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-Rousseau 4R (halfway through 12th grade-Now/second year of college, my private lessons teacher told me that it was the ONLY classical mouthpiece that he wants his students to use, not that I argue, it's a GREAT mouthpiece, my teacher tried to get me to play Gonzalez 3s but I just don't like Gonzalez reeds, so I played the usual Vandoren 3s and after 2 semesters of practicing 4+ hours a day, I worked up to Vandoren 3 1/2s)........
I don't understand how any private teacher could try to tell all his students to use the same mouthpiece. This makes no sense at all.
 
There's a lot of verbiage on here, most of it simply not true. First, this term "Link sound" which gets tossed around a lot on SOTW is ridiculous within itself because Links like Meyers and most mouthpieces with round chambers are one of the few mouthpieces that enable the player to get an individual sound so there is no "Link sound". Just listen to Stan Getz or Coltrane or early Sonny Rollins or Dexter. They all so entirely different..
THANK YOU PHIL !
It never ceases to amaze me the amount of erroneous and incorrect information people put out on this little website.

Joe, I'd simply recommend you send the Vintage back to Phil, communicate with him what you desire in a mouthpiece and let him adjust it for you.

JR
 
Maybe someone else (like Phil Barone of course) who is familiar with the Vintage can chime in regarding the presence or lack of a rollover baffle. It's my understanging that almost every mpc has at least a tiny rollover baffle. And a Link is definitely not a small to medium chamber mpc. Links have medium to large chambers, don't they?

I definitely have to disagree with this statement. A baffle is a barrier?? I don't buy that at all, especially if you're talking about a rollover baffle. Sure any baffle will speed up the air a bit, but it certainly won't prevent you putting a lot of air in the horn, especially with a medium to large tip opening.

But I do agree that with time you can adjust to the Vintage or any mpc, and that the issue here isn't the tip opening (at least with the Vintage vs Link, both being a 7*).
Sorry JL but even a small baffle does block the air. I've taken the baffle out of Links that don't have much of a baffle and it frees them right up and lets a player put much more air through them. The only probelm with doing that is you can't play the notes off the horn anymore because there's not enough resistence so you have to put a very hard reed on it. I've even taken so much baffle out that I could barely get high D out so to counter that I had to add some baffle behind where the rollover was and it turned out fantastic because since the baffle wasn't near the tip you got all the benefits of a high baffle mouthpiece and all the benefits of a low baffle Link style mouthpiece. It was as loud or louder than a Dukoff but not annoyingly bright and it was also very free-blowing unlike high baffle mouthpieces like Dukoffs which the low notes can be impossible on.

Now what I do for guys that don't want any baffle at all is remove just the right amount of baffle and that's not easy. I've done so many that I know how much to remove. I do two other things that are trade secrets but I can get the high notes of the horn to play almost as easily as a high baffle mouthpiece without putting a baffle in it. It's a lot of fun to see a guys face when they play it for the first time too! Phil Barone
 
You don't say how LONG you played on each of those mpcs, but reading this my guess is you may not have given it enough time on any one set up (mpc+reed). One thing I keep rediscovering whenever I decide to mess around changing reed brands or mpcs, is the amount of time it takes to readjust and get the full potential out of whatever mpc I'm playing. If one feels too easy or too resistant, that's a relative thing and at least partly the result of switching from one to the next. Just a thought....

Also, what you describe regarding the Barone vs Link doesn't sound like a tip opening issue, since they are both 7* openings. So it has more to do with the chamber (or facing) evidently.
JL and everyone else here, just because two mouthpieces are both 7*'s it doesn't mean they are the same tip opening. The Otto Link company may designate their 7* to be one hundred and five thousandths while another company may designate their 7* at .090. All the companies didn't get together and agree to standardize the facings but somehow everyone thinks that it works that way. AND, two 7*'s both from the same company, say Otto Link, can be off by a few thousandths because five thousandths is so little that it's very easy to be off by ten thousandths of an inch.

Mouthpiece companies don't work as accurately as say NASA. Let's say you own a machine shop. When you get a blueprint it will have on it something that looks like this: +/-.010 or +/-.005 and what this means is that the person that wants the parts made can accept parts with tolerances that are plus or minus five or ten thousandths off. If you're making ten thousand kitchen widgets then you don't need fantastic accuracy because the parts will be used to beat eggs or flip pancakes, not perform surgery. The better the accuracy the more expensive the parts cost and I hate to disappoint some of you but saxophone mouthpieces aren't considered to be an extremely important by the people that are making them in terms of accuracy except by a few nuts like me. Make sense? Phil Barone
 
OP-"Selmer C* (comfortable, too closed for jazz)"
A C* is closed, we all know that but Joe Henderson played one and he sounded pretty amazing on it but Joe was Joe. However he played a D, not too much more open than a C*.
A question, Joe played a Short Shank D, untouched? he hasn't opened it a little or maybe shaped in any way?..i'm just curious, i'm NOT saying that that isn't true.

thanks
 
Over the years, I have moved from various tenor mouthpieces in this order:
-Leblanc Vito II (felt comfortable, too shrill)
-Selmer C* (comfortable, too closed for jazz)
-Meyer 5M (uncomfortable, this was when I was in high school and didn't have the chops to feel at home on the piece, being used to the C*)
-Rousseau 4R (comfortable, not enough color or too 2D/not fat enough, sterile)
-Phil Barone Vintage 7* (really uncomfortable/resistant, poor sound due to struggling)

Then, I tried my friend's Guardala Super King and it was EASIER to play than the Phil Barone. So, I bought my own Guardala.

-Guardala MBII, (still uncomfortable/not as bad as Phil Barone, WAY TOO BRIGHT!)

As I got accustomed to the Guardala, I went back to the Phil Barone with much better results.

-Phil Barone Vintage 7* (more comfortable than before, decent jazz sound, just not as clean as I want)

Then, another one of my friends let me try his Otto Link STM 7* and it was TOO EASY. I felt like I needed something more to push against, a harder reed or more open mouthpiece, the former being preferred. But he recorded me and it sounded like I was perfectly at home on the mouthpiece on the recording.

-Otto Link STM 7* (not enough resistance, great jazz sound)

Which leads me to my question: Why does the Otto Link 7* feel so much easier to play than the Phil Barone 7*?
BTW, Joe Henderson after been asked what setup did he use - "The wrong one."
I think this is the better answer ever and says everything...
 
JL and everyone else here, just because two mouthpieces are both 7*'s it doesn't mean they are the same tip opening.
Thanks for the corrections, Phil. Yes, I do realize that mpc tip opening designations are usually only approximations. The point I was making is that the difference the OP was referring to might not really be a "tip opening dilemma." It could be any number of other issues (chamber, facing, baffle, etc), including the player's own playing experience.

Am I wrong in assuming that every mpc has at least a tiny rollover baffle (whether right at the tip or not)? I accept that the baffle 'blocks' the air in a sense, but I prefer to think of it as speeding up the air, sort of like partially closing off the end of a hose; that will partially block the water, but it moves through more quickly. So that's always been my understanding of how a baffle works. I do know that shaping and getting a baffle 'right' is a lot trickier than most realize.
 
A question, Joe played a Short Shank D, untouched? he hasn't opened it a little or maybe shaped in any way?..i'm just curious, i'm NOT saying that that isn't true.

thanks
Yes, I know it was untouched. Back then nobody worked on their mouthpieces. Trane started that craze. Today if you haven't had your mouthpiece worked on nobody takes you seriously and that's a shame because so much of the work I've seen isn't very good but what's even worse than that is that the mouthpiece guys are working on facings, one of the least important part of the mouthpiece and there's plenty of beautiful, vintage mouthpiece being ruined and this concept of making a mouthpiece play better by "perfecting" a mouthpiece by taking out minor cosmetic flaws is so ridiculous it's beyong my ability to comprehend because reeds are so asymetrical that small flaws aren't going to effect a mouthpiece whatsoever. Please, don't be a sucker. Phil Barone
 
I don't understand how any private teacher could try to tell all his students to use the same mouthpiece. This makes no sense at all.
Most teachers make their students play Selmer C*'s. I think a Rousseau is a door stop. But this idea of "building up" to a stronger reed bothers me. Your embouchure should be very loose and relaxed, not strong and muscular. That's a common mistake that young players make. Phil Barone
 
THANK YOU PHIL !
It never ceases to amaze me the amount of erroneous and incorrect information people put out on this little website.

Joe, I'd simply recommend you send the Vintage back to Phil, communicate with him what you desire in a mouthpiece and let him adjust it for you.

JR
Yeah, it probably just needs a little tweaking which I do for free under these circumatances. Phil Barone
 
....so I played the usual Vandoren 3s and after 2 semesters of practicing 4+ hours a day, I worked up to Vandoren 3 1/2s....
I wasn't going to comment on this because I'm not sure if it's relevant to what you're asking, but what Phil said got me thinking. If you like a 3 1/2 reed and it plays well for you on the mpc you're using, that's fine. But the idea of "working up" to a 3 1/2 sounds kind of strange. Why do you need to work up to it? If you're playing a 2 1/2 or 3 and that does the job, then there's no need to increase the reed strength. That might only mess you up and perhaps is contributing to your problem with some of the mpcs. Pete Thomas talks about 'working down' in reed strength to get more flexibility.

In any case, I think you need to find the strength that works best for you so you can play with a relaxed embouchure and get a good sound. That could be a 2 1/2 or a 3 1/2, but it's not something that needs to be 'worked up to.' Just my opinion, based on what I've experienced.
 
Thanks for the corrections, Phil. Yes, I do realize that mpc tip opening designations are usually only approximations. The point I was making is that the difference the OP was referring to might not really be a "tip opening dilemma." It could be any number of other issues (chamber, facing, baffle, etc), including the player's own playing experience.

Am I wrong in assuming that every mpc has at least a tiny rollover baffle (whether right at the tip or not)? I accept that the baffle 'blocks' the air in a sense, but I prefer to think of it as speeding up the air, sort of like partially closing off the end of a hose; that will partially block the water, but it moves through more quickly. So that's always been my understanding of how a baffle works. I do know that shaping and getting a baffle 'right' is a lot trickier than most realize.
You're right, it does speed up the air but it does it by pinching it off and it inhibits the sound, especially the low notes. Have you ever played a Dukoff? Man, the low notes are so hard to play. I don't know if you read one of my other posts but I wish you could be here at my shop while I do one of my Link jobs so you could experience what happens to a Otto Link while it undergoes the process in steps.
So first I take the baffle down, especially by the tip opening which really makes if very free blowing. If I'm doing one that the guy wants a baffle in I'll take out so much that there's so little resistance that you can't even get high D out because there's no resistance and you have to have some resistance to get the higher notes out. Then, I'll add a baffle to just behind where the original roll-over baffle was but I don't settle on one, I'll try a number of baffles before I settle on one. I experiment with a few different ones until I find just the right one. I use a material that's removable so I can take them in and out. That's really the secret to making the perfectly balanced chamber. I also have several other things that I do but cosmetically they haven't been accepted since the advent of things like the internet and newsgroups.
Since the internet people that play the sax have all become self-proclaimed experts on things like mouthpieces and a couple of the things I do. While they help the mouthpiece perform better, they don't look streamlined and people think that if it doesn't look perfectly smooth that it will affect the performance of the mouthpiece when in fact nothing can be further than the truth. I think that our brains play with us in that when we see something that appears not smooth and is on the inside of our horns our minds impose all kinds of things onto our thoughts but in reality air and sound travels very easily over all kinds of different shapes and rough edges, nothing like we imagine it does. In fact, sound may even increase and even speed up when it hits things like edges and angles unlike whatever our minds tell us. That's why the Hollywood resonators are so popular. As you may or may not know Hollywood resonators have multiple sides so that when the air and sound hit it they deflect in a way that allegedly speed up the sound and air. Now whether it really does or not is anybody's guess but it sure is convincing and they sure sell a lot of them. Put that in your pipe and smoke it :bluewink: Phil Barone
 
....I wish you could be here at my shop while I do one of my Link jobs so you could experience what happens to a Otto Link while it undergoes the process in steps.
I'd love nothing better! Unfortunately I can barely afford to drive to the gigs, let alone from here on the west coast to NYC. I would never claim to be an expert on what makes a mpc work or not work; I only know how they play for me. I have discovered that the only way I like a high (or medium high) baffle is with a large tip. I have a few high baffle mpcs I can't stand to play because the sound is too shrill and as you say, the low notes aren't full. I have a couple I love, with large tips, and also a rollover I like.

I really admire you guys who can design and tweak a mpc to help make it play great!
 
I'd love nothing better! Unfortunately I can barely afford to drive to the gigs, let alone from here on the west coast to NYC. I would never claim to be an expert on what makes a mpc work or not work; I only know how they play for me. I have discovered that the only way I like a high (or medium high) baffle is with a large tip. I have a few high baffle mpcs I can't stand to play because the sound is too shrill and as you say, the low notes aren't full. I have a couple I love, with large tips, and also a rollover I like.

I really admire you guys who can design and tweak a mpc to help make it play great!
Well, if you can work on reeds you can work on mouthpieces. Phil
 
Maybe, but if I mess up a reed, it's a lot less expensive!
If you can turn a screwdriver I could teach you to face a mouthpiece like a pro in an hour. Facings are unimportant contrary to what some mouthpiece techs would lead you to think. Chambers are where it's at but it's much harder because you have to know how to play but by working on chambers you can dramatically change a mouthpiece. Phil Barone
 
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