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This past weekend a colleague in the Arizona Opera orchestra showed me a new horn product. At first glance I honestly thought it was a coffee travel cup. It’s aluminum exterior and shape was almost identical to my coffee thermos.
After seeing him put it inside his bell, I realized my mistake – this was some new kind of new practice mute!
The E-Brass Sound Transformer is designed by Shinji Hamanaga who I am told used to work for Yahama and has since branched out onto his own with a company called Best Brass. Mr. Hamanaga was involved in designing the original Yahama Silent Brass system and has since improved it under his new brand name.
I tried this mute and was pleasantly surprised. Compared to the Silent Brass mute it is very lightweight — weighing a least half as a much. It blows much more freely that the Silent Brass in all ranges. Open slots in the material that grips the mute in the bell seem to play a factor in this.
The nicest feature of this mute is its small size and the built-in power unit. No bulky external unit is required in order to attach earphones. It requires only 2 AAA batteries and the entire mute can fit into the horn – even in the horn case.
As an added bonus it has a built-in metronome. While it squawks an unattractive sounding beep, it is a nice feature.
The only other shortcoming I found was that the upper register intonation sounded a bit flat – not terrible, but noticeable. Compensating for this flaw with the lip could, over time, be detrimental. A regular user of this mute would need to grow accustomed to the high range sounding lower than usual and not adjusting for it.
As with any practice mute too, there is a danger in over-blowing due to the sound dampening effect of the mute. The manufacturer recommends using the earphones at all times to counterbalance that temptation.
For the first time when using e-Brass, because of the sound deadening effect, you may blow louder than usual. As a result, the sound that comes out of e-Brass wouldn’t be deadened effectively, and you would be hard to blow. To avoid that problem, using the headphones is recommended when you play the instrument with e- Brass.
Having experienced first-hand “practice-mute chops” this message is a warning to be heeded — all fractured English from the inventor aside.
The price – $250 – may be a bit prohibitive for some, but for its built in technology, compact size and free blowing feel, it is worth the price.
