What is the difference in tone sound quality when playing on a brass, silver, or gold horn?

I have the same question. I`m glad somebody finally asked it. Does gold sound better?

I actually posted this a while ago, but here it is again, important issue.

I took a physics of music class at SJSU a few years back and here is what I learned. Contrary to popular belief, the type of metal used makes very little difference in tone, sometimes not even noticable depending on the player. Bell shape, the angle of bends, brace placement, mouthpiece choice, and the player themself make a much larger difference.

This is strictly a physical explanation, in reality, there may be a difference. Some people will tell you that yellow brass bells are very consistent in all registers, while the more copper the metal has (the darker color, rose brass more copper, red brass even more copper) the darker the sound will be in soft playing and the more brilliant in louder playing, meaning more overtones.

Maybe it`s partly subconscious, if you expect there to be a difference there will be. In my experience, I have noticed a little bit of a difference swiching back and forth, but I`m not convinced that it was the horns themselves and not me thinking about it. Also remember, these differences are more between brass, red brass, gold brass, and the like. When you add silver to the mix, it does brighten up, but it can also be slightly harder to play, since the silver coating is so heavy and thick, it constrains the vibration of the bell. Which is probably why you rarely see professional players using silver bells, as opposed to trumpet players.

So for me, it makes such a small difference, that when choosing a horn, I look at many other things before metal composition. You can still get an extremely deep, dark, sound out of a brighter metal, and you can get a thin peircing bright tone out of a darker metal. I play a Bach Strad 16m for jazz, with the gold brass bell, and it isn`t much darker then the normal brass color. And for orchestral work I use an Edwards T-350 with the yellow brass bell, and it is plenty deep and dark for everything I do. And, when I was testing Edwards equipment before I bought that, I tried all the same equipment, but switched just the bell from the brass to the rose brass. The difference that was there was noticable, but only when I really paid attention to it, but not enough for me to justify spending more or less for a certain bell color.

That said, I prefer the darker rose and red brass colors. They look pretty sick. However, you may want as a first go to horn the regular yellow brass, slightly better for all around playing, and then get a second, darker, bell later on for that type of playing. And, if it makes more of a difference for you than me, there ya go. It really is all personal.

Hope that helped and didn`t confuse you more.....

go buddy. ok so now you know the physics and stuff, her is my opinion.
I have played 1 horn that had its entire bell gold plated, it was a 16m (copy of bill watrous horn) and it played like "oh my god respone and wow bright solo tone" but t was probobly psycho symatic. playing a great horn sound great, or maby it was hey i just sound great all the time.
I played a silver and gold plated horn (king 3b silver sonic) and it seamed brighter than the gold.
Yello brass i call that the middle of the road.
red brass a litle darker.
copper (yes they make those) that was so dark laike black even.
there you go.

Actually, copper is in all bells, it`s the percentage of copper as opposed to zinc. For example, there is yellow brass (70% copper 30% zinc), rose brass (85% copper 15% zinc), and red brass (90% copper 10% zinc). This may vary slightly from company to company, that is just the Edwards stats.

lol yea i knew that....
i ment an almost all copper like 99%ish copper bell. with no laquer they turn the coolest green, lol

haha. Yeah, my old trombone teacher had a, uhhhh, forgot what kind of trombone it was, but it had an extremely dark bell. it had an almost orangy tint to it. It was actually very dark orange. Not like the fruit color, but it had a very orange color to it. Anyways, he played it, and it sounded awesome. Thats probably why when I bought my trombone, i would only get one witha rose brass bell. It think it just sounds a little more mellow, but it certainly looks a lot cooler and more professional that a yellow brass one. My friend has a bach, witha yellow brass bell, and you really can`t tell much of a difference between it and the trombone I played in 6th grade. I think it mostly just looks more professional because you rarely if ever see a beginner trombone with a darker colored bell. NOt great for jazz, but awesome for symphonic. As for silver, never played one. I want a conn with a silver bell, but Haven`t had the money so i settled for a regular one. But I dont realy like the yellows in the end except on straight tenors. They fit well with them in my opinion.