Author: Simon Aldrich
Date: 2018-01-04 21:46
One of the phenomena that is most pronounced when a mpc wears out is called rail tilt. The abrasive effect of the reed vibrating against the mpc wears the rails. This wear is not uniform, as the inside of the rail is worn more quickly that the outside of the rail. With some of my mpcs, this tilting of the rails has caused squeak-like chirps, particularly on low-note attacks. I have come to recognize this effect in students' old mpcs. Often the student thinks the problem is in the reed, but the chirp often occurs with most reeds.
Brad Behn explained this issue on this board a few years ago. He wrote:
"The more you use your mouthpiece the quicker it wears out. This occurs as a result of the reed's vibration against the mouthpiece rails. In fact the reed acts like an abrasive and gradually bevels the rails inward, making what we call "rail tilt"."
He also wrote:
"Misuse can cause a mouthpiece to wear out. Swabbing with bad swabs or any kind of abrasive material can cause damage."
With regards to the second point, I have a colleague who bought a Johnston mpc several years ago. It had thick rails, a very dark sound and was quite resistant. Years later, I played with the same colleague and the sound was threadbare and overly-bright. I looked at the mpc and the rails had become very, very thin. It turns out she swabbed the mpc after every use with a piece of shammy and the years of abrasion had eroded down the rails (side and tip). When she bought the mpc, she used light reeds because of the resistance. Now she was using 4 1/2s, saying the mpc had become less and less resistant, while getting a shallow, thin sound that she did not like.
Many jazz sax players who use vintage mpcs find that the rails of old mpcs often need to be flattened if the mpc was played a lot.
Frequent flattening of the rails comes with a caveat. If you look at a mpc straight-on at the tip, you see that the mpc expands outward as it moves up from the rail exterior. Thus, repeated rail-flattening actually widens the mpc window, as the outside-rail to outside-rail measurement becomes gradually wider with each flattening. I have several mpcs that have windows that have become bizarrely wide from too many rail flattenings (often as part of a refacing).
Simon
|
|
The Clarinet BBoard
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
.jpg){kind=small}
