Replating a laquered tuba to silver???

[Rick Denney]

Can plating a laquered tuba to silver be done to make the plating last longer and does it change the sound. i have a laquered pt-20 rotary valve horn and was wondering if plating the horn in silver would make any difference. i was also wondering about how much this would cost. thanks in advance

Harold is a little direct, but in this case, I agree with him, from a physical point of view.

But I have heard too many opinions from top pros who I believe are not imagining things who say there is an effect. The problem is, there is no consistency in their reports about what that effect is. It would be impossible to test without a machine making the buzz, because even if we just believe it will make a difference, it will make a difference. And sample variation could easily swallow up any effect. We all know that one tuba is different from the next, even if both are the same make and model and supposedly identical. Those differences will be much greater than the effect of the lacquer. (There is no possible difference between raw brass and silver plate--silver is too much like brass in its mechanical properties and in any case the plating is only a few microns thick. Thus, any difference in going from lacquer to silver is in removing the lacquer.)

In practice, I think the only difference you would immediately notice is that your bank account would have at least $2000 less in it. It's much cheaper to buy silver on a horn in the first place than it is to put it there ex-factory.

Rick "who'd much rather spend that money on lessons, unless you just like the look of silver that much" Denney

[Ryan_Beucke]

Can be done and it doesn't change the sound. Anyone that says differently doesn't understand the laws of physics.

According to the laws of physics, every open Bb on a euphonium should be perfectly in tune with each other. I've seen many cases of this not being true. Physics is not always perfect since there are other variables.

I will agree though that an unlaquered tuba should sound pretty much the same as a silver plated one, since the laquer would make the most if any difference.

[Rick Denney]

According to the laws of physics, every open Bb on a euphonium should be perfectly in tune with each other. I've seen many cases of this not being true. Physics is not always perfect since there are other variables.

It isn't the physics that is imperfect, it's out imperfect understanding of it.

For example, there is absolutely nothing about physics to support your statement that all the open Bb's on a euphonium must be the same. The shape of the taper will affect the aligmnet of the harmonic series hugely. It's quite possible to make a tuba-like isntrument that won't play according to the harmonic series at all. Or, one horn-like taper will only resonate the odd overtones, while another will only resonate the even overtones. That series has relevance only for straight pipes and strings. With tapered pipes, an in-tune harmonic series is a result of design and experimentation.

Rick "who thinks a little knowledge is a dangerous thing" Denney

[tubeast]

With the risk of being called a counter of peas (that´s a German expression, but you´ll get the idea right away):
The physics of a system (any system, in this case a tuba and what surrounds it) is always effected by anything that belongs to it.
So it WILL matter if your horn is silverplated, gold plated, raw or whatever. If you manage to keep ALL OTHER VARIABLES THERE ARE in a constant setting, you may even be able to notice the difference. But that´s exactly the problem: there´s too many variables:
- the chemicals in your breath (do you smoke? drink alcohol? eat garlic?...) influence the nature of the gas you exhale.
- your mental state will effect your posture and attitude towards the sounds you´ll make. This will result in different alignment and reaction of any kind of tissue in your body, causing your lips to vibrate ine many different ways.

It would be possible to go on like that for pages.
So IT´S ALL ABOUT THE PHYSICS, because what we do when we play tuba is: altering the behavior of matter, of which physics (enveloping chemistry here) is a science.

Imagine me on my first encounter with the tuba.
Now, with practise, those variables mentioned above are narrowed down further and further, so an increasing number of them become close to constant. To get back to me:
- after a while it will matter which valve I´m using
- a horn with a complete set of tuning slides and a tight water key might make a difference
- eventually the position of those slides becomes interesting
- several further steps that I´m skipping here (You know, tongue position and the likes)
- I might seek (and find) suggestions which particular horn / MP to choose or what kind of drills to practise on TubeNet
- and after a much longer time, (after I´ll already have made lots of money as a pro tubist so it won´t make a difference any more) it might even matter what kind of coating is chosen for my horn.

Until that time, I guess all that matters is whether or not I like to spend the extra money to get an awesome silver plated tuba.
But then again, I´m a lazy kind of guy and I guess I´ll just wait some more time ´till I got the money to have my horn GOLD PLATED so I´ll just have to wipe off the water stains to REALLY impress my section mates in community band.

Thanks for your patience, I guess sometimes I get carried away.

Hans

[Ryan_Beucke]

Tubeast pretty much summed it up. I know that the horn is full of variables that'll affect the end result of what note you're trying to play. I'm just countering when people claim that the material a tuba is made out of and the subsequent laquering/plating makes no difference on the sound because "physics says so". Hence my example; physics says that in the overtone series, octaves are exactly half the frequency of the last one, making them perfectly in tune. Of course this is almost never true. Even in stretched strings, which are another good example of this, there are often inperfections in the string that can effect the overtone series.

Sorry about the rant, and to the original question, yes it makes a difference that you probably won't be able to hear very well.