Dimensions for a conical straight mute 42cm bell Eb tuba

[marccromme]

... for a 42cm bell Eb 5v tuba (Danube) ???

Does there exist an empiric formula relating bell diameter, pitch (Eb or F). bore diameter to the dimensions of a conical straight mute which works and does not alter pitch more than necessary?? After all, a conical straight has only 3 dimensions - Height, diameter base, diameter opening.

Or do you know a straight mute which will work (or does work well) for similar sized Eb tubas, for example miraphone nordic start aor the smaller starlet ??

Not one of my brass bands Eb tuba mutes (Dennis Wick spun aluminium and Wallace blue bubble straight) do work, they are too large and lower pitch considerably, so I thought I'd look for a conocal one instead of ..

Any experiences out there ?

[Wyvern]

Marc, The Wessex wooden mute works fine with the tuba. Affects the tuning far less than most mutes.
http://www.wessex-tubas.co.uk/product/tuba-mute/

[marccromme]

Nice - thanks for the pointer, I hadn't seen it on your site.

[PaulMaybery]

In messing around with some mutes designed for pretty normal sized 4/4 bells I began to realize that when they were being used in much larger equipment, the pitch was compromised severely.
I remember a noted tubaist once mentioning that he had attached a tube to the small end, thus in effect lenghtening the mute by about 4 to 5 inches. I was toying with using an old 40 year old Ron Apperson mute on my 6/4 BAT. It has always served me well on a 4/4 tuba with a more or less traditional straight mute sound. I simply attached a hollowed soup can to the mute with some adhesive Velcro. The results were surprising in that the pitch now held dead on the same as without the mute.

I performed the same ritual with a Denis Wick bass trombone mute with my Wessex cimbasso. Initially the mute did not function properly in the cimbasson both with regard to resonance and pitch. I did make interchangable corks attached with velcro so the mute fit the cimbasso bell. In this case I added about 3 inches of 1 inch pvc water supply pipe. Again the mute functioned beautifully. The Wick mute also had a cup which I wanted for special effect on the cimy.

Not being a scientist I have no real idea how to explain what was happening. But it did seem apparent that there are certain points in the harmonic series, that can tolerate the insertion of a mute. Beyond that, for me it was trial and error and a bit of naive surprise when it actually worked.

[marccromme]

Hi Paul - thanks for the trick, I shall remember to try some additional tubing lenght in case the mute I'll purchase woun't play in tune.

I had one DW tenor straight aluminium mute with a wolf tone at G, this was easily corrected by drilling two 4mm holes at the side of themute, there where the aiminium parts are folded together. That is the only modification I ever made to a straight mute.

[MaryAnn]

This seems a recent thread. I got a cheap bass tbone mute to try to fit in my borrowed British baritone because there is a muted passage in the upcoming concert. It is a full half step sharp, meaning it goes in too far. It was cheap, I don't have a lot of time to mess with something, and I'm trying to figure out if just putting padding on the corks to move it out enough to lower the pitch would work. I see reference to adding PVC to the small end and basically don't understand what that is doing. Can someone explain?

[PaulMaybery]

Hi Mary Ann.
I noticed that where the mute ends inside the bell is rather important. As you insert the mute inside the bell, it seems to work fine until a certain point. You can almost feel where the harmonic is happening. This is much the same as what a horn player is doing with their right hand in the bell. I found that a mute that was too short, for some reason fouled up the pitch and also to a degree the resonance. I noticed on the tuba, most of the issue seemed to be in the low register. Not only could I not center the notes at all, for the notes that would come close to resonating were way off on pitch. Actually it was Roger Bobo who mentioned addition some extra tubing to a mute. I think that is some where in one of his biographical sketches on his web site. When I happened to add to the cork, by using adhesive velcro and strips of gasket cork from the hardware store, the cork was built up more or less to an inch. This did leave room for a lot of sound to escape around the cone of the mute, but it did not seem to be that much of a problem. One other thing was that with the extension on the smaller mute, it still seemed to work ok in a smaller bell. While it now fit the 6/4 BAT is still worked in the 4/4 bell. I really have no idea of the physics involved, only that trial and error seemed to work. At first I just built up the corks, but then finally learned that adding to the length was also a critical factor.

[MaryAnn]

Thanks. That explains it perfectly. The next thing I'm going to do, though, because the passage is short and there is only one passage, is pretend it is a stop mute and use fingerings down 1/2 step like I would on the horn, and see if I can get the thing to play in tune. So far I've been stuffing a small towel down the bell....as has been one of the euph players. Not a very sophisticated approach.

[marccromme]

Dear tubenet users owning a straight conical mute for your tuba

I am still interested in knowing the dimensions of well-working straight mutes. So far I do only know the size of the Wessex mute

May I ask you to measure and report the following things in centimeter or inches, as you wish:

0) brand name of mute
1) diameter at wide, closed end
2) diameter at narrow, open end
3) height of mute
4) which tuba it does fit
5) .. and if it plays well or has bad effects on intonation and sound

That would help a lot in understanding correct dimensions for different bell sizes, and I'd appreciate your time. If you have well-playing straight conical euph mutes, i'd be interested in the measurements too ...

Best, Marc

[imperialbari]

Paul, could you post photos of the lengthened mutes?

Better straight mutes for horns are tuneable by means of a telescoping tube inside the mute.

My Denis Wick straight mute for horn wasn’t tuneable, but came out sharp when used with my Conn 28D. So I took the cardboard tube from an empty toilet roll and made the mute tuneable.

Klaus