Quick and cheap mouthpiece patches

Ed

Ed

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I can't stand playing a mouthpiece without a mouthpiece patch which can get expensive when you own more than 100 mouthpieces (I know that begs the question of just how many mouthpieces one can play at a time but that's for a therapist).

My favorite patches are the ones that come from Runyon and are made from the 3M material. Short of that and in a pinch I use electrical tape. you can use multiple layers to build it up and it lasts for a reasonable amount of time. It's also really cheap.
 
drive to local music store, buy Yamaha mpc patches.

I've had good luck in removing and reinstalling the patches as long as you don't get too much skin oil/dirt on it. I try to lift off on one edge and everything comes off cleanly. Of course if you use all 100+ mpcs from time to time it's difficult.

I've also have used the black electrical tape trick but I can't stand the taste after a while. I also have some thick clear tape that can be bought in a roll which can easily be cut into sqaures and put on the mpc ... much better (or lack of) taste.
 
My god, man. I had a mouthpiece for classical and a mouthpiece for jazz. How many do you have?
 
pete said:
My god, man. I had a mouthpiece for classical and a mouthpiece for jazz. How many do you have?
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You don't want to know.

In my defense I did inherit some really cool stuff. And then I bought everything else that ever was made.

The funny thing is that I pretty much play one mouthpiece on soprano, alto, and tenor for classical and jazz. On Bari I play a S90 190 for classical and haven't played jazz on bari in a few years so I don't know if I'll use the S90 or a vintage Soloist or something else.
 
Thus proving that I'm probably the more thrifty one :p.

Hey, I've tried a variety of 'pieces, but I've "needed" only two or three in my bag:

* Sigurd Rascher
* Berg Larsen (hard rubber)
* Selmer C* (this is the "sometimes")

I think that there are several others out there that are pretty decent, but I've not found one that made me say, "I need to give up the years of experience I have playing this one to suffer through learning the quirks of this one." Although the vintage Martin mouthpiece would be a GOOD exchange for the Rascher.
 
I think having all of these pieces is just part of the journey. Again, it's how my mind works.

My main piece on bari is a Selmer S90 that I refaced

My main piece on tenor is an Otto Link hard rubber piece that I modified by taking a bit of the baffle out of the piece and putting a facing on that I like

My main piece on alto is a prototype piece that I've been working on for some time. My backup piece on alto is a vintage Selmer Soloist Short Shank

I don't have a main piece on soprano. I generally play a vintage Buescher blank that I found that was unfinished. Obviously I finished it.

One of the reasons I started to play with mouthpieces was because I found that most of the pieces I had were not exactly what I wanted. Not everyone goes that route nor should they.
 
No, but I get to corner you and ask you a question to up my postcount and because I am curious:

Why didn't you decide to do some variation of what I did and standardize your mouthpiece selection across all the pitches of sax? One would assume that would be easier to deal with (at least, that was the philosophy I worked under).

Oh. I liked the thick, rubber mouthpiece patches, although I rarely use them. The really thin ones don't do anything for me.
 
My mouthpiece choices evolved over a series of horns. I used to mostly play vintage Buescher's and the tenors work really well with Otto Link's and such. I found that when I got my VI tenor I found that the Link's worked best across any horn I pulled out. On alto I never could find anything I liked until I inherited my VI and used the original short shank that was in the case. After a while I came upon a blank for the prototype piece I play that had a lot in common with the Soloist but was more full. On Bari I finally tried the S90 on my Vito/Yani low A and realized that it was the sound I had been hearing in my head.

On alto I can't make an S90 do what I want. The same thing is true on tenor. The only mouthpiece line that comes close to being able to be played on all four horns for me is Otto Link hard rubber pieces. I have to heavily modify the bari piece though to get the sound I want and the S90 was a lot less work. I also don't really care for the Otto Link pieces on alto that much.
 
Oh, I know I should probably split this, but I can do that later.

So, Ed, considering you do use all those different 'pieces on different horns, so you find that you have to adjust your embochure a lot for those 'pieces because they're different or not at all? (Or, have I just asked the caterpillar how he walks? :D)
 
I don't have to make any adjustments other than what you would normally make for the different size of the mouthpiece. I find it easier to practice Bari most of the time and the rest of the horns take a smaller period of adjusting to them. It took me months to feel comfortable on Bari and when I don't play it for a while it takes me some time to get everything back in shape.
 
Intriguing. I've always found tenor the easiest to play, regardless of mouthpiece. I just like bari more. The alto feels like a toy after playing bari (or bass), but playing that helped develop my embochure more than bari.

As I said, "intriguing".

Did you start as a clarinet or sax player? I started on clarinet.
 
Ed Svoboda said:
I started on alto in 5th grade.
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I started also in 5th grade too. I nearly didn't though.

On my VII alto my favorite piece is actually a Selmer S80 D and a Couf artist 5*R

on VII tenor I like the following pieces
Couf Artist 6*R
Couf Artist 8*J
Selmer Classic metal E
Selmer classic Metal H
Couf Artist 4**** streamlined
 
I swear by the patches and usually use the ones made by Vandoran or Yamaha. They feel like they're about the same thickness, and they last for a loooooong time.
 
I have uneven front teeth, and I've used nearly all of the patches. The only one that I really hated was the thick black Runyon one. I use the Yamahas most of the time, but the thin clear Runyons are pretty good too.
 
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