 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Robert Moody
Date: 2012-12-07 01:54
Wow! There are a lot of old threads on O'Brien mouthpieces (or mentioning them).
I play professionally on an O'Brien mouthpiece. A 1983, 4 O'Brien. Wonderfully in tune, smooth throughout the range and agreeable with most Grand Concert Selects and V12s I try (Strength 4). I simply adore this mouthpiece. That makes it difficult to search for a "back-up", which is what I'm doing.
I just received two O'Brien mouthpieces from the same person (who sold another to someone who outbid me and then immediately put another up after I won mine).
One is marked OB+ OCB-60. It has two grooves and a kind of interesting female shape. I mean, it shrinks inward a little in the middle and flares out at the bottom. The lay appears warped with the left rail appearing higher than the right as you look at it from bottom toward the beak. When you lay it on a flat surface, the two sides of the tip are at slightly different heights. The whole mouthpiece seems slanted somehow. This one is barely playable with a new Grand Concert Select 4 or 3.5 or Vandoren V12 4 or 3.5.
The other is marked O'Brien 4+ on the top, rather than on the lay as my others are marked. Realizing there were a couple generations of O'Briens making these mouthpieces, this signature is much different than the others I've seen. This is a taller mouthpiece with a beak that is thinner from side to side. This mouthpiece is unplayable as all reeds react like they are warped.
Has anyone heard of fake O'Briens out there? Or is there any experience out there that I am simply going to be shooting in the dark buying these and trying them--O'Briens were inconsistent?
My "good" O'Brien was bought it a music store in about 1984 in Va Beach, VA and came in a clear plastic case with a paper insert.
Robert Moody
http://www.musix4me.com
Free Clarinet Lessons and Digital Library!
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Author: Robert Moody
Date: 2012-12-07 02:13
Are there any verifiable mouthpiece experts (people who actually make or adjust mouthpieces as a part of their professional living) who'd be willing to take a look at these and check them out? I mean, I can visually see things are unbalanced or unaligned and want to know if these are consistent with known O'Brien mouthpieces and if what I believe to be seeing is affecting the playability of the mouthpieces?.
Robert Moody
http://www.musix4me.com
Free Clarinet Lessons and Digital Library!
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Author: David Spiegelthal ★2017
Date: 2012-12-07 11:08
I've refaced a number of O'Brien crystals over the years and in my experience they have been very inconsistent --- but one fairly consistent characteristic was that most of them seemed stuffy and unresponsive to me.
O'Brien sold a model labeled "OCB" (Off-Center Bore) which I've speculated was a clever marketing ploy to take a poorly molded blank and turn its asymmetry into a virtue, as if it were intentional (or as we say in the engineering world, turning a 'flaw' into a 'feature').
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Author: Robert Moody
Date: 2012-12-07 13:03
Thank you David. I'm so disappointed with the money lost on these mouthpieces, but it seems to sit better thinking I was not duped...these are just inconsistent mouthpieces.
Robert Moody
http://www.musix4me.com
Free Clarinet Lessons and Digital Library!
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