Author: kdk ★2017
Date: 2015-04-21 02:02
faltpihl wrote:
> Thanks guys!
>
> The problem is, How do I know if the new mouthpiece is good?
> I cant trust reeds because they can be off balance, and I cant
> judge it by eye.
>
> I guess i will have to attempt balancing a box of reeds for
> each mouthpiece and see which gets the best results perhaps?
Well, wait. Going back to your original post, you asked whether the asymmetry you saw in the rail thicknesses could explain your having to consistently balance the right side of your reeds. If, after you've balanced a reed to this mouthpiece, the playing qualities of the reed/mouthpiece combination are what you want, then the problem isn't that it's a bad mouthpiece, only that it's maybe a little less reed friendly than it might be. Even if you find another M15 that doesn't make you do the extra reed work, you may not have any better a mouthpiece to play on.
It's easy, BTW, to check on whether or not the curve is symmetrical. Put a reed on the mouthpiece and let a fairly thin piece of paper slide down between the rails and the reed. Mouthpiece aficionados and refacers use a piece of plate glass (in place of the reed) and a set of flat metal feeler gauges to do this as well as to find out more detail about the curve on its way down to where the rails and the reed meet. But the slip of paper will give you an indication of whether the curve is the same on both rails. Without forcing the paper any further once it stops, if the paper is perpendicular to the edges of the reed, the curve is for most purposes symmetrical. If the paper stops higher on one side than the other - looks slanted compared to the reed, the the curve may be asymmetrical enough to explain your problem with reed imbalance. If the right side of your reeds seems consistently too heavy, it could be explained if the curve is shorter (the paper stops higher) on the right side - a shorter curve tends to cause more resistance than a longer one.
As has already been mentioned, there are players who actually prefer asymmetrical facings and probably many others who like their mouthpieces' performance in other ways and decide to live with the accommodations they need to make in their reeds.
If, once you have the reed balanced for this mouthpiece, you like the result, there may be no reason to do anything but keep doing what you're doing.
Karl
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