Baritone Mouthpiece Testing

[Ed]

I'm just about finished with the process of going through all of my Baritone mouthpieces as I wanted to see if the piece that I was playing was still my choice. This was somewhat necessitated due to a switch of horns from a JK low B flat to a Yanagisawa Low A. Previously I was playing on a refaced Selmer S90 190 that I redid for myself but over the last few months I have picked up a couple of interesting mouthpieces including a vintage Woodwind Company New York B4+ and a Selmer Soloist C* that looks to be more like a D.

My tonal concept is to have a full sound with a spread of harmonics. I'm not into really bright pieces and I don't like tubby pieces but given those two choices I would choose the tubby piece and use some silly putty to fashion a baffle to increase projection. What I found was that I could literally play one note (middle E) and know if the piece warranted more playing. Interestingly the pieces that I liked the most were the Selmer S90 190, Chicago Mouthpieces SJ (a piece I did based on the Runyon 88), Selmer Soloist, Vandoren B75, and the Berg 90/2.

To test mouthpieces I play right in front of a glass sliding door so that I can get a good idea of the sound that is coming out of the horn. I'm looking for a piece that I can play at various dynamic ranges and that I can find a variety of tonal concepts with. The top three choices were the Vandoren B75, Selmer S90 190, and the Selmer Soloist. I could play any of these pieces and get a sound that I could use in a classical ensemble or a big band as well as any other kind of playing that I might want to do. The piece that I liked the best ended up being the Selmer Soloist as I could really dig into the mouthpiece and find interesting tonal shadings that fit well with the horn.

What I would like to do down the road is to do a spectral analysis of various mouthpieces and see if it is possible to discern if these pieces share any frequency spikes or other empirical data. Ultimately all that matters is how the equipment plays and if it gets you to the sound that is in your head but I still wouldn't mind having a better idea about what it is that makes me like certain pieces over others.

 

[Gandalfe]

Bari mouthpiece selection for me usually is a case of tradeoffs. At the simplest of levels, the big chambers support the low end of the instruments notes and the a small chamber seems to make the top end pop easier. But I wonder if it takes less air to play the smaller chamber pieces or just less air to start up at the front end of of phrase?

But I haven't experimented to the level that you have. That probably is because the bari isn't my primary instrument. And so far, I haven't met a bari sax mouthpiece that I didn't like. Will Rogers' jokes aside, that is probably because I just don't spend that much time on bari sax now-a-days.

I imagine the equipment necessary to to measure the sonics of a bari saxes sound in a meaningful way would be very expensive, if they even exist. Ed, maybe you could apply for a grant?

 

[Ed]

The equipment to measure sonic frequencies is pretty cheap. I have the sound card (24 bit 1820M) to do it along with decent mics. The time to do it and the inevitable run through most of my mouthpieces is what is keeping me away from running down that trail.