Messing around with mouthpieces

[tbdana]

I think most people here already know that I'm not a gear hound. I find one horn and one mouthpiece that feels good and that thousands of others play well on, and I stick with it for a very long time.

Well, recently I started messing around with mouthpieces.

On my Bach 16M I had been using a custom gold Bach Artisan 11C. I tried a new 11c, a Marcinkiewicz Charlie Loper model, and a Warburton Rosolino 3. For some consistency I made sure that each of the experiments had close to an 11C rim so I wasn't changing that part of the equation.

The Marcinkiewicz Loper model had a softer tone and a better low range, but mushier attacks. I liked it a lot actually. Great for warm, smooth playing. Just beautiful sounding. And it was honest across the whole range. But the mushy attacks bugged me.

The modern 11C was close to the artisan model, but didn't slot quite as well and the tone was a little brittle.

The Warburton Rosolino 3 was the most interesting. It has an 11C rim, and a much larger throat than the 11C, but a shallower cup. My high range with that piece was amazing! High Fs to double Bbs just leaped effortlessly out of the horn, and I could play screaming triple-forte high Fs without effort, which someone actually wrote for me in a big band feature -- solo high Fs over full trumpet/bone/sax section tutti, which is normally a really stupid thing to write, but was great with the Rosolino 3. Truly amazing. But the tone got extremely bright and the low range was shallow, difficult, and almost unusable.

In the end, I simply went back to my Artisan 11C as the best compromise. It was not best in any category, but was second best in everything, and had none of the downsides that the other pieces had.

I did the same experimenting with my 88HCLSGX and my Greenhoe Bach 50. In each instance I eventually just returned to the basic all-around mouthpiece I had started with (Marcinkiewicz Byron Peebles for the 88H and a Bach 1G for the bass trombone). Much experimenting, but in the end no change.

Do others go through this and just return to what they already had? Am I doing it wrong? Or does returning to what I had mean I am doing it right?

[hyperbolica]

Let's see - you're second guessing yourself, spending practice time flipping mouthpieces back and forth, buying a lot of stuff that's really similar and you probably don't need and will wind up either keeping in a drawer or selling for a fraction of the purchase price... Sounds like you've got it down pretty well. Mouthpiece safari.

For tenor I have things pretty nailed down, but for bass, I'm still on this quest. I've got it narrowed down, but I have an answer I want to arrive at, yet I'm not able to get there. I think the real answer is just that I'm not a bass bone player deep down, but I have to play. As long as people around here are happy with a 3/4 bass bone player, I'll continue to be their guy. Unfortunately it's also turning me into a 1/2 tenor player.

Just be careful that the quest for perfection doesn't lead you to lose the edge you already have is I guess what I'm saying.

[claf]

It's the same thing for me, at least on trumpet.
I tried 20-30 different mouthpieces as my lead piece, but in the end I'm always back on the second one I got.
And I think if I bought back the first one (that I stupidly sold), I would play it...

[BrassSection]

Call me whatever you want, but I’ve been using the same mouthpiece since 1963. Dad’s hand me down Bach 12SC. In baritones all thru school and beyond, and in my tenor trombone since I got it. Maybe tried 2 other ones, one being the King that came with the horn. The Bach works perfect for my needs. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!

[TomInME]

I'm sorry, but the Bach 1G is not a "basic all around mouthpiece" at all, it's way way deep with an oversized throat, really lightweight, and has a really narrow rim. Your Greenhoe deserves better.

[harrisonreed]

I've only progressed through mouthpieces. Never returned to older stuff.

[tbdana]

I'm sorry, but the Bach 1G is not a "basic all around mouthpiece" at all, it's way way deep with an oversized throat, really lightweight, and has a really narrow rim. Your Greenhoe deserves better.

What do you suggest?

[TomInME]

I think burgerbob would say Markey 87, which is a lot more balanced overall and could be a good place to start. Or reach out to Doug E for a more custom fit for your needs. The 1G really only works for slightly blatty trigger work (I've used it for that myself, regrettably...)

[TomInME]

I also think the amount of time you invest matters a lot. For me it didn't take much time to learn if a mouthpiece was a definite "No", but significantly longer (a few weeks maybe?) to see what it was really capable of, and much longer (a few months) to get the most out of it. I'm finally in that place with my current mouthpiece and it feels good.

[tbonesullivan]

Yeah, the 1G was created, as far as I can tell, by Bach pretty much saying "we need something to compete with the Schilke 60, so scoop out as much of the mouthpiece blank as you can without it falling apart", which also was I'm pretty sure the same design process that led to the Schilke 60 in the first place. Pretty much skeletonized and not the most balanced. Yes lots of people used the Schilke 60, especially for orchestral stuff, but I have very rarely seen one in the flesh, except for ones with the shank altered sitting in the old mouthpiece bin at Dillon music.

The newer designs are not based on having a mouthpiece "blank", so you can still have a nice rim and walls of the cup that aren't paper thin.

I unfortunately did catch a bit of mouthpiece disease for a while, and for me at present, playing mostly orchestral stuff, I find that a Markey 87 is just what I needed. Before that I was playing a Ferguson JR Jeff Reynolds replica and a Markey 85. The 85 was fine, but I felt things just got a bit better when I moved up a size to the 87. They also now offer an 82 and an 80, which were not offered before. The 82 should be, on paper, about the same cup diameter as the Bach 1G, but honestly would be a much more balanced mouthpiece.

If you want something more "commercial" in that size, the Ferguson Minick "L" replica is very good IMHO. That's still what I grab for for playing more modern and jazz stuff.

[BGuttman]

I never liked Bach 1G or Schilke 60, I went down a size to Schilke 59 and Bach 1 1/4 G. I got on the Elliott pretty early with a LB114/L/L8, which sorta corresponds to the Yamaha Yeo (which was still 15 years in the future).

When I'm playing a lot of bass, the Elliott setup works for me. When I have to play bass after a lot of time on tenor I need to drop down to a 1 1/2 sized piece.

[BPBasso]

Dunno if it's flavor of the month, but I've never been happier with a mouthpiece than the Markey I'm currently playing.

Bach 1.5 became too small for me, and the 1.25GM and 1G never felt "right" and seemed to waste air.

Used a Yeo for a while until I traded it off. Made a great sound, but high range never felt good.

Greigo 1 Deco plays nice, but has a thin and sharp rim. Find it uncomfortable after a while.

Currently using Markey 82 but wish I had gone larger. Once my lips are flushed, I start to run out of room. Wide rim, rounded inner lip, tighter throat, deep cup but not an air hog. It plays evenly up and down the horn. It feels like a big bass mpc that doesn't take a lot of extra work to play.

[TomInME]

I've only progressed through mouthpieces. Never returned to older stuff.

Mostly true for me also, except for every time I tried to make the 1G work. I always had to go back to something less extreme, and I'm really glad there are so many better options now

[hyperbolica]

What do you suggest?

I wouldn't dare to think that anything I suggest would work for anyone else, but on bass, I've landed on things in the 1.5G size. Curry 1.5D, Curry 2, DE J and K cups with 8 shanks and 110 rims. For smaller bass or low tenor, I use the Ferguson V. The pieces I tend toward are more conical than others, and give a more defined less boomy sound. For me, it helps connect the bass to the tenor.

I'm still kind of on this safari for bass bone. It has lasted 8-10 years, but I've narrowed it down. I only have a handful I bounce between. I want to end up on the DE J cup with a 110 lexan rim and some shank that pulls it together. However, my favorite at this point is my Curry 1.5D because it gets a great bark plus as low as I can play. I'm trying to practice the Curry 2 into submission just to get the overall cup volume down and woofiness out of the sound. But the low range just isn't there for me.

[GabrielRice]

In defense of the Bach 1G...I have tooted on older 1Gs that played pretty well. Randy Hawes recorded one of my favorite bass trombone solo records on a 1G (but he doesn't play one anymore and hasn't in many years).



That said, I can't recommend it either. Hard to control the sound, difficult high register, tendency to splash.

But if it's working for Dana, why change?

Dana, if you want to go down the bass trombone mouthpiece rabbit hole, you will get endless recommendations. Doug Elliott's stuff is great for sure, and that's what I play. Griego and Greg Black both make great mouthpieces in lots of sizes. There are others I don't recommend, for various reasons.

If you want to try something inexpensive that's around the size and vibe of the 1G but tends to sound better for a lot of people, I'd suggest the Yamaha Douglas Yeo Replica.

[Burgerbob]

I'd ask what else Dana has tried.

[JTeagarden]

"ain't broke" isn't the same thing as "optimized."

I think some people are simply able to power through pretty well with whatever has been working relatively well, and I suppose playing pretty well would give you no reason to consider other mouthpieces.

But even though I could place the mouthpiece practically anywhere on my lips and get it to work, or use any mouthpice size to an extent, I think a lot of us don't necessarily want to risk things by going on a quest if we lack a roadmap.

For me, I am naturally predisposed to produce a certain kind of sound on the horn, despite how I would like to sound: Producing a big, full, dark sound on a horn is kind of second nature, and attempts to brighten and lighten things up never seem to go very well, so I have had to reconcile myself to having a sound concept that is something my chops are actually inclined to produce!

Years ago, I went on a pigrimage with the other 3 trombones in my big band to see Doug Elliot, and for three of us, Doug suggested changes in rims and cup sizes that we all three have kept, roughly 15 years later (the 4th dabbled in trombone and has stopped playing).

My takeways: 1) Paralysis by analysis is only a thing if you don't really know what it is you are analyzing, and 2) your embouchure isn't going to "break" if you try new equipment or embouchure placements, it's all about optimization.

[VJOFan]

At the end of my undergrad my Shilke 51 started to feel like it was going to cut through my lips so I found a set up that was similar in dimensions but had a cushier rim.

About a year and a half later I was lying in my apartment and absent mindedly pulled the Shilke off my desk and buzzed a little. It felt like home and I have been back on it for over 30 years now. Maybe my soft tissue needed a bit of time to recover and I needed to learn to not use as much pressure- the cushier rim didn't let me use it to grip the lips so I had to build a real embouchure I guess.

[LeTromboniste]

When I switched to historical trombones, it was an absolute blessing that there are comparatively very few options of sackbut mouthpieces to choose from, and most of them have very similar specs. I was going to buy the same model of instrument my teacher played, tried hers with her mouthpiece, it felt right, so I simply also got that same mouthpiece. Over 10 years ago and I never changed it (except more recently as I am now adopting a more fully historical design, but it has the exact same rim and cup so it's not a change in specs so to speak). I haven't felt the need at all to experiment with different sizes and specs. I built my sound and to some extent my technique around this one, and I don't need to know what 1mm bigger or smaller would do. There's a lot of benefit, to me, in the thought of trying something different never even occurring to me, instead always trying to improve how I play, not change gear. I try to not interfere with my students equipment either, unless there's really an issue that would be solved or significantly helped by changing equipment.

Paradoxically, I am in truth a bit of a gear head and I think a lot about instruments and mouthpieces. I'm just no longer interested in trying a million options and being on a Holy Grail quest in terms of my own personal use, and instead I focus on a broader picture. Right now I am leading a research project that aims to identify and define the playing and sound characteristics of historical mouthpieces so that we can have a shared vocabulary and set of expectations about how different historical designs react to different playing contexts, also in comparison with the standard middle-of-the-road compromise designs.

[dukesboneman]

I`ve gone thru a real chop Chop problem/change. For 40 years I played a Mount Vernon 7C
Everything I did was great on the 7C until...
I started having problems . Notes weren`t focusing, weird wobble in my attacks etc...
I switched to a Schilke 51B (I know , HUGE change) but all the problems went away as well as my high Eb &F
after a year and 1/2 I went back to the 7C... No problems
About a year later , same thing
This time I switched to a NY Giardinelli Jiggs Whigham Rim and a NY 4M cup.
I`ts working for me.
On all my doubles I`m happy with my mouthpieces but my daily driver is messing with me