Dave Mickley

when this freezing thing got popular about ten years or so ago, I showed one of the metalurgist at work the ad and asked him what he thought. He said with a brass instrument you might as well stand under a shade tree and play. the earier posts were right about relieving stress by heat, that is what we do at work to relieve stress in metal parts that we "cut" so that when it is time to do the "finish cut the stress in the part doesn't warp the part. I would be afraid that if I put my horn in the furnace to relieve the stress, I would end up with a bunch of parts when it came un-soldered. Dave

gzent

In the June 2004 ITG Journal Thomas Moore addressed cryogenics.
His conclusion:

NickD

I had a nice long talk about this with Dr. Thomas Moore, the science editor of the ITG Journal. He is an expert on trumpet acoustics. You should check his work out at Rollins College in Florida.

In any case, he deosn't feel cryo does much for most trumpets. It is apparently well known in the metalurgy business that brass doesn't respond to any great extent to this treatment. SOLDER however, does.

Dr. Moore was guessing that any changes perceived by a trumpeter could have been caused by changes in the solder joints caused by cryo treatment. He also guessed they'd be subtle, at best.

He has NOT doen a study on this yet.

I did participate in the TPIN Freeze Off a few years ago. We did a double blind test on four horns: A Bach, A Benge, A Najoom and a Blackburn. Several trumpeters played the horns and filled out questionairres before and after freezing. One horn was left unfrozen as a placebo. The players were, Mark Ponzo of NIU, John Hagstrom of the CSO, Stanton Kramer (a local amateur) and myself. Wayne Tanabe, along with the engineer, John Lynch (the TPIN Lynch, not the Asymmetric mouthpiece guy) ran the tests.

The results of the test were moderately inconclusive. No surprise there, knowing what I know now.

I couldn't detect anyting different about the Bach comparing before and after. It turned out it was the placebo. I hated the Benge before and after, so that seemed to taint my point of view. The Najoom didn't seem much different.

The striking thing was the Balckburn. It was solid heavy horn and it I didn't care for it's playing characterisitics before freezing. However, AFTER, it was like a different horn. I loved it. It played much freer and just lit up when I blew it.

Now, there was a significant time gap between the before and after testing. I could have simply changed my mind about the way the horn felt. It was just a different day. I did seem quite noticable, though. Using Dr. Moore's thinking, there could have been more solder on that horn and this brought about the change.

In any case, the less than striking OVERALL results lead me to believe that cryo treament is not going to do much. This is a change of position on my part, but again, this is a case of "if I knew then what I know now." I think we often convince ourselves something works if we really want it to. I think I was succumbing to that. Oh well...

I won't call cryo treatment a scam though. That's doesn't seem fair. I think it was an honest empirical attempt to improve brasswinds. It just turns out that it doesn't really do that much.

So I am not voting as my option "not a scam but doesn't work" isn't up there.

Check out Dr. Moore's ideas.

Peace.

Nick

trpt2345

I remembner that article. Any changes that occur to the metal during freezing revert after the freezing is ended. It's all a placebo effect. All the superstitions and obsessions trumpet players are prone to come out in situations like this. If you think something will make you sound better you will sound better. Or think you sound better.

Michael McLaughlin

Mayonnaise: One of the sauces which serve the French in place of a state religion.
Ambrose Bierce

Deecy

Not to change the subject, but does anybody have an opinion on the valve cluster adjustment or tune up that Bob Reeves offers as a service to make trumpets play better?
And BTW, Charles Dickens, in common with many other notable people, insisted on sleeping in a bed oriented in a north-south direction. Relevant?

Manny Laureano

I reluctantly had to vote "scam" because the original poster left no other choice. I would have been more comfortable voting that it has no effect rather than implying that the people who do the freezing are consciously trying to cheat you. I don't think that's the case.

It reminds me of the polls that ask leading questions. It's like being asked "Have you stopped beating your children?"

ML

trpt2345

You should never stop!

Michael McLaughlin