Combine the new STJ Personal Studio with the existing PM1X Mute, and you get the all-new SB1J Silent brass System for Tub .
This next- generation Silent Brass system adds another level to playing enjoyment.    

Three major upgrades were made to this unit. The first two are associated with what Yamaha calls Brass Resonance Modeling™ Ver.2.0. The Third deals with recording your sessions.

1. Yamaha has brought back two of the original features found in the first Silent Brass ST7 module, reverb control and Hall & Room. Using either the Room or Hall setting, you can dial to set the level of your reverb perference.

2. You now have the ability to hear in your ears what the audience is hearing instead of just from your vantage point. When you perform and practice, you hear yourself from the mouthpiece side of the instrument. Now, when you play, you can imagine yourself sitting out in front of the audience and listening to your performance. Very interesting concept and approach for a practice mute!.

3. You can now record the music directly from your Silent Brass mute. With the provided micro-USB type-B to USB A cable you can connect directly to a desktop or laptop computer and record your performance! With an adapter (not provided) you can also connect directly to your phone or tablet.

Yamaha has a free app named Rec'n'Share - available for Apple and Android. With this app you can record video/sound of your performance as you play along. You can easily share that recording over the internet and social media. You can also analyze and change the original tempo and add click sound to the song for ease in practicing. You can use the AB repeat function to playback a specific range of the song.

To gain a fuller understanding of why this adapter is so advantageous to buy with your system, read more on the STJ product description page.
The cost for this adatper is only $10.00 more with the purchase of any Silent Brass™ product. Or $14.95 by itself.

Connecting to the female USB-A from the cable provided with the STJ, you can input your performance into your Apple or Android phone or tablet using one of the three connections: Lightning, USB Micro-B, or USB-C.

When you don't need this adapter for your STJ Personal Studio module, you can connect a flash drive to the USB-A and then use the appropriate connection for your device for easy transfer of photos and files.

The Problem That Has Always Been Around

You’ve chosen to play the trumpet, or cornet, the loudest of all brass instruments. Due to its loud sound, playing this instrument in a private setting, such as your home, can be difficult. Like any instrument, the only way to get better is to practice. You shouldn’t practice if it isn't fun. It should be fun. When practicing, it's often difficult because the sound you make is so, well, you know, loud. Yet, living in an apartment, condo, townhouse, dorm, or barracks makes it more difficult to practice without disturbing your neighbors.

Because you can still have neighbors who can hear you practicing in a home, the issue is not limited to close-knit communities. But besides that, practicing in the home is often not easy because you have roommates, children, or a spouse that you have to please. They all have to deal with your practice. Yes, they are all supportive of you as they walk around the house with earmuffs and headphones on.

So, what tends to happen is that, as a student, you do not bring your instrument home to practice. You leave it at school, and the only playing time you have is during band class. As a college student, you often end up doing the same thing, so you do not bother those around you. As a professional, you practice only when everyone is out of the house. You end up compensating in some way to play the instrument you love.

Take the time to practice.

To get good practice in, it takes time to warm up the lips. Then, when you are practicing a piece of music, you spend most of your attention on the challenging sections the ones that you repeat over and over again, you know exactly what I mean. This is when you do not want to be distracted by thinking about who you may be annoying nearby.

The Solution to the Problem

With Yamaha's Silent Brass™ system, you can put all these concerns aside. The Silent Brass™ Series is a sound-muting system that muffles the sound of brass instruments while allowing the player to hear a natural-sounding performance. The SB1J Silent Brass™ Silent Brass™ System for Trombones and Bass Trombones will allow you to practice anytime and anywhere, like in the evening when family and neighbors are settling down for a good night’s rest.

How does Silent Brass work?

This illustration is of a Silent Brass™ for trumpet (SB7J). The mute (PM7X) goes into the bell of the instrument. This mute has a built-in microphone that captures all your sound. An audio cable comes out of the mute that plugs into a miniature amplifier (STJ Personal Studio™ Module). Out from the amplifier are headphones that allow you to hear yourself as if the mute was never in the bell!

Another nice feature of the STJ Personal Studio Module is that you can input accompaniment music for an MP3, phone, or CD player and play along with it. And another great feature that was just added is that you can now record yourself from the microphone that is in the mute!

How it all got started—a little history on Silent Brass

1st Generation Silent Brass

Yamaha came out with the first design of the Silent Brass™ system in 1995. This first system started out with an ST7 module that would allow two players to use the system at the same time. Yamaha had in mind an instructor or tutor working together with a student in any environment to practice and teach a brass instrument.

Each brass instrument has its own practice mute, such as the PM9 for piccolo trumpet, the PM7 for trumpet and cornet, the PM6 for flugelhorn, the PM5 for trombone, the PM3 for french horn, the PM2 for euphonium or baritone, and the PM1 for tuba.

Because each component can be purchased separately, a player who plays many instruments does not need to purchase a new complete system to silence their practice—just a new mute.

Yamaha completed a full system for each instrument when it combined the ST7 with one of the mutes, so the MPN (Manufacturer Part Number) was assigned to each system. The SB7 Silent Brass™ system for trumpets and cornets included a ST7 module, a PM7 trumpet mute, a pair of Yamaha earbuds, and a single cable connecting the mute to the module.

They did this for each instrument except the PM9 piccolo mute, which they left as an accessory-only mute.

2nd Generation Silent Brass

In 2002, Yamaha came out with the 2nd generation of the Silent Brass™ system. They left all the mutes the same size and style, but they did change the rubber end of the mute to foam, which keeps the mute in the instrument much better. The main difference was in the size of the module, which was renamed the ST9 personal module; some echo features were removed, as was the dual player function that came with the ST7 unit. This changed the price, cutting the price in half.

The Yamaha Silent Brass™ lineup now includes the SB79 trumpet and cornet, the SB69 flugelhorn, the SB59 trombone, the SB39 french horn, the SB29 euphonium/baritone, and the SB19 tuba system.

Yamaha upgraded the system in 2011 to include an extra cable that could be used to connect an alternative music source, such as a CD or MP3 player, to the ST9 personal module. This changed the MPN by adding a letter C to the end, indicating the addition of the cable. So, an SB79 changed to an SB79C.

3rd Generation Silent Brass

2013 introduced a major change in the Silent Brass™ system. Yamaha redesigned four of the six Silent Brass™ system mutes but discontinued making a mute for the piccolo trumpet. With an MPN of STX, this new 3rd-generation Yamaha Silent Brass system incorporates many improvements, including a smaller, lighter Pickup Mute™ and an easier-to-use Personal Studio™. The number structure was changed for the mutes by adding the letter “X” to the end. So, the PM5 trombone mute is now PM5X.

Winning many design awards, Yamaha created this next line of mutes by focusing on a player's functionality. The trumpet, trombone, and French horn mutes will now fit in the bell of the horn, and you will still be able to close your case with it still in the instrument. (We suggest that you always leave the mute as loose as possible when storing it in the bell.) It is perfect for inserting or withdrawing the mute while turning since it has a 7- and 9-pointed rounded-star design that the player can easily hold and turn. More details about this new design can be found on Yamaha's website.

The Silent Brass™ lineup MPN has been updated once more with the following: SB7X is now the trumpet system, SB6X is the flugelhorn, SB5X is the silent brass trombone, and SB3X is the French horn. Many sellers added the “C” to these models because it included the extra cable like with the SB7XC model, but this was never an official MPN. Yamaha removed this extra cable when the second generation of Personal Studio was released, and the confusion faded over time.

3rd Generation + 2nd Generation Personal Studio module

It would take Yamaha almost three more years to complete the development of the new systems for the euphonium and tuba instruments. When this big release happened in 2016, they announced an upgrade to the STX Personal Studio™ which now has an MPN assigned to it as STX-2. The "2" represents the 2nd generation of the STX module. The 1st generation STX will not work on the euphonium or tuba mutes, but the STX-2 module will work with all the newest mutes.

The new STX-2 Personal Studio, working with the newest mutes, improves the sound you hear as you play your instrument. This innovative technology is what Yamaha calls "Brass Resonance Modeling. " It removes the "mute" sound by digitally processing the sound received by the microphone and sonically removing the mute characteristics. This sound is processed within the module to add an acoustic environment for added ambiance, making it sound as if you are playing completely without a mute. It makes it sound like you're playing in a large concert hall by simulating how sound returns to the ears with volume and reverb effects.

The following complete systems are now available with this latest lineup of mutes: SB7X-2 for the trumpet, SB6X-2 for the flugelhorn, SB5X-2 for the trombone, and SB3X-2 for the French horn. Yamaha did follow this same pattern when it created the MPNs for the two remaining systems. SB2X for the euphonium and SB1X for the tuba. Although these two models both use the most recent STX-2 modules, they are technically first-generation systems using second-generation modules, so they omitted the "-2." It is a little confusing. One other abbreviation that sellers make is by dropping the "-" before the number two, making it SB5X2, but this is not the official MPN for this product.

4th Generation Personal Studio

Yamaha continues to improve upon the Silent Brass product by enhancing the personal studio module. On July 1, 2023 Yamaha released the SBJ Personal Studio.

There were three major upgrades with the unit. The first two are assoiated with what Yamaha calls Brass Resonance Modeling™ Ver.2.0

1. Great control over reverb. Yamaha has brought back one of the original features found in the first Silent Brass SB7 module, reverb. You can now once again hear yourself as if you were in a large hall or just in a room.
2. You now have the ability to hear in your ears what the audience is hearing instead of just from your vantage point. When you preform and practice you hear yourself from the mouthpiece side of the instrument. Now when you play you can image yourself sitting out in the audience listen to your preformance. Very interesting concept and approach for a practice mute!
3. You can record the music directly from your PM1X mute. In theroy you would have thought if you just plugged in the earphone jack into your computer or recording device you could record and playback your the music you played. Well it didn't work that way. With the provided mirco USB type-B to USB A cable you can connect directly to a desktop or laptop computer and record your performace!

What's next?

We don't have someone on the inside telling us what is coming down the pike; as a matter of fact, Yamaha has been very good about keeping all upgrades out of the public eye.

Having said that, we are going out to make a prediction.

We think that a Bluetooth feature has to be in the works. The Bluetooth feature would require an upgrade to the mutes as well, so this Personal Studio module would be a major upgrade. Wouldn't it be nice to be free from all these wires? Something to dream about.

 

 

 

Leading Experts

MrSilverTrumpet has been an authorized Yamaha dealer since 2003. We partnered with Yamaha not long after the second-generation model was introduced because we believed that this new technology would completely alter how brass musicians would practice. With over 20 years of experience, we consider ourselves the premier experts in all things Silent Brass.

We often get asked if a certain module will work with a certain mute. To help answer these questions, we have created a Compatibility Chart so you can see which modules and mutes work best together.

Conclusion

So all you former and current brass instrument players can now practice in your home, dorm room, apartment, condo, or anywhere where you don't want to bother those that are in close proximity to you. With the help of the Pickup Mute, a pair of earbuds, and the Personal Studio, you can now play in virtually silence. We believe that both players and neighbors will enjoy the Yamaha Silent System.