A rousing bout of discussion among friends prompted me to search out a drawing I’d seen on the web sometime back concerning the “sad state of modern recording”. Basically it’s mocking the signal chain of recording artist to listener and I’ve created (ironically?) a more high fidelity version of this graphic for your enjoyment here:
What is this saying from a musician’s perspective? I guess that ultimately it’s up to the listener to decide what time/research/money they want to invest into music. If a listener wants to be low-effort, they are free to do that although it really doesn’t demand that much money to get decently-good sound. The image is mostly just for laughs but it does implicitly say something philosophical about the effort that recording engineers put into their craft of capturing something in exquisite quality. I mean people don’t go tremendously out of their way to acquire just the right tools without knowing they’ll be rewarded for using them. There is absolutely a major implication in the ingredients you choose when making food. And a colossal difference between a carefully grilled steak versus McDonald’s.
What touched all this off was the recent news that the iPhone 7 will have no headphone jack. I reacted to this news with laughter because it seemed so farcical, like a running joke that never stopped being funny for so long that it actually took wind and became a twisted reality. There was a time not long ago when I was interested enough in gadgets that I might have weighed in on this development with vociferous indignation but maybe I’ve stopped caring that much? It still does fascinate me that people will bend over backwards to rationalize this brazenly anti-user, anti-battery-life, anti-fidelity design choice. I mean I’ve got a few different sets of headphones which are each valuable listening tools for my own mixing/mastering projects and all of them would be incompatible with this “fancy” new phone without the use of a dongle. That’s just… bizarre.
Apple’s had a long, rich history of incomprehensible design choices like the hockey-puck mouse, the elimination of optical drives, the elimination of USB ports, and the recessed headphone jack on the iPhone 1 which now seems like a strange foreshadowing. My friends were riffing that Apple had also done away with Bluetooth and replaced it with their own proprietary wireless format called “Courage” and it wasn’t until I searched the web that I could figure out if they were serious or joking. Turns out they were making a clever joke but I think Apple should do it. How far can they go? For the iPhone 8 they should eliminate the screen I think. Too many clashing colors and confusing aesthetics for the modern consumer. The next phone will be a chrome-plated egg shape to literally mirror the skeuomorphic designs of nature. It’ll have a single LED that communicates to the user via a system of colors and flashing patterns about Donald Drumpf’s latest assertion that kale is part of Obamacare and needs to be banished. Accessories will include a $37.95 polish iCloth to keep the chrome egg plating fingerprint-free (please stop touching it), and an optional dongle which connects the egg to an external iScreen, if you really are that old fashioned that you still need a screen, you curmudgeonly technophobe. People would be just frothing at the opportunity to defend those choices, I know it! I also do genuinely wonder if Apple has actually made their billions by trading the stocks of accessory manufacturers and releasing strings of products to manipulate the stock prices in their favor up or down.
So that’s all pretty amusing but why do I care? I guess I don’t really. I’ve been content with Android for long enough now that whatever Apple does or doesn’t do has no effect on me so this rambling is all just for fun. And possibly part of my internal debate to answer the question, which is more stupid: continually voicing your unsolicited opinions on inane matters like what you’re cooking for supper, or continually saying nothing and maybe because of that having nothing to say? Of course the right place to land is somewhere in-between those two extremes but I feel I’ve been erring on the latter side too long so here’s a dishing in favor of the former:
As the above graphic implies, there is a difference made with hardware choice. And everything matters. In my own music that I’ve been recording and mastering, I’ve been continually changing, tweaking, and improving my artistry, small step by small step. From stylistic choices about the philosophy of mixing (should all instruments be clearly audible or should a single instrument be firmly holding the “lead”), to technical choices about the mastering (how much compression on the overheads is too much on the mid-band) to hardware decisions (which mic should I use on trumpet or snare, what placement is best for upper Leslie horn), to the musical choices which happen during the moment itself—all of that plays a role in what comes out at the end.
When I create music I am trying to get better at that for my own inner critic and my own inner enjoyment-listener. I do it to my own standard, or maybe more accurately I do it for the inherent accomplishment of having done it well. Never once does the sentiment “no one will ever notice” enter into my mind in this process because let’s be brutally honest here: hardly ever does anyone else even listen to begin with!! Besides my fellow musicians and maybe a random YouTuber now and then. And that’s ok. If I was creating music to please some hypothetical judge I’d be doing it for the wrong reason anyway. But my point here is that if the Sennheiser e609 sounds better than the Shure SM57 microphone when it comes to recording my friend Vince’s guitar, then I’m going to pick the better one because that’s what artistry is about: getting better at making your thing. A million different musicians all make choices like that every day and it all matters to them as individuals and to the overall quality level of the medium as a whole. If everyone gave up and said right we’re all using Fisher Price microphones going forward because why bother since the new iPhone wireless audio restricts the bitrate to 2800 baud or whatever, that’d be dumb as hell. And so it IS dumb as hell that Apple wants to get rid of cables which is indisputably a step backwards in terms of signal integrity, interference, and so on. Quality matters, end of story.
I hope people vote with their wallets on this one because love em or hate em, Apple is a trendsetter. Maybe at worst this is the beginning of the end for the cult of Jobs, or at the least maybe a few die-hard loyalists might blink and realize that the world’s 2nd most valuable corporation isn’t a hip buddy who just wants to jam out with them over some cool tunes, they’re more of a malicious middle-man of sorts, who wants to water-down what’s great about music and take your money in exchange for the illusion of coolness that comes with this club that really just takes anyone’s $700 who’s dumb enough to hand it over. That’s right, iSaid it. Audio cables for life, people. Because music’s richness is in the fine details and as we firmly established, everything matters when it comes to that.
There’s been a few awesome milestones lately in my world of recording. Let’s rattle em off:
1. I’ve got “www.YouTube.com/ElectricTrumpet”!
My YouTube channel now has enough subscribers that I could acquire a custom URL. Now all of my Electric Trumpet exploits can now be seen at the easy-to-remember address of www.YouTube.com/ElectricTrumpet which is pretty nifty indeed (although the embedded link here takes you right to the full videos page). I have continued to upload more content there and there shall be a steady stream to come as well so check it out both now and later.
2. The size of my musical exploits is now crossing one Terrabyte in size!!
As you can see by the hard drive properties in the screenshot at left, my recording hard drive is soon to be full. The only thing on this hard drive is audio recordings I have made! There is maybe a small bit of filler in there in terms of mp3s of songs I need to practice or other bloat like zip files of sessions to be uploaded and shared but it’s mostly jams, wavs, and things happenin. It feels so great to see this. It’s one thing to stack up a big pile of gear and spend a bunch of cash on the tools of the trade, but it feels a lot better to see the proof in the pudding so to speak, the walking of the walk in actually creating stuff. There’s a ton of people out there who spend boatloads of money on expensive hardware, be it photography or music or whatever, but I always find myself internally asking the question, “Yeah, but what have you MADE?” Here I am, earning the right to talk that trash. Hell yeah.
3. The input capacity of my setup has expanded to THIRTY!!!
I’m pretty psyched up about the fact that I’ve now acquired enough gear to extend my recording setup from 16 channels up to 30! I’m adding a sweet “The Moment Of Genesis” tag to this post for this milestone. On the face of it, it seems like 16 channels should be plenty, right? But as time has gone on I have expanded and expanded my methods of recording, and we’re now at the point that I’ve used the max of 16 channels for many consecutive sessions now, wishing that I had the capability to go higher. If that seems unlikely, let me rattle them off: 1.overhead high-hat 2. overhead ride 3. snare 4. kick 5. electric bass 6. electric guitar 7. Leslie organ horn left 8. Leslie organ horn right 9. trumpet stand mic 10. Leslie bottom (15″) 11. trumpet pedalboard left 12. trumpet pedalboard right 13. trumpet clip-on mic (blended with stand for tone) 14. lower snare mic 15. room mic left 16. room mic right… And there’s 16! First thing I’m going to add over that will be 3 tom mics so that I can high pass the overheads, cutting the bass and the snare out of my overhead track without killing the life of the toms. I have also been dreaming of adding an auxiliary percussion/conguero now and then, or having the ability to add other horn players, or a doubling of guitar or keys maybe. So this unlocks all that capability although the main thing immediately is the addition of tom mics which I hope will clean up the low and high end overall. Behold the glorious rack which will bring all that to life:
One year ago today I put up a post about a forthcoming game that I am very excited about called No Man’s Sky. One year after that posting, the release of the game is now imminent on August 9th. There’s been a lot of attention on this game and a lot of hype about the boundaries it promises to break, so before it drops and we all find out what surprises it truly holds I want to wax philosophical one last time.
One of the comments I heard that made me pause the longest was a person saying they hadn’t been this excited for a videogame release since Super Mario Brothers 2. Just let that sink in for a second. Super Mario Brothers 2 came out for the NES in 1988. Almost 30 years ago. Which also says something maybe about the age-group of people who are really fired up for this game, and why.
If tomorrow there was a Call of Duty game released which attained perfect review scores and was praised for design of the highest caliber with exquisite attention to detail and peerless action, I doubt I’d play it. Why? It’s not because I’d doubt the reviews, it’s just because… I’ve “done that.” Not only have I done it, I have done it so many times, that it’s been done, completely. Done into dust. I’m simply finished with doing that. Over. Finito. This can happen with any genre within an art form. Like heavy metal music. There was a time in my life when I was totally into it and now the page has turned and I just can’t stomach any more. Maybe it’s because you become so familiar with the common devices and the tropes of the genre that even what’s new doesn’t feel new anymore? A new Metallica album? I just can’t. It might be new, but it sounds so familiar. What’s new is no longer new.
This kind of fatigue has set in for me, and a lot of other players my age when it comes to games. On top of that, as we grow older life expands to fill your free time. Obligations, other hobbies, working, or broadly speaking other parts of life that you want to do—they all fill in the gaps and free time spent playing games gets put onto a smaller and smaller portion of the backburner. And yet we still never forget this medium because we experienced the magic that it can contain. We have seen, and felt that alchemy.
There was an excellent, far-reaching piece at Kotaku (which feels strange to say, given their recent track record) discussing why No Man’s Sky is the most necessary game of 2016—a great read even for the mildly interested. While that author focuses on world events and social norms my own reasons are simpler. Personally the last game I felt this excited for was Red Dead Redemption. One, because it was a very underserved segment of the gaming market (westerns) and maybe two, because I was moving to Texas right as the game was coming out. Red Dead promised to do something new: put you “there” in the wild west. And when I played the game, that’s exactly the aspect which made it so great. In Red Dead it’s all about the little moments between the action. When you walk up to the edge of a cliff to take in the scenery and a hawk flies over your head with a searing call. When you camp out in the wilderness and see a bold sunrise above the rocks in the distance. When you pause your horse to get your bearings and some faint trumpets remind you that you’re in Mexican territory.
Little moments of color like those are what made Red Dead. Before its release skeptics were panning it as GTA with horses. And sure, there were plenty of action scenes where that’s pretty much what it was, but it also had its own tone going on, much different than GTA’s. I never wrote about Red Dead on here, mostly because it was so loved and so praised by the gaming community that to heap a bunch more words onto that bandwagon didn’t seem necessary. But action isn’t what made Red Dead—in fact it could have had far less action with worse mechanics and still been practically just as good, because the main strength of the game stood on atmosphere.
That’s the connection between Red Dead and No Man’s Sky: Atmosphere. Moods. For me personally, that’s the biggest unknown question about what it can provide. With No Man’s Sky, the creators have deliberately withheld a ton of information about the game, even this close to launch. Nowhere is this more glaringly obvious than the most recent trailers put out by Sony. The whole premise of the “Fight” trailer is to showcase combat, yet we’re presented with 1 second quick-cuts showing just teasers. Really? Even with less than 20 days remaining until release we’re keeping things this close to the chest? And the creators keep conflating the words galaxy and universe, in what I can only assume is either a running joke or more likely, a deliberate obfuscation of these terms to avoid any hint of what the “journey to the center” actually means. This is in stark contrast to the information-rich, National Geographic documentary-style trailers that preceded the launch of RDR, which were some of the best gaming trailers I think I’ve ever seen. This kind of secrecy right up to the 11th hour is maybe a red flag, but I’m going out on a limb and trust that Hello Games knows what they’re doing and just want to keep it fresh for individual players to discover.
Putting all those questions aside, the thing I’m most excited for in this game are the vistas. The dramatic scenery and strange discoveries. And that is the very beating heart of the game, the core of what it promises to deliver. I gotta say I’m knocked out by the fantastic aesthetics of the buildings and the spaceships in this game and I will definitely spend a long time hunting neat looking stuff for screenshots. Procedural generation will also lend a strange sense of responsibility to actually “experience” your experience since everything you see will likely be yours and yours alone. It’s guaranteed that new designs will always keep coming and something really rad will be truly rare to the point that a sweet looking spaceship might literally never be seen again, by you or anyone else! Let alone something even harder to find like a neat cave or a cool nocturnal creature. Given the sheer vastness of the NMS universe, even the most beautiful, enchanting planet you find will probably never be explored again.
Which brings us back to the idea of “new.” With that stupefying number of eighteen quintillion planets available to explore in this universe (Wait, galaxy? Universe? Galaxy?), how many hours can we pour into No Man’s Sky before what’s new no longer feels new anymore? How much exploring will it take before the feeling of predictability sets in, and I begin to think to myself okay, here’s another new Starfighter design that I’ve never seen… but I’ve pretty much seen that design before in a slightly different paintjob or with different wings. Answering that question is perhaps the main journey of No Man’s Sky and getting there, almost with zero doubt, will be a fascinating, entertaining time whether it resides at the center of the 1st galaxy or my 5th.
But backing up a step further, that journey isn’t the only factor in the longevity of NMS. Obviously games don’t live or die by freshness, as the latest incarnation of Call of Duty 17 can attest. Like in Red Dead, it’ll be the thousand little moments along the way. The quiet moments between the action where you pause to look around, finding yourself transfixed by some calm scenery. The sound of the wind as you stand atop a small hill on a planet of blue colored grasses. The eerie stillness of a cratered moon, devoid of life. The distant calls of three-headed dinosaur-like beasts moving in a herd on the horizon. The feeling of relief as you find a cave to flee nocturnal predators on a planet where you explored until nightfall caught you off-guard, far away from your ship. And the feeling of safety as you finally return to your ship, your spacefaring horse of steel, chock full of goodies you snagged on a dangerous planet, ready to escape to the nearest space station and cash in. These moments are my hopes for the game. We’ll see if I can find them among—without hyperbole—the largest explorable universe the medium of video gaming has ever produced.
Category Music, musings, My Recordings | Comments Off on 10 year anniversary: “Electro-Acoustic Workshop” @ Muse Cafe Chicago, IL 7/6/2006
Today is the ten-year anniversary of a very memorable jam session for me, “The Electro-Acoustic Workshop” at Muse Cafe in Chicago IL on 7-6-6. This session was the brainchild of one Mr Dave Marsalek who was part owner of the coffeeshop Muse Cafe and a talented drummer in his own right. The Muse was his shot at opening a business that combined his love of coffee and experimental music. Of course running a cafe is damn hard and eventually due to various factors it had to close, but for a period from 2006 to 2007 (?) I joined him and a host of other friends to create some original and innovative music that ten years later still stands worthy of those adjectives. There were a few reoccuring music series hosted at Muse Cafe worthy of note and one of these was the Electro-Acoustic Workshop.
The theme of this particular session was, as the name implies, combining electronic sounds (effects pedals/electrified instruments/samplers/etc) with traditional acoustic jazz instrumentation. This particular session was a standout among my recordings from that era for two main reasons: one, Dave had some excellent musicial friends amassed for this evening. Kris Myers (Umphrey’s McGee) on drums and Chris Clemente (Kick the Cat) on electric bass were the heaviest hitters in attendance but the whole supporting cast and crew were all creative and energetic in their own rights. Alas, many of these people I never did stay in touch with and their names elude me through the fog of memory. But the playing still speaks for itself.
Behind the excellent musicianship, the second main reason why this session is a standout to me is because of where I personally happened to be in my musical development. I had started experimenting with effects pedals near the beginning of 2006 and by mid-year I had either borrowed or accumulated enough gear to do something interesting, and had also spent just enough time with it to somewhat know what I was doing or at least trying to do. Thanks to the excellent cast assembled for this evening the grooves were guaranteed to be good and I was setup to do ‘my thing’ on the highest level that I could.
In hindsight I sort of view this session as a fork in the road with my musical development. I had always been fascinated with effects and combining them with the instrument I had been practicing my whole life was an intriguing new twist to put it lightly. But was this a gimmick–a transitory phase on the way to something else–or was there real substance worth developing with the use of effects on my horn? It would take a few magic moments to cement the idea. Instants where something special happened thanks to effects pedals, instants which would not have had the same impact without them. And that’s exactly what this session had in spades.
I’ve always been a dedicated taper and archivalist of my own craft on the horn. Most of the time these recordings have a short shelf life. I try to listen to myself and identify what worked well and needs to be repeated, refined, and reiterated. Most of the time it’s incremental improvements, maybe an unusually creative phrase, or a handful of spots where synchronicity of the group yielded a neat moment–this is what we’re usually hoping for when we play music. Very seldom does an evening come along with a replay value measured in years, one where you say to yourself, “This is it. This is what I’m working toward and what I’m trying to do. I want to internalize this, be able to recreate this energy again.” July 7th on 2006 was that moment for me, and it inspired me to double-down on playing with effects and commit to that as a core-element of ‘my thing’. Of course there were many moments before and after that taught me how rewarding it is to play with effects, but this night and the many times I relistened to this night were probably the largest single motivational event that shaped my musical path foward.
So for that reason it’s a very special recording to me on a personal/developmental level. All that said, I also think it’s a fantastic listen even without that story surrounding it. Several months back I uploaded it to YouTube. This isn’t the entire evening, since the whole thing is quite long, but what we have below is the middle and ending sections which gel together with a cohesive flow and make, to me, a thought-provoking, smile-inducing, and at times eyebrow-raising musical journey, a pivotal moment catapulting me toward where I am today. I invite you to join in and listen to that journey:
A year ago this month I was in Washington state to take in the scenery and learn some history at the 2015 Milwaukee Road Historical Association convention. It was the railroading trip of a lifetime for me for many reasons, foremost of which was that I was able to hear some MILW history from the people who actually lived it. As written about already, I have a personal connection with the area since my great and great great grandfather both worked for the railroad in this area. I may never take another pilgrimage quite like it again, but thankfully while I was there I shot plenty of video and photos to help keep my lousy memory fresh on what I saw while I was there.
Possibly the coolest part about traveling, to me, is the moods or unusual feelings it creates. Those vibes from the pine forests of western Washington stuck with me over the next month and crept into my music at a special time. 6/27 and 6/28 were the final recording session for 100% Juice, which still reigns as my longest-running and most prolific musical endeavor here in Houston. All of the jams from those sessions were named after places I saw while traveling, matched with the feelings they had given me.
On my Flickr page I posted a large number of photos from the trip, ending just recently with the pictures I shot in Tacoma of the Milwaukee Road S-Turn Trestle, which is scheduled to be demolished. These shots are geared towards model railroaders or people who are interested in things like bridge construction… but here is another album of shots I took while driving past Mount Rainier though an area literally named “Paradise, Washington” that should appeal to anyone.
Click on the image below to see the slideshow, then click on any image twice to see it full-size:
It was a trip to remember, and I’m glad I have these photos to help with that.
Here’s a collection of photos I took at the 2015 Milwaukee Road Historical Association conference in Yakima Washington. These pictures have been up on Flickr for quite some time now although it occurred to me that I never linked to them on here. This is a 120+ shot slideshow of cool railroad stuff I saw along the way, so, you know, only railroad buffs are allowed past this point…
Click on the image below to see the slideshow, then click on any image twice to see it full-size:
I’ve also got this 35 minutes of video footage I shot along the Milwaukee Road right-of-way between Easton and Cedar Falls Washington, also known as the Iron Horse/John Wayne trail which I rode on a rental bike during that visit. It sure is pretty scenery out there!
I thought this photo ought to be captured here to document the state of my configuration on 5/21/16:
Since there was no organ on this session, the horn is setup to run through the Leslie… Yo dawg I heard you like horns… so we put your horn though a horn! As you might guess, the trumpet throught a Leslie horn can be exceptionally piercing. Devoted readers may notice that my Leslie model 205 did not originally include the horn, which I have just recently added. Horn through the Leslie is pretty neat although after trying it a few times I have concluded that organ (as one might expect) is still what makes it truly shine.
Also new in this image are 3 rental pedals from PedalGenie.com, the Dr Scientist Tremoloescence, the Moog Minifooger flanger, and the Pigtronix Envelope Phaser. Those three pedals aRe listed in order of increasing coolness for their effect on the horn. I’ve had fun with all three although by this stage the bar is set very high for a pedal to be a “keeper”. A new round should be arriving soon.
Recently I decided to take some glamour shots of my stereo setup in “The Lab” and post them to a vintage audio usergroup for others to oogle and discuss. Some of the elements shown here have already been written about individually so I won’t recap that (get it?) in detail here. Clicking on any image will enlarge it, then right click again on the enlarged image if you want to see if in 100% resolution. Below is a list of the components and links to more descriptive posts on these where available:
This month I acquired something of supreme importance in my own little world: a new (to-me) Trumpet.
It’s been amusing to share this news with my musical cohorts and hear their reactions. Several of them commented “new toy!” or “playing with new toys is always fun!” which is true… however I think that players on non-wind instruments don’t grasp what a leap this is for the core of my musicianship. Unlike pedals or other musical accouterments, to a horn player a new axe is the foundation of the sound, the origin of everything. And build quality changes a lot. Sitting in front of a new keyboard or a different drumset will certainly inspire a different result, but a better brass instrument is something even more powerful. Many instruments won’t affect the actual technical facility of the player… but this, this does.
Trumpet playing has been a constant in my life for close to three decades now. I’d say it’s maybe not the “main” quest in my life, but it’s the top side-quest. One with a sprawling cast of characters and a gigantic outlay of time invested. A lot of the time when you practice you’re working to improve some aspect of your capabilities; range, speed, clean attacks, tone, accuracy when doing lip slurs, etc. Well my level in all of those little skill-tree branches just jumped up, some of them significantly. That, and it all “feels” more natural and nimble as well. It’s super incredible!!
For twenty years I’ve been playing on a Bach Stradivarius model 37 ML bore. This is the “gold-standard” trumpet, the one that can be found in any bandroom almost without a doubt. And for good reason. Bach horns are respected for quality. Since they are hand-built in relatively large numbers, when you buy one of these you need to try several out and find the one that feels best to you. I tried probably close to a dozen before selecting mine as a teenager. I believe I chose wisely and the instrument has served me excellently for a long, long time. We went on some real odysseys together. Then two years ago a cornet showed up and changed the way I saw things.
My 1960s King Master Series Cornet built in Cleveland Ohio was bought for $120 by my mom at a farm auction. It had presumably sat in a closet for a very long time before being auctioned off. When I got it, for some reason it refused to play in tune. So it sat for a while longer before I took it to a professional for full chemical flush, and a complete servicing. After that was done, wow, it opened up my eyes to how a good horn could feel. My range instantly went up several steps, my sound seemed clearer, more focused. Everything felt just… better and easier. Suddenly the strad was second fiddle in terms of pure fun.
But a cornet is still a cornet. I’ve had a killer time playing on the King and I will still keep playing it. But the intonation on a cornet is never going to be as good as a trumpet, something which has become painfully clear to me when I tried to use it to overdub more parts on recent recordings. When I begun listening for it, I found lots of intonation problems. In the crazy melange of sounds I’m shooting for with all these electronics, the basic fundamentals of musicality still apply. The cornet, as bright as it may be, also doesn’t project and ‘zing’ the same way a trumpet can. And in the end I want to be a trumpeter, not a cornetist. It’s time to get back to home base.
Looking into an upgrade for the Strad seemed hopeless at first. One, the Strad is a venerable horn and the list of horns that would play better than a strad (on paper) is far smaller than the list that plays worse. What’s “better” is often times wholly subjective so researching this in text format is somewhat of a fools errand. Really if want to upgrade you should travel to someplace like Woodwind Brasswind in Indiana and spend a whole day (or three) trying different models and comparing them back to back. Then you’d probably spend about 2 grand at a bare minimum buying whatever you liked better. This all sounded prohibitively expensive and would involve a trip and a hotel on top of it.
So I started reading around on the web and slowly looking older horns, thinking that certainly there have to be hidden gems out there like my King cornet. You just need to know what model to look for, what serial numbers and what years. That’s somewhat guarded knowledge among those who do know, but you can find out a bit by asking around. In the end though it still does comes down to luck finding a horn that somehow miraculously plays well among lesser instruments of the same make/model. And rarely do people ever get rid of something that’s excellent.
A name that kept coming up over and over though was Zig Kanstul. I won’t rehash his impressive biography here, but suffice it to say he has been a lifelong master craftsman at building trumpets. You can trace his career path by noting the models of older horns that are still well-revered despite their age: The Olds Ambassador & the Besson 609 are two, both designed or built by Kanstul in his younger days while he worked for those companies. In the 80s he founded his own company and they’ve been steadily producing small numbers of superb instruments. If I were to buy a horn without being able to try multiple copies of the same instrument to select the best one, I’d want it to be from a manufacturer who had the highest level of consistent quality. Which sounds like Kanstul from what I know.
As far as my own personal needs, I’m a jazz player, roughly speaking. Mostly small group fusion jazz, solos and melodies within the staff, but I do tear off on some high note overdubs now and then. Listening back to my own playing I hear two main technical flaws that stand out. One, loose intonation as a whole, and two, too many chipped notes or “fracked” pitches upon the initial attack. Ideally whatever I get should help me with those shortcomings.
Ebay seemed impossible. Too many people watching, too hot demand. So it was Craigslist to the rescue. In Dallas Texas a band teacher had listed a used Kanstul WB for around a third of the retail price for a brand new one. Here we go!! I began researching on this particular model and instantly loved what I was hearing about it. Perhaps most exciting was the fact that this model is a custom “artist” horn. That is to say Kanstul designed it for trumpeter Wayne Bergeron and when it was complete they decided it was appealing enough that it should be a production model, not just a one-off. Below are a few snippets from reviews and comments from players who talked about using it which I’m compiling here for my own easy future reference:
“I have played for 35 years including Bach, Benge, Holton and Schilke (4 of them) … this is the absolute best horn I have ever played. The tone and intonation are superior as is the slotting (particularly in the upper register). The valves are fantastic. The slotting is phenomenal. The horn has a heavier feel to it (than the Schilkes & Yamahas); however, has a laser beam tone in the high end along with a rich beautiful tone in the low end. This horn has a very unique brushed lacquer finish with some nickel as well. I traded a custom gold plated Schilke in for mine and am very very happy with the Bergeron Kanstul”
“Picked up this horn about 2 weeks ago and I couldn’t be happier. The slotting is amazing, a joy to play. I can play anything I want on it, jazz, lead, classical you name it. EXTREMELY versatile horn. Sounds very mellow playing a 3c and can light the room on fire with my Monette b5L.”
“I drove up to WWBW not intending to buy a new horn and absolutely fell in love with this trumpet. It is absolutely beautiful; the craftsmanship is superior and the sound is fantastic. It plays very open and the slotting is magnificent in the high register. The appearance (finish) is very unique. I’ve played Bach, Holton, Benge and Schilkes, and this is the best all around horn I have ever played.”
“It’s great to hear all you trumpet players have discovered this great horn. I have sold more 1600WB trumpets to more elated great trumpet players than any other. It is truly multidimensional in the hands of an experienced player. It’s the trumpet to audition if you are looking for one that has the potential to do everything including lead work above high C.”
“slotting is very good for me. not to tight/not too loose. More core to my sound than on my 75 LA Benge and slots much better for me above high G.”
“One of the things I like about it is that it sounds nice and fat in the staff but when you go up above the staff it brightens up nicely (not too edgy though). What’s really cool about is if you give it some push you can actually feel this baby reverberate in your hands.”
“Oh yeh, don’t push your blow too much through either. Lay back and let the horn do the work. You follow that advice and you’ll catch on real fast on how to control this axe. One last thing, you’ll love take’n it above the staff and listening to the after burner kick in! I always wondered how Kanstul could put an after burner in one of those 1600 “WB” and keep it so light????”
“If you are looking for the best projecting horn out there… Call it Superchops. Great lead horn!”
“Kanstul just makes an overall higher quality product than most other brands I’ve played, including Yamaha. I’ve auditioned the 1600 and love it. I can play literally any style of music I want to on it. The versatility is unmatched by any other horn I’ve played (including Bach, but they’re always in the game)… absolutely incredible horn.”
“I was flippin’ Amazed how much improved Larry’s live sound was! Lots of color, and nuance, and a much improved presence all over the horn. I heard Larry a few days after he got it- he’s always been a masterful jazz player to be sure, but on the 1600 it was as if somebody from above had said “Hey, this guy’s playing some serious stuff here, let’s give him The Sound to go with it”.”
“But without a doubt the Kanstul WB was one of the finest trumpets that I ever played. In my opinion for Big Band, and especially jazz combo, it’s awesome. One way I would describe what I thought was that it had a very “CLEAN” sound… And this is coming from a guy that normally doesn’t play or like any horns made past 1964. The Kanstul was an exception. A great made trumpet.”
Wayne Bergeron is perhaps best known for being the lead trumpet player in Maynard Ferguson’s band, although his full biography is far more wide in scope than just that. This horn was designed to his needs as a lead player and soloist. It has a reverse lead pipe and a lightweight bell which is supposedly modeled after that of a Bach model 72, a very bright trumpet. As some trumpet-savvy readers may know, Wayne Bergeron switched endorsement to Yamaha a while back, although some say it was purely because they’re a huge company with deep pockets that can give free promotion to their artists. For that reason, the WB is currently sold as the “model 1600.” However TrumpetHerald users also dropped this information:
“I was with Wayne yesterday and got to play his Yamaha with his new GR mouthpiece. I like the mouthpiece but I prefer his/my 1600. I got Charles to make me a rounded tuning slide for mine, it made a big difference with the resistance for me. I love it! The best horn I’ve ever played for every style in every situation.”
“The old “WB” horn had a heavy bottom cap on 3rd valve. “1600” has all normal caps. Wayne used heavy caps on 1st and 3rd valve when I met him(few years ago). He said 1st valve heavy cap has a better slot for D.”
So far I’ve had two sessions with the horn and I’d say I agree with the majority of what the reviewers had to say. My immediate reaction was one of joy, freedom. This Kanstul just feels so easy and fun. I think of a phrase and I play it with no fighting, and it sings out however intensely I choose. If I want smokey and dark, I can get airy and contemplative. If I want bold and melodic, this horn can be positively searing when you push it. The versatility is real. The horn is exciting, the same way it is to drive a car with a ton of horsepower. You just push it and it goes. It’s very cool the way you can feel the sound vibrate the instrument, more than any other brass instrument I’ve played. This is probably due to the fact that the WB is designed with an unusually thin bell which keeps it light in terms of weight and allows the bright, brassy sound the WB can have. This has the awesome effect of making it feel alive in your hands when you ‘push the accelerator’ and make the horn light up… Man. Super fun to play.
This Kanstul really is a phenomenal axe. I can’t get over it. Maybe my Strad is in need of a valve alignment or something? When I went to try it out (a five hour drive each way) I was hoping it would be a clear, obvious difference over the Strad and indeed; the jump to this instrument is quite significant. Maybe it’s due to the fact that I do all my practicing on a mega open-blowing Holton Cornet from 1911 with a large 1X mouthpiece, but I don’t feel like the WB is a dauntingly open horn the way some people have characterized it. Stacked up against my Holton, the WB does offer some resistance. Perhaps the best feeling about this horn, to me, is that I feel like I’ve truly “leveled up” to it. I put in the years, I invested the time to where I knew the difference right away and had built up enough skill that this upgrade felt earned not just bought.
On all sessions from 7/11/14 until 3/13/16 I played almost entirely cornet, and it’s been a year and a half of great sessions for sure. That first session on 7/11/14 yielded some glorious cornet “moments” that I still look back upon fondly. Similarly, the session on 4/10/16 was one for the books. That excitement and “freshness” is back, even more with the Kanstul. The King added range and zip, but the Kanstul, properly piloted, adds accuracy and speed, which is even more electrifying. That, and the vibration of the horn itself is a real treat. My 1960s King Master cornet is a surprisingly responsive instrument and a pleasure to play. It’s easy to jump between dynamics/timbres/ranges on the King but I always felt dissatisfied with the intonation and the overall tone. Over the past year and a half on cornet I have been struggling with the acoustic sound, not liking what I’m getting (and for that reason favoring the wet signal more). However this Kanstul is giving me a beautiful brassy tone straight out of the gate, and sounds full even when I lean heavy on the stand-mounted Sennheiser e609 which always felt thin and abrasive with the King. In terms of the “dry” trumpet mics I am feeling positively thrilled with what the Kanstul has given me, which is why in this latest session from 4/10 I leaned heavier than I think I ever have on the acoustic signal. I see that trend continuing.
Below is a video of a brand new tune, first time I’ve ever played “Red Baron” by Billy Cobham, and my first new posting with this magnificent instrument:
So one, the tone, and two the speed of the Kanstul is really popping out to me on the recordings. The King is not that far off from the Kanstul in terms of ease and upper range openness, but where the Kanstul pulls away from it is in the dexterity. Sure the valves are very quick but when you combine that fact with how strongly it slots, even within the staff, the Kanstul is really lightning fast. The real limiting factor on speed is mental clarity. You can hear what I’m talking about in the phrases at 5:33-5:42 in the video. I knew what I wanted to play right there and it comes off clean and crisp. Shortly after that I biff a few notes and that’s because I wasn’t mentally committed to the phrase as it was happening. So if I can keep up, mentally, in the moment as the improv is happening, I see a lot of really ambitious and intricate phrases being within my reach which is very exciting for me.
All this isn’t to say that the Kanstul won’t be limited by the shortcomings of the performer. It can still frack and play out of tune if I drive it poorly, a fact I’ve already proven to myself. I still need improve my skills in all 12 keys and always focus on the fundamentals of intonation, attack, phrasing, mental clarity, and timbre. All the rules still apply. But. The ceiling of what’s possible just jumped up and I can feel that. If I can play up to the ability of the instrument, there are a series of new magical things awaiting me that weren’t unlocked until just now.
Great lead horn!”
