 64' Bombarde in the pedal division is electronic on this particular instrument. Or so I've heard.

[Dan Schultz]

I'm thinking i would love to have a helicon or some form of tuba made out of a solid block of granite or marble.

As a much easier experiment, you could find an old helicon and encapsulate the entire thing in cast acrylic... leaving only the bell opening and access to the valves, slides, and receiver.

where can one acquire cast acrylic?
k-

McMaster-Carr
http://www.mcmaster.com/

Search for 'acrylic casting compound'.

[KarlMarx]

Is that organ pic for real?

Yep, it's a photo of Rosales Op. 24 at the Mickey Mou---Walt Disney Concert Hall in LA.

Myndir additionales:

http://www.rosales.com/opus/opus24ss/

Carolus Pictoresticus