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Lebiyle Jazz Alto mouthpiece, refacing needed?

3K views 16 replies 7 participants last post by  Sigmund451 
#1 ·
Lebayle Jazz Alto mouthpiece, refacing needed?

Finally, after really bad experience dealing with Lebayle himself, i had a change to get one of his mouthpiece. I know they can come with inconsistence facings sometimes. I have just tested it two times and it has some resistance that i just think could be from some bad facing. It does not play very well, although i would say it has potential for a reface.
Have you had a similar experience with a Lebayle piece? Did you take it to a refacer?
As i have not spent too much money buying it maybe could think of sending it for a reface.
 
#4 ·
Sorry, i misspelled the lebayle name on the thread title, now corrected.
I would try now some softer reeds and make my conclusion.
So Phil, have you worked on lebayle pieces before? would you take a look to this one? i live in Spain so shipping would take a few days only.
Considering the cheap price i paid for it i think it could be worth a reface, so i can try that chamber design with the facing it deserves.
 
#7 ·
I have a Jazz that’s was my main piece for a year or so. I was just looking for something brighter. I tried a couple other Lebayle pieces and didn’t like them as much as the Jazz mode I have. I’ve moved on to a Macsax. Had the Lebayle for sale but not trying too hard to move it. I expect I would have sellers remorse.
 
#8 ·
What i like of it is that is darker than the regular meyer-like pieces i have played. For a brighter sound there are tons of pieces there.

Yesterday put a new rico 3 reed to test it. At the beginning it was playin nice except for a little squeak here and there. Then i went to my regular piece for some minutes and came back to the Lebayle. I found it almost unplayable, the squeaks increased in number and the only way that i could play was taking more mouthpiece so almost past away the facing length. I talked to Phil and would send it to him these week so he can check the facing.
 
#9 ·
I pulled mine out again last night and was pleasantly surprise with how much I liked it. Maybe I got GAS when I moved on from it but I couldn't figure out what I didn't like about it. I will say I was experimenting with mouthpieces around the same time I changed horns and don't think I ever played my Lebayle Jazz on my Mark VII. Its actually brighter than I remember then I was playing on my Eastman 52nd St, which I'm sure added to my darkness perception.
 
#10 ·
I sent mine today to Phil, expecting his check work would confirm my suspects. I think also that the tip opening does not correspond to Lebayle's own chart.
I remembered the same( in case this is what happens, wrong opening, bad facing) happened in my business with him(Lebayle) when i ordered two mouthpieces and they were playing so bad than i shipped them again to him. They never came back....almost 500$( or euros, i don't remember exactly) throw to the garbage.
Luckily there are some good refacers near me now. Is there a while since i played some Philtone pieces, they were all very nice as i recall.
 
#11 ·
Bad facing confirmed some days ago!! Phil measured it and it seemed a disastrous facing, he is working on it right now. Luckily i paid little money for it so i can pay Phil to do his magic. That was one possibility in my mind, i didn't expect the piece to play nice from the beginning, specially at the price it sold.
 
#16 ·
I tried a bunch of lebayle tenor mouthpieces at ishimori in Tokyo a couple of months ago. Some of them were borderline unplayable. I left with an LR 9 that played pretty well, but was reed picky. I ended up sending it to Mojo, who confirmed that the facing was a bit goofy and did a great reface job on it. Now it plays quite nicely. My impression was that the designs were good, but the execution was abysmal.

With Mojo's facing, that LR has a great middle of the road sound and response that seems like it might be great for just about any non-legit setting.
 
#17 ·
I refaced the one discussed here.

People complain about babbit...even when crooked a babbitt facing makes sense. You at least know what the goal was in general.

This facing looked ok but it made zero sense. Whoever faced it did not care if it played. There are errors and then there are simply random curves.

The only way a reed would work properly in it is if it were a curly noodle
 
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