What ever happened to...

[iiipopes]

OK, let us all recite the mantra: added mass damps vibration and changes characteristic (or mechanical impedance, if you must).

They are simply another tool depending on your instrument and your playing style. The theory is that the added mass damps spurious vibration, helping the "core" of the sound project better, and not get lost at the various nodal points vibrating about the horn itself. For some people, they are great. for others, they don't mean much. I'm in the middle. Instead of the full weights, I have little bits of lead tape here and there, like around the receiver and at the entrance and exit of the valve block to help damp spurious resonances at the transitional points. On my King Silvertone cornet, I have dimes under the valve caps. Just that little bit of weight really centered the intonation and helped the entire tone and range of the cornet. More than that simply impeded the overall response of the instrument. Likewise, I put a heavy circle of tape around the bottom valve covers on my various horns to see the effect, and just under the outside of the rim on my Kelly 18, and it likewise just slowed down the response without any further benefit to the intonation, projection or "core" of tone. So I took all that back off.

They are neither a cure-all, but nor are they just so much fru-fru. Depending on your embouchure and air support, your style of playing, and your instrument, added mass may or may not suit you. For some, they don't help. for others, soldering on solid brass billets aren't enough. For me, a few well placed grammes, not ounces, helped a significant amount.

[Chuck(G)]

Okay, seriously. This appears to be a fad that didn't even last as long as those coils you stuck in the leadpipe.

Has anyone done any objective (e.g. spectrum analyzer with artificial excitation) analysis? Blind testing by a listener and not the player? Tried this with a horn that was well-braced?

I don't get it--and I still have a hunk of 1 3/4" round brass stock that's just waiting for a definitive answer.

[Rick Denney]

Okay, seriously. This appears to be a fad that didn't even last as long as those coils you stuck in the leadpipe.

Has anyone done any objective (e.g. spectrum analyzer with artificial excitation) analysis? Blind testing by a listener and not the player? Tried this with a horn that was well-braced?

I don't get it--and I still have a hunk of 1 3/4" round brass stock that's just waiting for a definitive answer.

Ray Grim and I did as much of such a test as was possible. I put the instrument in his hands with and without the weights, and he didn't look. I could hear a difference, and he could feel a difference. It was very subtle in both cases, but not invisible.

I was unable to test it blindly, but let's just say that when Mark sent them to me, I was NOT a believer. He asked me to evaluate them as objectively as I could. My wife was working on something in the same room, and she could hear a difference (she had no idea that a difference should be expected--I hadn't mentioned I was making a change--but that doesn't eliminate the possibility of bias in my playing, of course). Ray could also hear a difference. And I could feel a difference.

That doesn't mean it wasn't a fad, or that they do good things for everyone. I thought that it made the instrument a little easier to aim for me, but that was a negative effect for Ray, who has far better control of the instrument in the first place.

I would put it in the category of perimeter-weighted golf clubs--faddish for a fad-prone crowd, but not without at least some real effect.

Rick "who didn't take the weights back off" Denney

[iiipopes]

I don't know if Rick will answer that, but I can: I sold my Wilson Staffs about ten years ago and got a modified Tour Edge that has the little hump in the back, so, like everything else I do, has a little bit of both. My stepfather, who has played since, well, since when, says it was the best thing I ever did. But in all honesty, it wasn't the heads -- it was the shaft. I got a graphite shaft that has the same stiff flex, but has a little more torque so it feels easier on my wrists and elbows. I got the idea when I got an old hickory mashie at a flea market for $5, and even though I couldn't hit it long, I could hit it straighter, even with its plain blade. Then on the golf channel I saw an interview with Byron Nelson just before he died that talked about how Bob Jones' swing was a little different because of compensating for the greater torque of a hickory shaft. AHA! I immediately went out, found a shaft that had the torque characteristics of hickory but the flex characteristics to match my swing speed, and the next round was immediately 5 shots better.

[Chuck(G)]

Ray could also hear a difference. And I could feel a difference.

There's my issue with the whole thing. What the player hears is going to affect the way he plays--and what the audience hears. With you, it was positive; with Ray it was negative.

In a way, it's like a player talking about a horn being more responsive when the bell has been moved an inch or two closer to the player's ears. It will definitely have an effect on playing, even if (all other things being equal) the effect on the horn's acoustic properties is negligible.

I'm trying to separate the placebo effect from the real effect.

[MartyNeilan]

Not to take this too off topic, but I have been through several homemade bell rings on the Weimar CC and they make a night and day difference. The horn is very live / responsive (good) BUT the bell tends to ring, especially on certain notes. The rim keeps the sound solid and consistent. I started out using fishtank airline, but went with the plastic tubing used to feed ice cube makers. The current rim is Krazy-glued where it overlaps for about 3/4".
Putting some more solder between the leadpipe and bell, or adding a brace between the top bow and bell would probably have roughly the same results as the rim.

[Chuck(G)]

During one of my orchestra "naps" I tried wrapping some athletic tape that I keep in my music bag around my mouthpiece. IT did seem to help a bit, and putting a ring of rubber tubing around the bell helped even more. I eventually took the tape off because it was getting a little disgusting but the ring is still on though I want to re do it (shrunk more than I thought it would).

Damping an overactive bell has been around for quite awhile. You might want to try placing some lead tape (used to alter balance in tennis racquets and golf clubs; pick it up at a pro shop) on the inside of your bell to alter things a bit.

[Rick Denney]

I'm trying to separate the placebo effect from the real effect.

No, you are trying to separate subjective from objective effects. That's not the same thing. Placebos are fake treatments--someone being persuaded a change was made when no change was made. On my tuba, the change was made, and it had an effect. Did that effect matter? That's another question altogether.

The problem, of course, is that musicians are humans and subject to their own perception of reality. Subjective assessments are entirely appropriate in a subjective endeavor, as long as the biases are stated.

Rick "it matters if the player thinks it matters" Denney

[Rick Denney]

The problem for me was that Ray knew that something was different.

That can be a problem for you only because I clearly stated my test procedure, including the built-in biases. Thus, you can choose. That, of course, does not make the effect nonexistent. The presence of bias in a test doesn't disprove the result, it just lowers the reliability of the result. Proving the weights had no effect would be even more difficult then proving they had an effect.

Rick "noting that the surprise result that violates expectations are sometimes the most instructive" Denney

[Rick Denney]

golf clubs vs. tubas:

Although my Dad was a pretty good golfer (usually low-80's...occasionally high-70's on tough/long courses), I've spent so little time at it (none in the past 20 years, and never a better no-Mulligan score than 95 on a tough course) that a thrift store set of approximately the correct length would do me no better than a custom-fitted set...

...The same rule certainly applies to operable tubas and their players.

I don't agree. Everything gets evaluated against the norm for that person, using the standards of measure appropriate for that person. Everyone is a hacker compared to someone. I may still play like crap with my nice clubs, but they were still an improvement for me over the cheapies I had before. And I may still sound like a flabby-lipped hacker on the tuba, but my bad Holton sound is closer to my desired sound than my bad Miraphone sound. But to Gene (or you), it's just subtle variations on mediocre.

Rick "satisfying his own modest objectives" Denney

[Chuck(G)]

No, you are trying to separate subjective from objective effects. That's not the same thing. Placebos are fake treatments--someone being persuaded a change was made when no change was made. On my tuba, the change was made, and it had an effect. Did that effect matter? That's another question altogether

Well, yes, you're right--but there's also a "placebo" effect.

There's a natural human tendency to find some tangible difference when a change is perceived, even when nothing substantive has been changed. A player sees some new gizmo attached to his horn and figures, what with its heft, it's got to make a difference somehow. So he finds one.