I had a Zephyr bari and found that it (and many vintage ones) don't like that high baffle mouthpieces like the Rico. On my Martin, I found the Selmer S-90 to work well along with the Yamaha 5C so keep working with the Rascher. I have a Morgan Protone and it worked on the vintage OK and had some edge but I found it to be a little hard to control down low. If you need a Yamaha or Selmer, hit me up as I sold the baris and don't need the mouthpieces anymore. I sold my Zephyr when I got a Selmer and that was a mistake!
Bari Mouthpiece Dilemma
Okay, I've got a late model King Zephyr, and exactly two mouthpieces. I'm pretty new to saxophones in general, so this is all a learning experience for me.
My first mouthpiece is a throwaway Rico Graftonite. It is ultraloud (at least, for my practice space), and sounds bright compared to #2: a Rascher piece. With a #3 legere reed (my practice reed), it is pretty close to perfect from top to bottom of the sax in terms of tone.
#2, the rascher, is dark and soft, as we would expect. This has serious advantages with my wife, who hates the baritone with a passion. The rascher is my "marital harmony" mouthpiece. While I love how it sounds, it is too large for the more modern horn (I suspect), and to get it in tune(-ish) requires pushing it way in on the neck. The sound takes more work to sound even from the high to low octaves, with the low notes sounding far better.
I like the sound of the rascher, but I need to overcome one problem: middle and high C#, C, and B are wildly sharp. It is way more than I can counteract without major embouchure changes. I can bend the palm key notes back into shape without too much effort though.
I suspect that this is just a "feature" of using a mouthpiece made for saxophones from a different era. Is there a modern mouthpiece that would give me the dark, soft abilities of the rascher without the intonation problems? Does anyone else have these problems when mating a large chamber Mouthpiece to a post-WW2 saxophone?
Any advice is appreciated. Thanks!
My first mouthpiece is a throwaway Rico Graftonite. It is ultraloud (at least, for my practice space), and sounds bright compared to #2: a Rascher piece. With a #3 legere reed (my practice reed), it is pretty close to perfect from top to bottom of the sax in terms of tone.
#2, the rascher, is dark and soft, as we would expect. This has serious advantages with my wife, who hates the baritone with a passion. The rascher is my "marital harmony" mouthpiece. While I love how it sounds, it is too large for the more modern horn (I suspect), and to get it in tune(-ish) requires pushing it way in on the neck. The sound takes more work to sound even from the high to low octaves, with the low notes sounding far better.
I like the sound of the rascher, but I need to overcome one problem: middle and high C#, C, and B are wildly sharp. It is way more than I can counteract without major embouchure changes. I can bend the palm key notes back into shape without too much effort though.
I suspect that this is just a "feature" of using a mouthpiece made for saxophones from a different era. Is there a modern mouthpiece that would give me the dark, soft abilities of the rascher without the intonation problems? Does anyone else have these problems when mating a large chamber Mouthpiece to a post-WW2 saxophone?
Any advice is appreciated. Thanks!
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