[Mark Fleming]

I saw that Uwe Steinmetz had a Regulator alto mouthpiece for sale and, since I don't think that it is possible to respond to Marketplace advertisements, I started a new thread that he might see (hopefully). Maybe others might be interested. When doing research on Mr. Chiron, I saw that he had several patents to his name. For woodwind patents, he seemed to partner with Mr. Parme to give his inventions some "orchestral" clout.

Here is Mr. Chiron's patent for what became the Regulator mouthpiece. https://patents.google.com/patent/US1506363

What an amazingly inventive mind. I'm not sure how he became fascinated with woodwinds as I can't find any information that he played one. I have been contacted by people seeking genealogical information on "Hippolyte Chiron" and had to tell them that during this period there were several people named Hippolyte Chiron just in France alone. None of them were looking for Hippolyte Marius Chiron, the inventor of Uwe's mouthpiece and other woodwind and non-woodwind gadgets.

Ignore my comment where I say that Mr. Chiron's Regulator mouthpiece was never produced. It obviously was. I'll have to steal Uwe's picture and change the blog.

Mark

 

[Arundo Donax]

Regardless of merit, I suppose one can patent anything if it's a unique creation and can be described and built.

I reject the premise in his patent that finding good reeds is difficult and they don't last. Also, adding another variable to adjust would encourage more tweaking in place of worthwhile practicing.

Being that a person can buy an enormous variety of mouthpieces with different characteristics, not just tip opening, and also choose appropriate strength reeds of various characteristics from plenty of manufacturers, I think this regulator mouthpiece is a solution in search of a problem. Would the top 1000 sax players in the world today agree with his premise about the difficulty of finding good reeds to match their mouthpieces? Does this alleged situation hamper their performances?

At least it's not as silly as other inventions for the sax.

 

[Uwe Steinmetz]

Hi Mark,

great - I could not find any information on this mouthpiece.
I admit I am not one of Mr- Chiron´s target group, I pretty much buy a package of strength 4 V21 reeds and use all of them over time with no adjustments needed. However, I strongly believe that the variance in quality and evenness of the reeds has changed tremendously over the last decades.
Also i had fun playing Mr. Chirons mpc, I could make the sound more edgy and more mellow with moving the metal device around...
If I find time I will make a video of this these days.

In general I always seek out and love inventions for the saxophone - cool to see some inventions where so much is standardized and machine produced these days in comparison to trumpets, flutes...you name it.
So thank you Mark for pointing this out!
Uwe

 

[Uwe Steinmetz]

Here´s a little fun video (at least I had fun), hope it is educational.

 

[soybean]

It's good that you documented the Regulator mouthpiece.

 

[Mark Fleming]

Owning one mouthpiece that you can spend hours adjusting instead of owning 30 mouthpieces and constantly changing them. The "Regulator" mouthpiece allow a savings of money with the same wasting of time. Genius.

Mark

 

[Rackety Sax]

There are a few threads on the forum about an adjustable table mouthpiece with tuning sleeve that was played by Daniel Deffayet and Jacques Terry. Interestingly, they were made by Georges Charron, which is pretty darn close to Chiron but I assume it's a different guy. Charron was a saxophonist in the Mule Quartet.

https://forum.saxontheweb.net/showthread.php?46108-Daniel-Deffayet-question
https://forum.saxontheweb.net/showt...tify-Metal-Tenor-Mouthpiece&highlight=jacques

Here's Terry on his:

And Deffayet on his:

 

[Gustavo Villa]

Look this...

 

[Carl H.]

I'm not going to post the link, and it isn't mine, but one of these is up on the bay right now minus the metal parts. A pic of the patent is shown which may be of interest to those on this thread.. Look for "Adjustable VINTAGE REGULATOR B4* ALTO Saxophone Mouthpiece".

 

[Bkenes]

Look for "Adjustable VINTAGE REGULATOR B4* ALTO Saxophone Mouthpiece".

I can't find it. Can you share the link?

 

[milandro]

looks like it is gone

 

[Carl H.]

Google search came up empty, but ebay search still shows it.

I sent you a link Bkenes

 

[milandro]

I had rrun searched and the eaby search came empty, you must have had better search terms

 

[Bkenes]

Google search came up empty, but ebay search still shows it.

I sent you a link Bkenes

Thank you!
I would definitely buy this if it was complete. A cool item to have.
But I doubt that I'd ever find the missing parts.

 

[ZootTheSim]

This thread reminds me that, while I always enjoy the OP's posts and find them instructive, they've been conspicuously absent of late. Where is Mark, and what's new with the Flem-toneTM line?

 

[Mark Fleming]

This thread reminds me that, while I always enjoy the OP's posts and find them instructive, they've been conspicuously absent of late. Where is Mark, and what's new with the Flem-toneTM line?

Zoot,

I bought a boat. I now spend more time on boating websites than SOTW. And since Covid, I haven't been playing out of the house. The combo is kaput. Haven't picked up a sax but about once a month. I did buy a baritone to rebuild, but then lost interest and put it back on Reverb. I refuse the attempt to mimic normal group activity by using #*&@ing Zoom. Now, back to my cave.

 

[ZootTheSim]

Zoot,

I bought a boat.

You bought a bought, motherfu--a! Glad to hear you're well and enjoying life on the high seas. And if the urge arises, you can always play your horns on your boat with impunity. At least, I don't think it violates the law of the sea.....