Accessories lefreQue tone enhancer

[Nick Wyver]

Not necessarily. Think of it this way. Your speakers for your computer or stereo are enclosed in cabinets. When music is playing you can touch the top or sides of the cabinet and feel the vibrations. Just because some of the vibrations from the cone of the speaker have transferred to the cabinet, it doesn't mean that the cabinet is taking sound energy away from the cone of the speaker or the air in front of the speaker.

Where from then?

 

[jbtsax]

Nearly all of the acoustic energy put into a wind instrument by the player is dissipated by the walls of the instrument as heat. Only about 1% of that energy goes out the bell and toneholes as a traveling wave. That is why the player has to keep blowing and inputting energy as the instrument is played. That energy loss from creating sympathetic vibrations in the walls of the instrument is negligible.

 

[Pete Thomas]

Oh gosh, I am nearly sorry I asked. Ok, makes sense? Yes, bridging, grounding, beefing up the mass, all can make a difference. Apparently this thing does not make a dif. OK. Having played about with guitar bodies, blanking holes and making wood bungs and changing from trem block to fixed bridge, I can say that fooling around with mass and space and materials and vibrations can indeed change the sound,

Yes, it makes total sense on a resonating instrument such as guitar or any stringed instrument, but I. Don't understand why it would make sense for a woodwind..

This is speaking purely theoretically based on the the way the sound is generated.

What actually happens in practise can only be truly ascertained by trying it as opposed to thinking about it.

When I did the experimental recordings I probably did not have an open mind as commoner sense sort of told me that it would not make a difference, which is why it was good to do a blindfold test.

 

[Nick Wyver]

Nearly all of the acoustic energy put into a wind instrument by the player is dissipated by the walls of the instrument as heat. Only about 1% of that energy goes out the bell and toneholes as a traveling wave. That is why the player has to keep blowing and inputting energy as the instrument is played. That energy loss from creating sympathetic vibrations in the walls of the instrument is negligible.

That's more or less what I vaguely remembered. Thanks.
But the point remains that it makes no sense (whether it's negligible or not) to try to increase it.

 

[aldevis]

I still think (from uncontrolled cross testing) that wall vibration affect the perceived resistance (thetefore the tone production process) and the upper partials of the sound: that bit that is very difficult to describe, both with words and with measurable units.

 

[jbtsax]

This issue can be simplified to help with the understanding. The walls of woodwind instruments vibrate as they are played. Players can feel the vibrations when they touch the body, neck, or keys. There are only two ways those vibrations can directly effect the sound emitted from the instrument:

1. The wall vibrations can be heard as "part" of the sound coming from the instrument.
2. The wall vibrations interact or "couple" with the vibrating air column inside the instrument.

 

[jeremyjuicewah]

That said, same must surely apply to the mpc. Now, am more than happy to accept that the thing which must not be named makes no difference to the sound of the sax, and why it does not. But just as in one of my old cars, putting a finger on rattling dashboard panel will quiet it, so it seemed to me that bracing the L thing across the mpc and the neck might make a difference to the sound. I have mucked about enough to know, as said, that having made a difference to the sound you often wish you hadn't, so whether, if it did work, it would be desirable, is neither here nor there. Just seemed to me that it might modify the sound, and was curious to know if it did, and if so in what way. Take the ff lig. Seen on here that there are those who hold that ligs don't make much difference to your sound. This one does, or can. The main difference is if you use the rubber grip or a steel one. ( Quite like this lig but its a fussy thing and it doesn't hold the reed tightly enough for me).

This is not an extension of the discussion of why the L thing doesn't work, just a reason for my curiousity and why I felt it reasonable to ask.

I am going on a course to help me get over my interest in cleverly packaged gadgets, right after my anger management and diversity courses.
Cheers all]
Mike

Thanks all
Mike

 

[kevgermany]

Mike, most of the models about woodwind sound assume that the walls/body are sufficiently thick/rigid not to be deformed by vibration of the air column.

I recently read an article by Ralph Morgan about how mouthpiece construction affects it's vibration and the sax sound. Ralph Morgan was a highly regarded mouthpiece maker after he retired from Selmer USA. What he says is that making the mouthpiece thin/light enough to vibrate will change the sound. Afik this is empirical, not measured.

https://www.dornpub.com/SaxjPDF/Material.pdf

I've read in many places that the neck has a big effect on sound, due to it being narrow and early in the sound making. Does its vibration affect things? No idea. but it gives some substance to claims about nodal weights that guys like me dismiss as snake oil.

But remember, the sound vibrations are longitudinal, not lateral. So tube/wall vibration is not in the plane of the sound generating vibrations.

I read things this way, but may well be wrong - it's my understanding gleaned on a lot of reading:

Saxes are solidly constructed and the wall vibration makes a marginal, inaudible contribution to sound.
Sound generation is mostly down to player, followed by mouthpiece/reed/lig
Airflow through the sax body is negligible and has no little/no effect on sound.
The mouthpiece is a complex interaction of embouchure (including complete vocal tract/lungs), reed, chamber shape, material which converts pulses from laterally vibrating reed into pressure cycles along the length of the sax body. Thus mouthpiece vibration may well affect sound by acting on the air in the mouthpiece as it's movements transform into the longitudinal vibrations further down the tube.
The neck is rigid, doesn't change shape from the vibrating air column inside it so movements do not affect sound.
These interactions affect the mix of the different partials which make up the sax sound.

 

[aldevis]

This issue can be simplified to help with the understanding. The walls of woodwind instruments vibrate as they are played. Players can feel the vibrations when they touch the body, neck, or keys. There are only two ways those vibrations can directly effect the sound emitted from the instrument:

1. The wall vibrations can be heard as "part" of the sound coming from the instrument.
2. The wall vibrations interact or "couple" with the vibrating air column inside the instrument.

Since vibrations are too small to be heard directly, I am trying to formalize a third effect, in which the lump of organic matter known as "the player" interact with the feedback received touching the body.

About coupling, there is my great doubt.

If a basketball player bounces a ball 3 times a second, he put some energy to do so.
bouncing the ball on a softer floor, will require more energy. Still 3 times a second, but a non optimal use of his energy (hence Nick's comment).
If he is bouncing the ball on a floor that bounces back itself (like on a trampoline) on a period of 4 times a second, it will be quite a mess to keep the ball going 3Hz on a 4hr trampoline.

One of my ideal experiments would involve a blowing a Bb through a tubular bell tuned on an A.

To make things more complicated, when we say "affects the sound" we often talk of high harmonics in a complex wave. I feel that the loss of energy and coupling might affect the harmonic structure, not just on a single note, but differently to different notes on the same instrument. For example a dull high register.

I am note making this totally up. In the golden age of Yamaha research, one of the issues was the annealing of the body tube in a repeatable way, to address the different response in the registers.

 

[Nick Wyver]

I know it's sort of interesting - all this acoustics stuff - but the differences in sound (material, finishes, ligatures, magic weights, etc.) are ridiculously small compared with mouthpieces, saxes, reeds, how you're feeling at the time, room acoustics and your own perception (possibly the biggest variable). So why worry about them?
Obviously I know the reason. Musicians are gullible paranoid creatures and anything that is advertised as tone improving is going to be seized with glee. And if you believe it works then it will. You will hear a difference. Unrecordable and no one else will hear it - but you will and you'll possible play better because you're happier with your sound.
They're never going to work for me because I don't have the necessary belief.
I did buy a Keilwerth Shadow though. I thought it sounded better than all the other saxes I tried, but was it just the look of it? Dunno.

 

[altissimo]

the one guaranteed way to improve your tone is to practice more - it costs nothing

 

[milandro]

but would it give you more emotion?

 

[aldevis]

None at all.
Until one reaches the schizophrenic point in which performance is completely different to practice.

 

[milandro]

None at all.
Until one reaches the schizophrenic point in which performance is completely different to practice.

Oh we’ve been there before and at the end of people who practice a lot and know many things about playing, in a momentary laps of reason (Pink) makes them reach the conclusion, for no good and rational reason, that they “ know” with absolute certainty......... that they ear things......... that aren’t there.

This is the misconception that the sensory organs are directly connected to the “ truth” while they are just probes of the one most incredible but very fallacious organ that governs any perception.

THE BRAIN


All power to the imagination !



or was it “ The imagination's power!"


http://forum.saxontheweb.net/showthread.php?138674-A-Very-Informal-Experiment-on-Body-Tube-Vibration


One of the most potent demonstration of “ nothingness “, galloping fantasy at work in convincing oneself with autosuggestion, despite the lack of any objective evidence.

you should watch this......

 

[milandro]

every time you tell someone that they quite literally “ Think” what they see, hear feel, taste or smell something but none of that is, because of that, necessarily, “ real “, they think you are saying that they are crazy and imagine things, but that is not the case.

The idea that our daily life experience has given us is that the things our senses perceive are “ real” and that is, for most of us and for most situations, true.

The senses are nothing more than probes to the brain. They give “ information” to the brain but the brain makes “ sense” of it (or not!). In other words the brain creates for each one the “ vision” of the reality by arranging the information in a model, a pattern which ultimately integrates the world withing with the world without.


Nevertheless it is a misconception to think that what these probes experience is the The Truth, The Whole Truth, and Nothing But The Truth in other words it is as if we watch things through a mirror, the mirror is our brain, what we see in there is not the reality but an image of it.

On the surface of the mirror there might be imperfections (albeit temporary), when we encounter one the image we get is distorted and not a replica of the “ true” one ( as someone else sees it).

Most of the times and for most people there are minute discrepancies. For some people, some times, the discrepancy between image perceived by one and the images that everyone else gets, might diverge substantially.

 

[aldevis]

If only it could be so simple.
The perceiver and the tone producer, in this case share the same (usually abused) brain.

The process is more complex, and in my opinion it would be limiting cutting the main actor out of the equation.

I willingly always use terms like "feel" "perceive" or "think" because that specific saxophone is not brighter, it makes me (or allows me to) play brighter.

About hearing perception, an interesting experience is attending a long mixing session. Even experienced engineers know that their ears become unreliable after a while.

 

[spike]

It's time fer me tablets,

So - I just did a little experiment -

1). I took my A440 tuning fork and played a B on tenor (A Concert) and placed the tuning fork on the metal band of the mouthpiece. The tuning fork picked up the vibration from the mouthpiece and an audible A from the tuning fork could be heard.
2). I then played the B again this time with the tuning fork on the neck which has solid braces affixed along both sides. Again an audible A was to be heard from the tuning fork but not very loud.
3). I repeated the process with the tuning fork placed on the body of the sax just below the socket - nothing - although I could detect a very slight vibration with my fingers.

I then repeated the experiment using the saxophone's stock neck, results were:
1). same as above
2). similar to above but somewhat louder. (The stock neck appeared to vibrate more strongly than the braced neck)
3). same as above

I shall not draw any conclusions from this experiment without first contacting a medical practitioner followed by a consultation with my legal team.

 

[jbtsax]

Since vibrations are too small to be heard directly, I am trying to formalize a third effect, in which the lump of organic matter known as "the player" interact with the feedback received touching the body.

I would call this "bioacoustic feedback"

About coupling, there is my great doubt.

Here is a link to the most definitive study to date: Influence of Wall Vibrations On a Reed Instrument
I don't pretend to understand all of the math formulas, but the gist of the study can be obtained by reading the Abstract, Introduction, and Conclusions.

To make things more complicated, when we say "affects the sound" we often talk of high harmonics in a complex wave. I feel that the loss of energy and coupling might affect the harmonic structure, not just on a single note, but differently to different notes on the same instrument. For example a dull high register.

I agree that the "color" or timbre of a sound is made up of its harmonic spectrum or "footprint" if you will. However, the fact is that the frequencies of harmonics above "cutoff" (typically around F3 or G3) have very little interaction with either the walls of the instrument in terms of energy loss by thermal transfer, or the open toneholes and travel straight out the bell. This is why the "donut mute" used by classical musicians "darkens" the tone a bit.

I am not making this totally up. In the golden age of Yamaha research, one of the issues was the annealing of the body tube in a repeatable way, to address the different response in the registers.

That may be true, however any changes in response would be due to changes in the dimensions (geometry) inside the bore, and changes in the texture of the surface, not the vibrations of the body tube.

 

[milandro]

I shall not draw any conclusions from this experiment without first contacting a medical practitioner followed by a consultation with my legal team.

So easy to draw wrong conclusions from unrelated facts......

You have simply transformed passive vibrations into sound by using another source of sound, the tuning fork.

 

[Colin the Bear]

While it's probably true that years of practice are improving my tone. It's also very true that as my hearing deteriorates my perceived tone improves exponentially.