Drilling holes in bass trombone mutes

[posaunebone]

To drill or not to drill? Benefits? Disadvantages? Exactly how big, how many, and where do the holes go? It will be a Tom Crown copper bottom bass straight mute and a H&B 199 cup.

[harrisonreed]

Never heard of this

[Doug Elliott]

Never drill a straight mute, they need to be air tight.

Tenor H&B cup mutes benefit from a hole... an 1/8" hole improves it somer but around 3/16" to 1/4" is better and I don't think it matters where. I put it in the middle of the bottom but I've seen people drill the side above the cup. For a bass I'd probably start with 1/4" but I don't play bass...

It makes the low Ab and G playable. Those notes usually don't work until you add the hole. It doesn't affect anything else.

[wwright]

Tenor H&B cup mutes benefit from a hole... an 1/8" hole improves it somer but around 3/16" to 1/4" is better and I don't think it matters where. I put it in the middle of the bottom but I've seen people drill the side above the cup.

Definitely right. I didn't believe it when I first heard about this, but a little hole makes it the mute play dramatically better in the low register. Mine's about 1/8 inch and in the middle of the bottom. I don't hear any difference in the sound.

[posaunebone]

I had heard of the H&B modification, but the mod to the straight mute had me curious. wanted to see if everyone concurs before I go drilling holes into either. I'm doubling for a show and don't have the greatest bass chops yet built up so every little hack helps.

Hornguys mentions it in their description of the Tom crown mute.https://www.hornguys.com/products/tom-c ... s-trombone

[BGuttman]

Pear shaped straight mutes don't seem to benefit from drilled holes. The resonance point where the notes get "eaten" is lower in the range and may not be an issue. Conical cups (and even straights) often benefit from the drilling; especially H&B tenor mutes.

Another trick to make the mute work at lower frequencies is to make a cardboard extension tube and place it inside the mouth of the mute. A rolled up business card works for this.

[Doug Elliott]

I would be interested in hearing if anyone had success with drilling a straight mute, but my experience is that any air leak ruins it.

[ghmerrill]

I don't have any holes in my (bass) Wick straight mute, Wick adjustable cup mute, or H&B stone-lined straight mute. They all work great.

I did drill holes in my Windy City symphonic mute (around the perimeter at the widest point), and that improved it significantly. But I don't use that because it's so heavy.

My tenor H&B straight mute has 3 1/8" holes in a triangle pattern in the bottom, about 1.5" apart. This does, as Doug remarks, make the low Ab and G sound like genuine musical tones.

In my experience, the smaller the holes the better. And several small holes work better than one larger hole. Mostly.

[LeTromboniste]

An alternative to drilling a hole on the H&B cup to get those low Ab and G working is to cover about 40% of the entrance to the mute with a piece of duct tape!

[whitbey]

I have drilled a few holes in my straight mute. Some days it really helps. Other days it does not. I have tape over the holes and can remove it or put it back.
The weather and everything change what works best. Bigger horn helps more. Smaller horn not so much. Tape moves easy so figuring it out is easy.

[blast]

I would be interested in hearing if anyone had success with drilling a straight mute, but my experience is that any air leak ruins it.

I drill ALL my mutes unless they work on all notes. No idea why straights or even pear shaped straights might not benefit. SMALL holes.... open hole until all valve and pedal notes work. I have never ruined a mute doing this, but if a mute does not work on all notes it's no use to me. You don't,of course, drill harmons, bucket mutes etc if they are not in- bell mutes of have huge holes in their design. My Peter Gane cups and Wallace fibre straights are not drilled as they work.

[posaunebone]

So in the case of the straight mute I have (Tom crown copper bottom) would the hole(s) be in the copper bottom, similar to the placement on the H&B cup, or more along the lines of vent holes in the aluminum above where the copper meets the aluminum?

Anyone have pictures of their drilling?

[SimmonsTrombone]

Look up Dicky Wells’ pepperpot mute. He punched holes with an ice pick, which may be of significance as punching holes does not remove metal as drilling does.

[ChadA]

I would be interested in hearing if anyone had success with drilling a straight mute, but my experience is that any air leak ruins it.

I’ve had success. I have an older Tom Crown bass straight mute that I drilled a hole in. The hole stabilized soft pedal tones and didn’t mess up anything else. It’s my go to mute and I’ve used it on many concerts and several recording sessions.

[harrisonreed]

Does this help tenor mutes as well? Does it affect intonation? I was taught to shave the corks until it worked best.

[Doug Elliott]

You can't know "best" until you passed it.

[ghmerrill]

You can't know "best" until you passed it.

I have a couple of pretty useless mutes that demonstrate that.

[ghmerrill]

Does this help tenor mutes as well? Does it affect intonation? I was taught to shave the corks until it worked best.

It definitely helped the tenor H&B stone-lined mute I use in my Olds Standard. Just shaving corks won't necessarily do the trick. You can still end up with fairly "dead" or "stuffy" notes around the Ab and G.

In my case(s), intonation seems to be what's mostly affected by the cork-shaving -- which determines how far the mute inserts. But it seems that it can't solve some tone quality issues. But it's all pretty much horn- and mute-relative. I don't think there are universal rules that apply.

[blast]

I heard a rumour that you can buy mute corks...... don't tell everyone ....

With a hole, you can cover all or part of it with heavy duty sticking tape...

No lost mutes....

Chris

[ghmerrill]

With a hole, you can cover all or part of it with heavy duty sticking tape...

Sure, and with reasonably sized holes, you can cover it with regular office transparent tape. But after a certain point while you're learning how much is too much, you end up with a lot of tape on the mute.

My major failure was an H&B cup mute for the bass. As it turned out, that model just wasn't what I needed, and my attempt to make it work pretty much destroyed it anyway. I can tape or plug the holes, but there's no point to it.

By the time I got to tuning the H&B straight mute for my Olds tenor, I had a good idea of how far to go, how slowly to approach it, exactly what I wanted, and where to stop. Nothing is quite like hands-on experience -- including the failure that comes with it. But it's likely to cost you something. I write it off to "educational expense".

[posaunebone]

So this musical has a heck of a lot more muted playing than I realized. The cup mute responds just fine when I added some corks higher up to open it about a half inch off the bell. Still may drill the hole(s)

The straight mute however makes this recurring syncopated bass line of loud and fat pedal Bb's to low Eb's a nightmare with some crazy back pressure.

I noted the Tom crown sticks out a significant amount from the bell, so those definitely need to be filed down. Once the corks are filed properly, do you think this will help response too because right now there's a huge amount of back pressure to overcome. Is this just something with the Tom crown bass and maybe I'd be better off with a wick?

[ExZacLee]

When building up corks, try rubber bands - the thick kind you get with a bundle of asparagus - before taking off the old corks and putting new ones on. Sometimes this can work. Sometimes it don't.

I had to do a quick fix with a trumpet straight I was using as a pixie - worked like a charm.

[whitbey]

If you are going to try new corks. Just leave the original corks on and put new ones in between the originals. Gorilla glue was a good choice. and a rasp will do better then a file.

[bigbandbone]

Never heard of this. Great information. I never had the problem of A,Ab,G not speaking because quite frankly I never had to play down there with a cup mute until just recently with my 50H.
I started drilling with a smallish drill bit and play testing after each drill size. When I finally drilled a 1/4" hole those notes and the trigger range opened right up!
Thanks to OP for starting this thread and for everyone else's input.

[posaunebone]

HUGE improvement, most notably on the straight. Drilled a hole in the center of the red bottom on H&B and drilled 2 holes in the copper of the straight on the sides. Might even add a third.