Customer Reviews

Yamaha SB79 Silent Brass System for Trumpet

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This thing is great if you need to practice without bothering folks in the next room. I used this quite a bit in college. The echo effects are fun to play around with and the pickup doesn't distort tone as much as I had anticipated. This device produces a lot more back pressure than advertised; just a little more free blowing than say a strait mute. The times where silent brass comes in most handy is practicing with a canned track. This is easily one of the most useful tools for the modern trumpet player.

Quiter than most mutes by far, the Silent Brass System rocks!

Backpressure? I'm not sure what everyone's talking about! I've never noticed backpressure using a regular mute, and this one, to me, feels the same... that is the same as no mute at all.

A great item for the college music major, or for the trumpet player who lives close to others (apartments)!

Worth the money I spent!

Enjoy

I played the trumpet in high school, a long time ago. I wanted to pick it up again but I wasn't going to share my practice sessions with the neighborhood. I gave the silent system a try and it works great. It isn't 'silent' but my wife can't hear me downstairs and nobody can hear me outside. For the cost of a few lessons you can practice whenever you want without bothering anyone.

The overall design of the silent mute is pretty awesome. The sound quality is pretty good, some distortion. What bothers me about the mute, and makes me not want to practice with it everyday is the back pressure. For someone to say there is no back pressure, they are absolutely wrong. It does not allow the response necessary to play the most delicate pieces. Because of the back pressure, it is hard to get a good indication of how well I am playing. I know that I am supposed to expect back pressure, but not being able to play certain things because of it really takes away from this. I would recommend this for practice on trips like in hotels, but not to substitute for everyday practice.

This mute ROCKS!! I just started playing trumpet again after 10 years away. Unfortunately I am currently deployed to Iraq and living in close quarter to other people. Paper thin is just not good enough a description for our walls.

As with any mute there is some resistance and weight added to your horn while using this, but only a little. If you need to practice in an area that you cannot be loud, this is the product for you. I am very confident that I could use this mute in the room next to a very light sleeper, with the interconnecting doors open and still not wake them.

The other day I was practicing in my office, sometimes I get more privacy there than in my room, and the attorney whose office door is 12 feet from mine did not even know I was playing. BOTH OF OUR DOORS WERE OPEN! We were the only ones in an otherwise empty building so I know it was not a matter of hiding behind ambient noise. I cannot say enough about this mute!

I am a pro player and recently spent some time in an apartment where i just cannot play the open horn. After being aware of this product for many years i reluctantly gave in to purchasing it through necessity. This proved to be a near disasterous move. I should have known since so few serious players ever talk about it or make any use of it. The back pressure is like trying to blow up a car tyre and the intonation is terrible. All this makes you change your embouchure to compensate - which quickly resulted in serious damage to my playing mechanics that have taken me months to repair. Thankfully may lip is back to its best now whilst the Silent Brass lies dormant in a corner of the room. Now you know why so many are available on ebay. I'd like to say that it is at least handy for limited use but i can't. If you have to play quietly a good tin mute - which isn't much any louder than the 'Silent' Brass - is a better option, but you should practise open horn as much as possible if you want to develop/maintain the quality of your playing. How other reviewers here can sing the praises of this item i have no idea - steer well clear.

Okay, so, it doesn't actually make your trumpet truly "silent", but it's about as quiet in the room as what would be heard playing the horn directly into a pillow, while the pickup system lets you hear a reasonably good sound in your headphones.

It'd be nice if the cost for these silent brass systems could somehow be subsidized and the systems included with every brass instrument sold; it makes late-night practicing, beginners-who-are-embarassed-because-they-don't-sound-very-good-yet practicing, thin-walled-apartment practicing, and really just about any kind of independent practicing much more pleasant.

I bought this product during my Freshman year of college, while I was living in the dorms for the first time. After getting it, it finally allowed me to practice in my room instead of having to find a practice room in some dank basement so I wouldn't disturb others. Although I haven't messed around too much with the effects processing, what I did use it for sounded very good, I'm just to lazy to plug it in. It works well with Jamey Aebersold play-a-longs, if you are into jazz.

The only major problem I have with it is the backpressure, which as another review says, is more than advertised.

Overall, I think the Yamaha Silent Brass Mute for Trumpet is a great buy for any trumpet player.

Purely as a practice mute, the Silent Brass is a very good one, but it's not the best, and certainly not the best for the money. As practice mutes go, it is very quiet, but it also heavier and more restrictive than most practice mutes.

The obvious differentiator is the headphone amplification, which is better in concept than in practice: using a mute, any mute, is a great way to practice technique, but the mute alters the tone and intonation of the instrument. In short, you still need to practice "for real" if you want to sound good and have good intonation when playing live. The silent brass offers a sort of half-solution by giving you an amplified sound with effects, to sound less "muted", but it's a bit distracting, and it's a "fake" sound. Above all, it is no substitute for practicing your "real" tone with no mute, as often as you can.

Before you buy a Silent Brass, I would strongly encourage you to google "Renuzit trumpet mute" and try that for less than 2 dollars. I can't say that the Renuzit mute is "better", per se, but it is even more effective at quieting than the silent brass, and it's much lighter. If quiet practice is the most important thing, the Renuzit costs next to nothing, and is about the most effective horn-silencer on the market. It can reduce your practice volume to well below conversation level, about "low murmur".

Additionally, there are mutes from Dennis Wick or Trumcor that are comparable volume-wise Silent Brass, nearly as quiet as the Renuzit, but that offer better, more accurate tone and intonation, and a less "muted" playing experience for about a third of the price.

Having said all that, if you find yourself wishing you had headphone amplification and digital effects, then by all means get the Silent Brass, since this is the only system that offers the electronics, as far as I know. And it IS also a very quiet practice mute.

Overall Yamaha's Silent Brass System is a great buy for anyone who has trouble with practicing due to roomates, neighbors, etc. I would say the mute eliminates all but about 5-15% of your sound (depending on how loud you are playing). Great for people with apartments, dorms, parents that just don't want to hear it, or even the musician who's selfconscious about their practicing (after all- who wants to hear a neverending pattern of lip slurs, techncal exercises, and slow repetition of that one part the player just can't quite get right??)There is a bit of resistance as some of the other reviewers have mentioned but I found that it actually strengthened my chops and improved my endurance. I would definitely recommend this product to other players.