"What's the loudest flute I can get?"

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bigsciota
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"What's the loudest flute I can get?"

Post by bigsciota »

I've seen this question a decent bit here, and I had four flutes in front of me, so I decided to do a little test. I'm not saying it's scientific or anything but it confirms some of my general biases so I'll run with it :D .

Basically, I've got a "large-holed Rudall," two "medium-holed Rudalls," and a "Pratten." I'll omit the various makers' names because this isn't really about them. The large-holed Rudall has the largest holes, followed very closely by the Pratten, followed by the two other Rudalls who are both around 10.5mm on the 5th hole. The embouchures each have their own little quirks; the Rudalls are all fairly close to each other and the Pratten is somewhat different. Now, I don't have the full gamut from small-holed German and Baroque to whatever the largest holed simple-system flute on the market is. But the flutes I have are from well-known makers often discussed here, and IMO fairly indicative of what you'd buy in a typical "Irish flute" on the market today.

I have a number of decibel-meter apps on my phone, plus my Apple watch, plus a decibel meter app on my laptop. I ran through a tune ("The Five Mile Chase") 2x on each flute on each app and device, running the decibel apps to record the peak volume reached as well as the average volume. I'm quite sick of the tune by this point, but it's all in the name of science, or at least curiosity!

The finding: in each app, on each device, all 4 flutes were within a decibel of each other on both the average and the peak. Each app and device was a little different in how it measured things, but the key was that there was more variance between apps/devices on the same flute than there was between flutes overall!

Out of curiosity, I did a similar test with a few whistles, just on one of the apps. They had a bigger variety in sound, with a 6 decibel difference in average and and an 8 decibel difference in peak between the quietest and the loudest.

What does it mean? "It's not the flute, it's the player" seems to be the conclusion. Bore and hole size obviously have an effect on volume as evidenced by the whistles, but the embouchure seems to be by far the greatest indicator of volume. Each whistle has one fixed way of playing regardless of player, hence the variation, but flutes are all dependent on the player for the embouchure. I wish I had a greater variety of flutes to fully test this, since I'm sure I could find some difference between large and small holes. But for the standard Rudall and Pratten-style flutes on the market today, it seems like volume is largely the player, not the instrument.

As an aside, all 4 flutes sound different in tone quality and such, and feel different to play. I bet some might "cut" differently in a session due to different harmonics being emphasized. It's not all about brute volume!
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Re: "What's the loudest flute I can get?"

Post by PB+J »

I just got a new Olwell Pratten and it's very very similar to the Ellis Pratten I was playing in terms of size. Slightly narrower bore and slightly longer finger spacing, but only slightly. I recorded both with a good mic into logic pro and the Olwell was distinctly louder. I can only assume this is because it was brand new to me --as I've spent more time with it I've developed a better embouchure and a better tone.
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Re: "What's the loudest flute I can get?"

Post by Terry McGee »

Interesting, bigscotia. Just checking a few points on methodology...

Did you have the various apps set for A-weighting (dBA)? A-weighting tweaks the frequency response of the meter to make it better simulate human hearing.

And did you take care to keep the distance from the meter to the flute the same in all cases? "One metre on axis" is the traditional guide. IE, point the mic at the embouchure from 1 metre away. A small change in distance can make a surprising change in level.

And there is no risk that you are overloading the microphone? Can you record on any of these apps and hear the recording back to make sure it is "clean"?

And I assume the background levels (when not playing) were dramatically lower than the levels you were recording!

One decibel is generally regarded as inaudible unless it is a "musically trained ear listening to changes in constant tones in a good listening environment". Three dB is regarded as a "just noticeable difference" in "typical program material". 10dB (or 1 bel) is a subjective doubling of volume. So 1dB (a tenth of a bel) is a very small change indeed.

You'll be interested to see I ran similar tests on a poor hapless visitor, one Grey Larsen, back in 2003:

Image

You can read about it at http://www.mcgee-flutes.com/Grey.htm, about halfway down, under the subheading "Loudness". Briefly, I tested Grey playing his Firth & Pond original (which later led to my Grey Larsen Preferred model), a medium-holed Rudall copy and a Prattens copy (both copies by me). We got results within 2dB, which again are not very significant differences. And that's a new "Pratten" vs the small bored and tiny holed original Firth & Pond! So again, it would seem that pure sound intensity is not what we are perceiving.

Do you have a view on which flute sounds loudest to you? Do other people in the room agree? (A legitimate cop-out is that "nobody else wants to be in the room when I'm playing the flute"!)

It would be instructive to press on and record the spectrum produced by what you think are the loudest and quietest flutes, to see if the answer lies there. There are plenty of audio spectrometer apps now readily available.

Or you might like to try out another approach, the Loudness Meter. This was something pioneered by the European Broadcasting Commission trying to get to the bottom of that perennial question "why do the ads sound louder than the program material?". Loudness meters take account of more human hearing features than sound level meters.

You can download a free loudness meter from: https://youlean.co/youlean-loudness-meter/ (There is also a professional version with more features, but the free one is pretty powerful.) And there's even an on-line version!
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Re: "What's the loudest flute I can get?"

Post by bigsciota »

Terry McGee wrote: Fri Sep 30, 2022 8:12 pm Interesting, bigscotia. Just checking a few points on methodology...

Did you have the various apps set for A-weighting (dBA)? A-weighting tweaks the frequency response of the meter to make it better simulate human hearing.

And did you take care to keep the distance from the meter to the flute the same in all cases? "One metre on axis" is the traditional guide. IE, point the mic at the embouchure from 1 metre away. A small change in distance can make a surprising change in level.

And there is no risk that you are overloading the microphone? Can you record on any of these apps and hear the recording back to make sure it is "clean"?

And I assume the background levels (when not playing) were dramatically lower than the levels you were recording!
Yes, the apps were A-weighted, I kept the same distance within a couple centimeters (I move around a slight bit while playing the flute which I tried to control but habit is habit), the microphones didn't seem to be overloading, and it was done at a very quiet time with a background noise around 30 dB according to the various apps (for reference, the measured average volume while playing the flutes hovered around the upper 80s on the various apps/devices). Tried to be as "scientific" as possible, although again since I'm just using phone apps and such it's not like I'll be publishing any results in a major journal anytime soon.
Terry McGee wrote: Fri Sep 30, 2022 8:12 pm So again, it would seem that pure sound intensity is not what we are perceiving.
Your test is very interesting given the much wider range of holes/bores involved, and that's a great way of putting it. Subjectively I'm sure there are flutes that have more or less... power? Cutting ability? Projection? Not sure how to put it but I certainly feel like I can hear some better than others. I think what we're hearing, though, is not simply a matter of "volume," which is often how we'll talk about it.
Terry McGee wrote: Fri Sep 30, 2022 8:12 pm (A legitimate cop-out is that "nobody else wants to be in the room when I'm playing the flute"!)
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Re: "What's the loudest flute I can get?"

Post by Geoffrey Ellis »

PB+J wrote: Fri Sep 30, 2022 7:36 pm I just got a new Olwell Pratten and it's very very similar to the Ellis Pratten I was playing in terms of size. Slightly narrower bore and slightly longer finger spacing, but only slightly. I recorded both with a good mic into logic pro and the Olwell was distinctly louder. I can only assume this is because it was brand new to me --as I've spent more time with it I've developed a better embouchure and a better tone.
I'm also pretty sure that Pat's flutes have lined headjoints (for the most part). This can enhance the projection a bit as well as giving the tone a certain type of "sheen".
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Re: "What's the loudest flute I can get?"

Post by tstermitz »

Why did you measure the 5th hole? While it is usually the largest hole, I've noticed that its size varies quite a bit, even as other holes vary less.

Pat Olwell considers the G hole (4th hole) to be the indicator because that is the primary hole he uses for tuning all the others. So in his size taxonomy he says:
https://www.olwellflutes.com/post/a-tax ... den-flutes

#4 hole:
6.0–6.4mm (Smallest) Baroque and early Classical and Romantic period flutes.
7.0mm (Smaller) Romantic period flutes, smallest holes on Rudall-Rose.
8.0mm (Small) London-based flutemakers manufactured many of their flutes like this, even after Nicholson’s revolution.
9.0mm (Medium) Nicholson Flute. Prowse was authorized to stamp his “C. Nicholson’s Improved” and it’s my understanding these measurements represent the large-holed version of his flutes that other maker’s copied.
9.6-10mm (Large) Pratten Flutes.

I had a "large holed" Rudall from John Gallagher, that had hole #4 the same size as my "medium-large" R&R, while hole #5 (and #2) was much larger. The Gallagher was definitely louder, but I think that was due in large part to other factors like embouchure and maker-magic.

I would like an explanation from a flute maker why hole #5 varies so much more than hole #4.

(It seems to me that wide variance in hole #5 would have weird acoustic consequences.)
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Re: "What's the loudest flute I can get?"

Post by jim stone »

Just to say that an Olwell Pratten with a lined headjoint may or may not be the loudest flute, but if it isn't loud enough for a loud session, nothing is.
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Re: "What's the loudest flute I can get?"

Post by Conical bore »

I did a similar test a few months ago comparing my Tom Aebi Rudall-type flute to my Peter Noy Nicholson-type flute. Tone hole measurements:

Aebi Rudall hole #4: 7.70 mm, hole #5: 9.10 mm
Noy Nicholson hole #4: 9.10 mm, hole #5: 10.40 mm

The bore at the end of the Noy is noticeably wider than the Aebi.

It wasn't a super scientific volume test, just playing straight into a sound meter app on an iPad about a meter away, A-weighted. The results were within 2db of each other, the Noy just a hair louder.

Of course it's impossible to rule out player influence in this kind of test, where one might subconsciously play one flute with more push than the other one. I suppose we'd need an artificial air jet at the embouchure to rule that out. And it still wouldn't account for different player embouchures being more or less effective with different embouchure cuts. We're back to "just find a flute that suits you."

P.S. I also tested my mandolin with the same setup. It's a very good one, a Lebeda F-style archtop with a redwood top. A nice clear tone, no excess harmonics. It was 10 db quieter than the flutes when played at the same pick energy I use in sessions. Confirmation that playing mandolin in a session with flutes and fiddles is bringing a knife to a gun fight.
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Re: "What's the loudest flute I can get?"

Post by chas »

bigsciota wrote: Fri Sep 30, 2022 6:51 pm
What does it mean? "It's not the flute, it's the player" seems to be the conclusion.
That's certainly what I draw from your test, but it's a little more subtle than that. I'm sure if I did the same test, I'd get the same results. One of my teachers said to me many years ago, "You have your own sound." This was after hearing me on three different flutes, I think a Bleazey, Copley, and Olwell.

One corollary to that is that I don't really push a flute. So if you hand me a (very small-holed) Bleazey and an Olwell Pratten, the volume will be about the same. Some players are SO powerful, I can't tell the difference in their volume between small- and large-holed flutes. But there are many players who get a lot more sound out of a Pratten-type flute than from a small-holed flute.
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Re: "What's the loudest flute I can get?"

Post by GreenWood »

A few things come to mind.

Firstly is that the difference in volume between loud and less loud diminishes with distance , meaning although db difference stays similar the difference in intensity due to it being logarithmic decreases. 10 to 20 db is not the same difference in intensity as 100 db to 110 db... correct me if wrong. So the player will perceive a difference at 10cm not so obvious at 1 metre .

The embouchure is very important, as you say. Some flutes need to be played near fully open with a lot of air to sound well, others accept a more closed or subtle style of playing. The first are always loud, the recent large bore large tonehole boehm I made is a choice between loud and very loud, and it leaves my ears ringing, which no other flute has done so far. Unless you wear ear protection, you don't want to be playing that loud though, and the fact that it needs strong embouchure and air means it introduces wind sound...which you don't hear so much while playing but do on recording, for some reason.

On a 16mm bore I can still raise the level to uncomfortably loud if I choose, but really there is no point except if playing in band or just for the thrill. All the subtleties of tone are at lower levels, unlike the Boehm one which needs a lot of air to bring those out.

The difference I find is something like this, quiet to loud:

Small bore/toneholes plays nicely gently with open flute embouchure, raise the pressure and it gets quite loud, might lose some depth of tone but gains in crispness.

Medium, plays nicely part covered and reedy, open with medium pressure is quite loud with detail, high pressure gets louder still and loses depth detail but gains crispness.

Large, same as medium but everything louder and taking more effort, high pressure can actually bring out more detail and increases loudness.

Very large, difficult to play across whole range closed, so starts at medium pressure and loudness (whether covered or open), and high pressure is very loud but needed to bring out detail, though introducing wind noise.


Feel free to argue any of that, it is only subjective experience...but the point is that most flutes play well at a medium level, one way or another, and a player will adapt embouchure or set to play as they are used to (air wise for example), which will give roughly similar results of loudness. On the large bored Boehm I was forced to play with more air than usual to sound it well...and so I play that louder, and differently. Particularly, large top three toneholes take much air pressure to sound, I normally keep those smaller for that.

Also, higher frequency carries better I think, so large toneholes allow more high frequency through. To me, most sound seems to come from embouchure though, which is relatively large on most flutes, only on the largest toneholes do I really notice the sound coming much from down the flute. Also of note is that with a whistle openings are likely towards mic, whereas with a flute not so, and so flute volume at 1 metre is going to be more "ambient" (i.e. diluted) .


So the loudest flute you can get is my 20mm Boehm, it roars like the thunder of a hundred elephants dancing on a tin roof, sounds like the crack of lightning overhead, or a full gale blowing through taught rigging.

My renaissance flute on the other hand is the sound of a feather drifting through the air, a single drop of water falling into a pond, or the noise of a rainbow. Lovely.

:)

(Have just been making another more normal Boehm at 20mm, plus measured bore detail of first also etc. , will post that up soon... the short of it being the above, large toneholes on large bore need air volume/pressure and so are louder, medium toneholes on large bore not so much as that, but not quite as loud at full volume)
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