Posted by David Carter on January 19, 2004 at 16:43:44:
In Reply to: new way to measure tuba sizes... posted by blub blub blub on January 18, 2004 at 21:36:39:
Interesting idea. Not conclusive becuase some horns expand early, and some later, but probably better than the vague 4/4, 3/4, 5/4 way. It would be best to measure with no valves down, with tuning slide in location for average player and a average sized mpc (becuase vary in how far mpcs go in). Very important to give pitch of horn along with volume. The best way, short of playing an instrument would be to chart out the bore on a graph, so that different designs could be compared not just for total volume but where they expand and at what rate. Of course a totaly different approach would be to have the horn played by an electronic device, similar to a loudspeaker that would replace the lips of the tubist on the mouthpiece. I believe Conn did experiments like this back in the 50's or 60's. This way exact energy imputs could be compared between different horns and outputs compared. If done over the range of the tuba, a good picture could be developed of how much input is turned into how much output, and in what registers. Of course you can tell a lot faster by playing an instrument yourself things like feel, response and tone quality, but it's harder for a player to judge decibels of output between different horns.