Author: Bob Bernardo
Date: 2018-08-11 03:24
I think a lot of us mouthpiece makers try really hard to help the clients the very best we can.
Here are some ways to help us. Send a mouthpiece that you really like, but it's a shade bright, too open or too long of a facing, something like that. Then we have a good starting point.
I am different than most other mouthpiece refacers and makers, as I measure them facing a bit differently, actually magnifying the rails by 10 power and by sometimes using diamond dust and also measuring up to 22 points on the clarinet and many more points on the saxes. I'm looking for flat spots; thus the need for 10X power.
If a person is patient I pretty much nail what they want, but it may take a few tries.
I think that some refacers shouldn't be in the business, because they often screw up more mouthpieces than make them better. Examples are they can't make the table flat and the rails aren't even. Or worse the rails are even, but the table has bumps all over the place so the reeds never sit right. Most refacers hove no idea where to find sandpaper with a grit of 10,000, often needed when refacing. They use 2000 grit.
As for facings I completely agree with you. Maybe we should all offer a few different models and go from there. I'll do this to help people in the future.
So Paul you make some excellent points. I'll try to take your ideas and put them to use on my website.
I've had to send a mouthpiece back and forth to a few people because measurements were meaningless to them. So I would send a 1.03, a 1.08 and a 1.12 then go from there.
Some players like very short facings. I try to stay with the somewhat standard that Matson used which was 34 or 17mm's on the old Eric Brand gauges. Now you can get them from Babbitt.
Facings are all over the place now. As long as 40 or 20mm's to as short as 30 or 15mm's.
None of these are right or wrong. Now here's another added issue, if the baffle is too deep behind the tip, you need to use a close tip opening usually. So there are a lot of different setups to try, but we need standard ones to start with.
On occasion I've had people send a short recording just to hear what they are looking for. This can surely help pick out that perfect mouthpiece. Sadly sometimes, but not often, they may sound better on the new mouthpieces, but their ears are playing games and they think the old mouthpiece is better. It's not!
A lot of pros and good players have gone to plastic reeds. Well this can confuse mouthpiece makers and refacers as well. It's now a totally different facing change based on the vibrations of the plastic reeds. It might be a good idea to send some reeds to help the refacers and mouthpiece makers zero in on the correct curve.
Hope this helps! A very good comment Paul.
Designer of - Vintage 1940 Cicero Mouthpieces and the La Vecchia mouthpieces
Yamaha Artist 2015
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The Clarinet BBoard
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