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Adam's Euphonium Picture
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Adam's Euphonium Picture
Last edited by tonewheeler; 01-30-2013, 12:26 AM.Euphs:
Miraphone 5050 Ambassador
Wessex Travel (Tornister) Euphonium 'Maly' ER154
Yamaha 201 Baritone
Mp: Wick SM4 Ultra X
Groups:
The San Diego Concert BandTags: None
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By thickness do you mean the thickness of the walls of the horn?Help me march!!!
http://www.indiegogo.com/IMarchCascades
Cascades 2012 - Euphonium
Cascades 2013 - Euphonium
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Very clever photo - thanks for sharing!
Yes, when I talk about metal thickness on the Adams I'm referring to the wall thickness. The thickness affects response, tone, and projection. As I've mentioned elsewhere on the forum, Adams concept is to help the whole horn resonate by keeping the thickness uniform.
Think about a balloon as you inflate it. When you first pick up a red balloon, it is a dark red and is pretty opaque. But as you blow it up, the balloon wall gets thinner; it becomes a lighter color and more translucent. Now keep that thought in mind for a minute.
Most euphoniums start as a set of tubes. Those tubes are bent and put into a form. Hydraulic fluid is forced into the bent tube under high pressure, and the tube expands to fit the form (which gives it the smaller-to-larger taper). Look at the fat bottom bow and the long, thinner top bow on the horn. Let's say the manufacturer uses tubing with a wall thickness of .60. Look at the top bow's small end, where it connects to the tuning slide. Think about the tubing there being .60, and then look at the other end of that tube, where it attaches to the bottom bow. It's much wider at that point, so like the balloon, the walls have been stretched more and are thinner. In the same way, think about the bottom bow. At it's small end where it attaches to the top bow it might be close to .60, but at the large end where it attaches to the bell it will have to be thinner. Now look back to where the top and bottom bow are attached. You have attached the thinner, expanded tubing of the top bow to the thicker, small end of the bottom bow. Same thing happens where the expanded bottom bow meets the bell.
So with the standard method of forming tubes you not only have the thickness constantly changing for each individual tube, but you also create several joints where one thickness mates with a different thickness.
Hold a deflated balloon beside an inflated balloon and see the effect. Even if brass were translucent, it would appear more subtle with a euphonium, but we know that it's the little things that make a difference!
Adams forms these "tubes" from sheet metal, so they don't need to create the dramatic expansion from one end to the other. I'm sure there are drawbacks to using sheet metal. First, that means you have a seam along the length of the tube (invisible, but there nevertheless). And in its final shaping the formed sheet metal would undergo a little stretching (although its consistency is still dramatically better than with hydraulically drawn tubing).
So every design concept has advantages and disadvantages. But the proof is in the playing. I have never encountered a compensating euphonium that responds so easily and consistently, which to me is pretty good proof!Dave Werden (ASCAP)
Euphonium Soloist, U.S. Coast Guard Band, retired
Adams Artist (Adams E3)
Alliance Mouthpiece DC3, Wick 4AL, Wick 4ABL
YouTube: dwerden
Facebook: davewerden
Twitter: davewerden
Instagram: davewerdeneuphonium
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That's a great idea on his part, I think. As for the seams across the whole horn, most one-piece trombone bells have a huge seam running down the entire length of the bell, but the craftsmen that make those seem to think it is a system that works(or they would use another means of construction, I suppose). I would imagine that a well-soldered seam could almost cancel out the original effects of having a seam in the first place, and that the uniformity of the wall thickness you mentioned would really add to the resonance of an instrument. I am most used to Jupiter marching euphoniums, and they don't have uniform wall thicknesses, but they do have very thick walls to begin with, and I quite like that about them.
They sure are heavy though.Help me march!!!
http://www.indiegogo.com/IMarchCascades
Cascades 2012 - Euphonium
Cascades 2013 - Euphonium
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I was thinking about this last night, and it seems to me that the lack of uniformity in other horns would mean that the horn would respond differently in different areas of the range (due to sympathetic resonances in the metal at different pitches). So, manufacturers like Besson, Hirsbrunner, and Miraphone use heavier gauge metals, and create darker sounds BUT, the inconsistencies in the metal lead to tonal pockets, since thinner metals willresonate differently from the denser metals when higher notes are played, or when lower notes are played. The same goes for the brightness of the Willson horns; thinner metals are used, but they have the same tonal pockets. The Adams horns are special because you get the same sympathetic resonance throughout the range, so you don't get these tonal pockets. Just thought I'd explain that in case anybody's... befuddled.
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Originally posted by DaTweeka View PostI was thinking about this last night, and it seems to me that the lack of uniformity in other horns would mean that the horn would respond differently in different areas of the range (due to sympathetic resonances in the metal at different pitches). So, manufacturers like Besson, Hirsbrunner, and Miraphone use heavier gauge metals, and create darker sounds BUT, the inconsistencies in the metal lead to tonal pockets, since thinner metals willresonate differently from the denser metals when higher notes are played, or when lower notes are played. The same goes for the brightness of the Willson horns; thinner metals are used, but they have the same tonal pockets. The Adams horns are special because you get the same sympathetic resonance throughout the range, so you don't get these tonal pockets. Just thought I'd explain that in case anybody's... befuddled.Dave Werden (ASCAP)
Euphonium Soloist, U.S. Coast Guard Band, retired
Adams Artist (Adams E3)
Alliance Mouthpiece DC3, Wick 4AL, Wick 4ABL
YouTube: dwerden
Facebook: davewerden
Twitter: davewerden
Instagram: davewerdeneuphonium
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So would having a completely uniform thickness mean that there will be a note that resonates perfectly and thus disproportionately loud when compared to the other pitches on the horn?Help me march!!!
http://www.indiegogo.com/IMarchCascades
Cascades 2012 - Euphonium
Cascades 2013 - Euphonium
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Originally posted by craig.orwin View PostSo would having a completely uniform thickness mean that there will be a note that resonates perfectly and thus disproportionately loud when compared to the other pitches on the horn?Dave Werden (ASCAP)
Euphonium Soloist, U.S. Coast Guard Band, retired
Adams Artist (Adams E3)
Alliance Mouthpiece DC3, Wick 4AL, Wick 4ABL
YouTube: dwerden
Facebook: davewerden
Twitter: davewerden
Instagram: davewerdeneuphonium
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I agree with everything said about the Adams, but one thing we do not consider enough is the change in width to the final width of the tubing leading to the bell (I forget the technical term for this). You can have two instruments, both with, say, 300mm bells, but they can be quite different in the lead up to the bell.
I have no real insights, other than it must make a big difference in how the horn sounds, and have been thinking about this while comparing a Besson Prestige to the Adams.
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JTJ: That's a harder one to discuss because it is hard to include in specifications. You can easily specify what metal is used and what the thickness is, but it's tough to specify the taper of the bell (and might give away a trade secret!). For that matter, the shape of the leadpipe makes a huge difference, but that is also hard to quantify.
I have observed that changes in either leadpipe or bell taper can have dramatic plus/minus effects. You can change either piece and give the horn a bigger sound, but if you change it too much (or in a poorly-designed manner) you get a bigger sound at the expense of an unacceptable loss in focus. The very early Miraphone compensators (early 1980's) had this problem. They had an enormous sound (much bigger than my Sovereign 967) but no focus. And even in loud passages, the big sound did not seem to get out to the audience clearly enough to be effective. When Besson chose to offer both the 967 and 968, it helped to give players a choice better a bigger but less focused sound (967) and a more focused but smaller sound (968).
I have found the Adams to offer a good balance of big sound and focus. In listening to the Prestige from the audience, it seems to have focus that is roughly the same as the Adams (although I find the Adams has more of a "euphonium sound" in my book of definitions). Actually, there are several other current brands that do well with focus - Yamaha, Willson, and Sterling, for example. (That's not necessarily a comprehensive list, just the ones I've observed recently.)
But I think overall we have lost a little of the audience-observed tonal focus in current brands/models. That's because we all want a bigger sound now than when the old Imperials were the "state of the art." While modern designs have done an admirable job of combining big, rich sound with decent focus, it still seems to be a fact of life that when you go to bigger equipment you lose some of the tonal focus. Is sure is fun to be able to play louder before you get into the "edge" area, though!Dave Werden (ASCAP)
Euphonium Soloist, U.S. Coast Guard Band, retired
Adams Artist (Adams E3)
Alliance Mouthpiece DC3, Wick 4AL, Wick 4ABL
YouTube: dwerden
Facebook: davewerden
Twitter: davewerden
Instagram: davewerdeneuphonium
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One of the things I love to do when I travel is to visit brass instrument factories and soak up as much info as I can about what they are doing! I can tell you that the hydroforming process that Dave mentions is NOT the normal way of doing things -- I've only seen it at a few factories.
Typically, tubing for the larger branches is drawn over a steel mandrel through a lead donut to adjust its thickness and give it a taper. They can vary their drawing technique to compensate for the thickness that you lose making the tubing bigger at one end. Then it's bent, filled with cerrobend or pitch or frozen soapy water so as not to collapse the tube. Then they will enclose it in a steel die and draw a lead plug through it to force it against the inside of the die. This is the way I've seen it done at probably 80% of the factories I've visited.
My understanding of the disadvantage of this method is that it ends up with a part with lots of internal stresses and small variations in thickness, which affects the response of the instrument.
The hydroforming method starts out by drawing the tubing to get the right thickness. They can compensate somewhat for the variations in thickness in the final part at this point. Then they bend it, not needing to fill it so that it doesn't collapse. Then they put it in the die and pump it up with very high pressure fluid. The way this has been explained to me is that it results in a part that is remarkably uniform in thickness and fairly free of internal stresses.
The other method is to braze a truncated cone from sheet brass, and then hand hammer that to get the tapers right and to even out the thickness. At this point it may be drawn against a steel die like the first method. Then it is bent as with the first method. I should also point out that the bending itself causes huge variations in thickness as the metal on the outside of the radius stretches a lot and the metal on the inside of the radius compresses a lot. They can and do compensate for that when they are hammering out the part, though. Then the whole thing is either smoothed out and burnished by hand the same way a repairman would fix a dented part, OR they draw a lead plug through it, the same way they would in the first method. My understanding is that this actually creates a part that is very free from stresses, but that is harder from having the metal worked so much. There are lots of little variations in thickness because it's all hand hammered, but overall the technician has a lot of control over how the overall variation in thickness is distributed across the part.
I know that B&S/Melton/Meinl Weston, which is where Bessons are made, does it all three ways depending on which instrument and which part they are making.
If you are interested in seeing more, I've created a youtube playlist that includes all the videos I could find on youtube of brass instruments being made. Hours of fun!
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?feat...EAA6194BDAAFD5Last edited by bbocaner; 01-31-2013, 10:14 AM.--
Barry
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bbocaner: it sound like you've spent much more time in factories than I have! Actually, I enjoy seeing these operations first-hand when possible, but my opportunities have been limited and I envy your experiences. Thanks for all the detail you provide. I am certainly going to watch those videos when I have a little time!
Let me just say that I have seen in person hydraulic forming done for euphoniums at both Besson (England) and Sterling. I assume Besson Germany is still using the process, but you know what they say about assuming
Also, from various people in the industry (who use both methods), I've heard that the hydraulic method is faster. From that I assumed the high-volume brands would be likely to use it. Also, from what Paul Riggett (Sterling) has told me, the hydraulic method is helpful for heavier metals especially. Perhaps that's why Sterling uses it for the bows.
I enter into these discussion with two disadvantages. First, I am not an engineer or maker, and my understanding is somewhat limited. Second, some of the processes Adams uses are proprietary and I can't discuss them (even some of those I actually understand ).
As a player, I find there are family characteristics in common when testing all the Adams euphoniums, no matter what their metal thickness or material. My own mental concept of what uniform thickness would produce is very compatible with what their product line seems to produce behind the mouthpiece (for the "feel" of the performer) and on the other side of the bell (for the audience).
But I have also said before that the real importance is how they feel and how they sound! The analogy I like to use is buying speakers (at least, in the old days when stereo was king, and before so many speakers are made for surround sound and home theater). You can talk a long time about the advantages/disadvantages of a 2-way speaker, a 3-way speaker, multiple drivers in one range (like dual midrange drivers), crossover design, acoustic suspension vs. ported vs. electrostatic, magnet materials, suspension materials, etc. And it's fun to talk about! And many of the theories are valid. And if a "well-engineered" speaker sounds bad, all the theory is kind-of out the window.
When choosing a euphonium, we want one that responds well and consistently; sounds good in all styles of music; can project the sound out to the audience; plays in tune; operates smoothly; and is put together well. We may even want to consider how it looks (vanity is real). But, as much as I enjoy all the theory, I guess I wouldn't care what kind of tubing my horn uses as long as it meets my playing standards.
That being said, I'm not quite ready to buy a p-euph (plastic euphonium), even if it sounds great. (And to answer the question before it's asked, I made up that term "p-euph" and I don't think anyone is actually making one yet.)Dave Werden (ASCAP)
Euphonium Soloist, U.S. Coast Guard Band, retired
Adams Artist (Adams E3)
Alliance Mouthpiece DC3, Wick 4AL, Wick 4ABL
YouTube: dwerden
Facebook: davewerden
Twitter: davewerden
Instagram: davewerdeneuphonium
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My point was simply that saying one method is better than another because of variations in thickness created by it is an oversimplification. And hydroforming is certainly a "premium" feature that not all makers use, and those who do use it see it as a differentiatior. Yes, it is faster... but the machinery is very expensive and takes up a lot of space as well. And there are more steps involved. Some makers can afford to tool up for hydroforming but choose to use some other method. There are a lot of different factors including work hardening, and variations in thickness aren't necessarily a bad thing! It's all about the complete system once it is all put together. Melton sells "handmade" tubas that cost 2 or 3 times as much as those made with hydroformed branches. Some people like the less expensive tubas better! Shires sells tuning slides made from drawn tubing (although not hydroformed, it's less necessary with the smaller trombone tuning slides than it is with the big tuba and euphonium branches) and they also sell tuning slides made from brazed sheet brass. While the latter is more expensive, a lot of players like the former better. And sometimes it depends on which bell you pair it with.--
Barry
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I'm sure we agree on most of this. And in one sense, many, many of the things we discuss here on the forum are oversimplification. It surely IS fun to theorize about why a horn (or mouthpiece) does what it does, though!
Perhaps I tend to focus on the metal uniformity because it seems to be a logical cause/effect theory to connect to the experience of playing the horn. But as you said, there are many factors. And as I have often said, people need to get to the conferences if at all possible so they can try a bunch of different, competitive horns and see for themselves!Dave Werden (ASCAP)
Euphonium Soloist, U.S. Coast Guard Band, retired
Adams Artist (Adams E3)
Alliance Mouthpiece DC3, Wick 4AL, Wick 4ABL
YouTube: dwerden
Facebook: davewerden
Twitter: davewerden
Instagram: davewerdeneuphonium
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bbocaner: 82 horn-making videos?!?! Wow! That's a very nice collection; thanks for sharing the link.Dave Werden (ASCAP)
Euphonium Soloist, U.S. Coast Guard Band, retired
Adams Artist (Adams E3)
Alliance Mouthpiece DC3, Wick 4AL, Wick 4ABL
YouTube: dwerden
Facebook: davewerden
Twitter: davewerden
Instagram: davewerdeneuphonium
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