Practical advantage of copper bells

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Hobart
Posts: 126
Joined: Sep 15, 2019

by Hobart »

Alright so, I noticed on the Conn Loyalist that Conn marketed certain qualities with the Coprion bell.

They promised such things like "never overblowing a note" and projecting better.

Are these practical reasons true, or is it just a marketing ploy? I have a few and think they look cool and I like how they play.

Is there any particular reason to have them in terms of playing, or is my monkey brain saying "hee hoo, orange"?
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BGuttman
Posts: 7368
Joined: Mar 22, 2018

by BGuttman »

100% Marketing.

Coprion bells have a certain characteristic that is different from regular yellow brass, and each alloy has its own characteristics.

Generally the more copper in the alloy the less strident the tone. But I could sound more strident on a Coprion bell than you do on brass (or vice versa). Generally yellow brass has a more uniform response over all dynamic ranges while other brasses tend to change from soft to very loud.

If there was one alloy that fixed all your problems, believe me we'd all be playing it.
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elmsandr
Posts: 1373
Joined: Mar 23, 2018

by elmsandr »

Sure, you can't overblow the copper... but it sounds absolutely crazy at extreme volumes. I would generally describe that as "not a good thing."

Fun, yes. There's a reason the 10H and 12H never overtook the 4H and 6H. Don't think they ever even tried in a large bore or bass (blessing did, but that is something else).

Cheers,

Andy
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hyperbolica
Posts: 3990
Joined: Mar 23, 2018

by hyperbolica »

I owned a 10h for a while. It was a nice enough horn. I never really played it loud, but even soft, it was on the dull side. The 12h and 18h were more popular I think because the smaller bore brightened up the sound, and the 18h was a student horn, and I think students appreciated the way it looked.
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Thrawn22
Posts: 1436
Joined: Sep 06, 2018

by Thrawn22 »

My coprion creation was muted till i pushed. Pushing it brightened it up.