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Re: Finding a Mouthpiece

Author: NBeaty
Date: 2018-04-04 20:24

It's unfortunate that affordable bass mouthpieces seems to be an oxymoron. As stated by others, keep in mind that clarinet mouthpieces are very inexpensive relative to parts for other instruments. The instruments, even bass, are dirt cheap comparatively. The top of the line Buffet/Selmer will run you about 13K, but I would hesitate to complain about that to a flute player... That said, none of that matters if you don't have the 13K!

As far as options for lower end priced bass clarinet mouthpieces, the options are indeed limited. The Fobes Debut is as cheap as you'd want to go and many players have had success in their younger years of playing on these mouthpieces. I would still order a few of them from a dealer to try, the finishing can be inconsistent (see Mojo's comment above).

I have a student that went from a stock Buffet mouthpiece with 3.5 blue box vandorens to a Fobes Debut with 3+ D'Addarios and the difference was night and day. Of course just about any stock plastic mouthpiece is not a high benchmark, and I would argue are basically unplayable.

Michael Lowenstern played a Selmer that was refaced by Matson for many years. The Vandoren B50 is a relatively recent switch. If you look up youtube videos of him playing from years past, it will most likely be the selmer. He also uses fairly light reeds, V12 2.5's, with the B50.

It's worth your while to take your bass and a fresh box of reeds to your local music store that has a stock of Vandoren/Selmer etc. mouthpieces and try them for yourself. If that is not an option, ordering a handful of different mouthpieces from an online distributor is worth it.

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