Larry Gianni

Marc,

I noticed that when you gold plate a Schilke trumpet , it really makes a dramatic change to the tamber of the trumpet. I've had other brands gold plated, Bach's ( NY's, MtV's and Elkharts, Calicchio's, Martins , Bessons. etc ) and they all sound a little better to my ear, ( warmer , better overtones pattern , slightly fatter sounding , you can lean on them and they don't get "blatty ") but the Schilkes always, to my ear sound so much better, exponetially after a gold plating. Really has a dramatic effect.

Is that just me or does anyone else have that type of experience with a gold plated Schilke vs. a silver plated Schilke ?

Lary Giani

( in this forum My name is spelled with 1 - r and 1 - n so I'm not confused with that Calicchio freak )

Skip

Hey Larry,

Pay to have my B1 plated by Leigh, and I'll let you know.

DrunkIQ

Lary, (that is hilarious)

I will be sure to check out my X3 against a silver plated one at the next convention I go to an report back to you, my horn is much more mellow than before the conversion but it went up two bell sizes and at this point it is kinda hard to comment. Hopefully one of our fanatics has already checked this out so that you will not have to wait...

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-marc melton

WFUnix

Hello all. This is my first post on TrumpetMaster. I play a Schilke B2Lb and S22C (gold plated).

I was told several years ago that Schilke only picks their best playing horns to have them gold plated. Anyone else heard this? I've never played a gold plated Schilke to a silver one.

WFUnix

PatchesTheCat

I have a Gold Plated B6 and I don't find it to be any different in sound from a silver one. It does look much prettier though.

Thank you for the invitation Marc ;)

I haven't posted on TH in a while so I finally got the message. I had no idea about this forum. Finally a forum we all can love!!!

I will have my roommate load some of our personal Schilke stuff on our website so I can post the pics here.

Regards.

DrunkIQ

WFUnix,

Welcome Aboard

As far as I know Schikes are only made to order, this may be different for there test room though. This is the first I have heard of this rumor but maybe you will get a hit...

Also John bought a showroom model. He may not know the answer to this but I am sure that all of use would like to know if this is normal or if he just has a silver tounge...

__________________
-marc melton

DrunkIQ

Patches,

Glad to see you here!

You have some crazy Schilke photo's - let's see a couple!

__________________
-marc melton

PatchesTheCat

As far as I know, there was never a bad Schilke made. This does exclude any help from Yamaha. So every Schilke has the potential to be gold plated. So I believe it's on a Custom order basis most likely.

Daff

I'm in total agreement with Lary Giani. I bought the gold B1 at ITG after testing it side-by-side with the silver one. Significant difference.

Tootsall

But, as consistent as hand-made Schilke can be (and I've got a 1 year old B1) ... there are still bound to be differences between two "identical" horns. So you can't say if the difference in sound is due to the plating, or to other mechanical variables. I think that's why Larry (Lary) was asking about a "before and after" on the same Schilke horn... it removes most of the other effects.

Leigh McKinney claims that gold plating offers a sound more like raw brass while laquer "darkens" the sound and silver plating "brightens" it. We do know that gold plating is put on VERY thin and is put on over a flash plating of silver... so it is likely (but not proven?) that gold plated is a thinner coating than a straight silver plating and certainly much thinner than laquer (and of course.... thicker than "raw brass"). Maybe that thickness difference is what is affecting the sound (if anything).

To be completely fair I think you would have to take two horns, both in raw brass, and both tested by a number of people and found to be "as identical as possible" and then silver plate one of them and gold plate the other and THEN "blind tested" by both the players and the audience.

Leigh? wanna take this on? :)