[chops2200]

I've recently started to notice how many of the current tenor players are using Otto Link HR mouthpieces which have been modified to some degree. These players include Chris Cheek, John Ellis, Mark Turner, (Chris Potter used to play a HR), and others. I've been playing one of these pieces for several months, and just figured this out about these players a few days ago. What i'm wondering is...obviously these guys are not playing stock pieces, they've been modified to some degree; what kind of modification would they have done? And how would Turner's mouthpieces differ from Potter's, or Ellis'.

I own several pieces that have been worked on by different people, some more well known than other...but I've always bought them from someone who had the work done. I've never actually paid for the modification directly, or had any experience with mouthpiece work.

So, I'm really not sure how certain things will change a mouthpieces performance. I'm not even sure I know what about a mouthpiece can be modified.

Any help or info relating to different modifications to mouthpieces would be great, specifically the differences between how these guys might have their pieces shaped.

Thanks

 

[Saxland]

This is a huge topic with alot to read through.

http://forum.saxontheweb.net/search.php?searchid=1805327

Thats 16 pages of whats in that section on SOTW. I believe most of the refacers are mentioned there.

Mojobari formed a yahoo mouthpiece discussion group as well you can find a link from his home page.

Alot of the modifying is because they are damaged, or they were not made to specs in the factory or someone has a sound they want to more easily produce. Most of the work done in not radical, it can make the mouthpiece easier to play in general and more even toned throughout the registers.

 

[Sebastian]

talk to Adam Niewood. He worked on pieces for everybody you mentioned.

 

[sinkdraiN]

I do not play a rubber link but I do play a metal STM and I remember being in the same situation as you. I liked the tone I could get from my stock link and at times I felt like "my sound" was coming out exactly as I intended it to. I read a lot about refacing/customizing and was curious. So I bought another STM, same tip...and sent it to Ed Zentera to make it "play well." No added baffles or anything...I just wanted excellent response in hopes that I could shape the sound dark or bright on my own.

Now, my stock link sits in a drawer. EZ's link allows me to get at "my sound" all the time...only because the responsivness of the piece is easily controlled.

It's not that my sound changed or greatly improved directly because of the Zentera STM, it's that the modifications allowed me to have more control over the sound and the nuances than the stock piece.

I can prepare a meal with a dull knife and it will look and taste just as good. But a Sharp high quality blade affords you freedom that may translate into cutting at a different angle or adding additional slices, avoiding injury, etc.

And there is another camp who would say be a "real chef" and learn to use that dull blade.

 

[dirty]

And there is another camp who would say be a "real chef" and learn to use that dull blade.

Totally. Who needs fingers, anyway?

 

[wersax]

Totally. Who needs fingers, anyway?

:twisted:

 

[chops2200]

Cool....actually, this HR Link that I'm playing on I traded with another SOTW member, and it has been worked on by EZ. I don't know what exactly he did, althought it looks like it was just evened out all over, no big changes, like you were saying, sinkdrain.

I've been thinking about ordering another HR Link, or 2... from wwbw, and sending them to a refacer to see what can be done with them. I'm not entirely sure what to have done to them though, but I know the sound that I want. I've been going back and forth, trying to be able to get a sound like Warne Marsh, and like Bergonzi. I'd like to find a happy medium somewhere in there, but I'm not sure how to express this to a refacer.

 

[whaler]

I have an STM Link 6* that was dropped by the previous owner and the tip is bent slightly down on one side. It plays better than any Link I've ever tried (and that must be 30 or so that I have owned of every vintage). Try to figure that one out!

 

[m3pilot]

I have a current production Tone Edge that I blueprinted and it's still one of my favorite pieces. I just flattened the table and balanced the rails . . . didn't touch the baffle or chamber. When I played a Chu nothing ever came close for me. On my SBA it sounds beautiful but a little dark (the horn is particularly dark). It's great on a Keilwerth too.