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Re: The balance of mouthpieces

Author: Bob Bernardo
Date: 2018-02-22 00:38

I'm in agreement with Brad. Not talked about is the sound. The baffle and chamber can look good to the human eye but when you are designing an actual mold, which I have, you have to be so careful. Really careful. I have special tooling just to measure every part on this area from behind the tip to the table. If one side of the baffle/chamber is higher well the sound will surely change. People often think the deeper you go the darker the sound, true, but you lose that ring. If the sides are off you get a weird brighter sound on the higher side and a dead sound on the low side. Playing on a mouthpiece like this brings frustration.

Just a human hair difference can make a mouthpiece sound great or dead sounding. Marcellus usually used to order Kaspar's 8 at a time. One day he tried one out in the symphony and Szell didn't like it and at the Institute I passed him in the hall and he just gave it to me. Later on, years later, I measured it and it was too deep, lost it's ring/ping. I put thin coats of nail polish in some of the areas and slowly brought it back to life. Took a few weeks but it was saved. I had to sand and remove the nail polish slowly, because it isn't thin. So lots of patients is required.

I think this is why there are so many stinky Kaspar's and Chedeville's out there on the market now. Too many people have gotten their hands on them and simply wrecked the old Cheds and Kaspars, by digging out these areas of the mouthpieces. Taking files to them and just pounding out the rubber.

I really don't like most Zinner's because of the lack of this ring. They in general are too deep behind the tip. But as I've said before the German Zinners are shallow. So who decided to make these so deep? It was surely a mistake.

Szell was right. Bob's mouthpiece didn't ring enough. What an amazing ear Szell had.

Designer of - Vintage 1940 Cicero Mouthpieces and the La Vecchia mouthpieces

Yamaha Artist 2015

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The balance of mouthpieces new

xiao yu

2018-02-13 11:15