[mattlionel]

Man I cashed out my IRA and bought a Reference 54 alto.

Now for 20 years Ive had the same mouthpiece 4*3 lakey with 3 vandorean reeds, and rovner lig.

The problem is that it doesnt sound very good (loud, flat, hard to control) and I thought Ill have to sell it for a loss or ask you good people. Now I do like my S90 selmer (nice overtones ) but not for jazz only classical.

Any help greatly appreciated, Matt

 

[mattlionel]

oh, my I just had beater horns previously Im not knocking lakey cause I did like them for other horns.

 

[Pete Thomas]

I'm slightly confused. Your mouthpiece works well for you with other horns, but not the Selmer. So presumably when you tried this Selmer, to know it is a good horn you tried it with some other mouthpieces. Obviously the S90 as you mention, but what else did you try?

There is no one mouthpiece that goes with a ref 54, so I think much of this will be up to you to find what suits you (for jazz)

 

[craigmultireedguy]

One of my good friends had an ARB metal 7 for his Ref. 54 and it sounded AWESOME. Could be just him but I think it's worth a shot. He also had a Meyer 7 which sounded almost as good.

 

[Mike F]

The problem is that it doesnt sound very good (loud, flat, hard to control)

Any help greatly appreciated, Matt

Are you able to push the mouthpiece well onto the cork? Loud and hard to control sounds like a Lakey (although they can be great with the right reed in the right context), and flat sounds like you haven't put, or can't get, the m/p far enough onto the cork.

No reason why the Lakey should work less well with the Re 54 alto than what you had before. In fact, thinking about it, they might even be a good combination.