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4,152 Posts
I'm no Steve Neff, but here's my take.
Last year I was making a commitment to getting back into playing sax seriously. Work, life, and scuba have gotten in the way of music for the last 5-6 years and when I had the ability to perform it seemed to always be either singing or on clarinet. I had some of my gear stolen about a year and a half ago and when I was getting back into it I saw a random sale that Arnold was having on his facebook page. Looked like a good deal, I needed a tenor mouthpiece to play the book for Grease, and I figured what the heck. Grabbed a Luna 8 from him which was a bit bigger than I am used to, but at the same time it had been years since I'd played tenor seriously so why not.
Threw it on the horn when it got in and was blown away. It was the sound and response that I had been looking for on tenor for the better part of a decade, Link STM but with a bit more oomph and much better response. Comparable to some of the customized mouthpieces that I've played by the likes of Mojo and others.
Circle back around to this spring when I was asked to play in the Addams Family and was called for soprano, alto, tenor, Bb and Bass clarinets, piccolo and flute *whew*. Needed some new mouthpieces for the sop/alto and grabbed a couple of Blue Herons in the hopes that I would keep the sound dark enough for pit work. I have never liked HR mouthpieces and the quest for good metal mouthpieces can be difficult. I have some Selmer Metal Classics for both of those horns, but the tip openings are quite small and we were unmic'd for this show and I wanted something that could work for some old school big band work as well as an outdoor concert series with a professional wind ensemble in our area. Highly recommend these as well, couldn't be happier.
I did get a Katana bari piece to go with the lot, but will be trading that to a buddy. Too much baffle for my preference, and will be replacing it with either a Blue Heron or a Luna, tbd on which one. I still have my Runyon Jaguar that Mojo made for me a bit over 10 years ago and have played in big band for years, but am needing something to go with the wind ensembles that isn't a SA80.
I know this sounds a bit fanboyish, but yes, I did buy them all. I'm just very happy that we have someone out there who is the little guy with a focus on making truly high quality mouthpieces and innovating continuously.
If there is any critique out there, it's that the OD of the bodies makes finding ligatures a bit of a PITA. The Rovner site lists some, but on a couple of them they are a HAIR too small, i.e. the HR alto ligature is just a bit too small for the metal bari pieces. I think the blanks could use a bit of tweaking to be more ligature friendly on the bigger pieces, but that's about all I've got.
Last year I was making a commitment to getting back into playing sax seriously. Work, life, and scuba have gotten in the way of music for the last 5-6 years and when I had the ability to perform it seemed to always be either singing or on clarinet. I had some of my gear stolen about a year and a half ago and when I was getting back into it I saw a random sale that Arnold was having on his facebook page. Looked like a good deal, I needed a tenor mouthpiece to play the book for Grease, and I figured what the heck. Grabbed a Luna 8 from him which was a bit bigger than I am used to, but at the same time it had been years since I'd played tenor seriously so why not.
Threw it on the horn when it got in and was blown away. It was the sound and response that I had been looking for on tenor for the better part of a decade, Link STM but with a bit more oomph and much better response. Comparable to some of the customized mouthpieces that I've played by the likes of Mojo and others.
Circle back around to this spring when I was asked to play in the Addams Family and was called for soprano, alto, tenor, Bb and Bass clarinets, piccolo and flute *whew*. Needed some new mouthpieces for the sop/alto and grabbed a couple of Blue Herons in the hopes that I would keep the sound dark enough for pit work. I have never liked HR mouthpieces and the quest for good metal mouthpieces can be difficult. I have some Selmer Metal Classics for both of those horns, but the tip openings are quite small and we were unmic'd for this show and I wanted something that could work for some old school big band work as well as an outdoor concert series with a professional wind ensemble in our area. Highly recommend these as well, couldn't be happier.
I did get a Katana bari piece to go with the lot, but will be trading that to a buddy. Too much baffle for my preference, and will be replacing it with either a Blue Heron or a Luna, tbd on which one. I still have my Runyon Jaguar that Mojo made for me a bit over 10 years ago and have played in big band for years, but am needing something to go with the wind ensembles that isn't a SA80.
I know this sounds a bit fanboyish, but yes, I did buy them all. I'm just very happy that we have someone out there who is the little guy with a focus on making truly high quality mouthpieces and innovating continuously.
If there is any critique out there, it's that the OD of the bodies makes finding ligatures a bit of a PITA. The Rovner site lists some, but on a couple of them they are a HAIR too small, i.e. the HR alto ligature is just a bit too small for the metal bari pieces. I think the blanks could use a bit of tweaking to be more ligature friendly on the bigger pieces, but that's about all I've got.
