source file: m1399.txt
Date: Wed, 29 Apr 1998 06:23:10 -0500 (CDT)

Subject: Re: Brass Spectra

From: mr88cet@texas.net (Gary Morrison)

Oh, one other curious thing about brasses, is that their waveforms
(i.e., in the time domain) generally have a tall spike in them.  That
probably means that the partials are pretty much in phase with one another.
Sums of cosine waves at whatever amplitude will produce such a spike.

   So it's very easy for a brass instrument to peak a VU meter even if
their audible volume isn't as loud as would seem necessary to peak the VU.