"Sinfonic Sistem" Crystal Mouthpiece

tictactux

tictactux

Distinguished Member
Distinguished Member
(I decided to create a new thread and leave the original one alone)

Okay, I posted some pictures of the "Sinfonic Sistem" mouthpiece on my home page.

The (academic?) question is - would it be a Pomarico descendant, or do we deal with some independent design here?

(I gave it a noodling today and it is indeed a fine player - rather effortless, despite me having used a #4 reed (half a notch stiffer than my usual shingles); maybe I'm experiencing a tip opening / table length / reed rigidity thing here, I don't want to über-analyse things. Anyhow, looks like a candidate for more serious work.)
 
that design is definitely unique.

The Slots look like they are actually cut AFTER the mpc has cooled.

This versus vintage O'Brien mpcs where the slots are part of the mold. FWIW,, OBriens also used alot of metal endcaps to prevent the glass edge from getting chipped.

I've actually have not had a Pomarico in my hands ...

In one of your pics, the throat is a large "O" .. looks like it can take alot of airflow.

Do you have anything where you can measure the tip opening ?
 
Yes, all the grooves were cut afterwards, looks like the blank was round at the beginning.

How would I accurately measure the tip opening, short of a plain surface and my caliper?
 
I've had more than a few Pomaricos and have tried a few dozens more. I still have two of them for soprano (and a few more for bass). I can't really say if this is a Pomarico or not. Some things look very similar but some look different. I think in general, with most crystal mouthpieces, most chances are that it was made by Pomarico.

The "grooves" on Pomarico are molded. The grooves on your one look filed/sanded which I've never seen on a Pomarico, but this can definitely be a special order mothpiece or something done by whoever asked for the stencil. So I don't know if this is a sign for anything.

The tenon looks like a Pomarico in that there is no inner shoulder and the cork is all the way to the inner end of the tenon. O'briens I've seen (not many) all had an inner shoulder for the cork.

The outer top of the beak look a bit shorter with a slightly sharper angle than the Pomaricos I have. Also the top of the inside looks rounder on your mouthpiece. However I'm pretty sure they changed and/or offered a bunch of different options over the years and probably could make special order mouthpieces and blanks (since they made mouthpiece and/orblanks for Selmer, Vandoren, etc.). Both of mine are the "Mellow" model.

I remember one or two Italian mouthpiece makers who bought blanks from Pomarico and made their own mouthpieces from them. The one I remember mostly never even had a website and I only knew about him because a local player was a friend of his and had a couple of mouthpieces from him. This person never made tons of mouthpieces so I guess it's possible there are at least a few who did the same.

By the way, some of those "grooves" are pretty much where any engraving would be on some Pomarico mouthpieces (they vary). Maybe they wanted to remove any engraving by Pomarico for whatever reason...
 
clarnibass said:
The tenon looks like a Pomarico in that there is no inner shoulder and the cork is all the way to the inner end of the tenon. O'briens I've seen (not many) all had an inner shoulder for the cork.
Click to expand...
There is an inner shoulder. The cork is rather thin, and whoever recorked the mouthpiece decided to over-cork the shoulder (or simply couldn't be bothered to cut the excess off, what do I know). It can also be seen (or guessed) in the pictures.
It is impossible to completely push the mouthpiece into the barrel, there's always a ~3mm gap (the tenon is short enough to fit, however) which looks like a good width for a shoulder.

The idea with milling away treacherous engraving is intriguing - but why would they go the extra mile and exchange or add the tenon sleeve?
 
tictactux said:
There is an inner shoulder. The cork is rather thin, and whoever recorked the mouthpiece decided to over-cork the shoulder (or simply couldn't be bothered to cut the excess off, what do I know). It can also be seen (or guessed) in the pictures.
Click to expand...
Now that you mention it, I guess you can see that the cork seems to be climbing something at the inner end. But actually, that's how Pomaricos look like, eventhough all I've seen always had the cork to the end of the tenon. But, I actually don't know how much of a inner tenon shoulder Pomaricos have or don't have. I just assumed they don't since the cork is always to the end, but it does look a bit like this too and they are usually impossible to insert all the way (though not 3mm). So I don't know how much of a shoulder Pomaricos actually have.

For example see the photo one before last, the top shows this slightly, but the bottom doesn't show it at all. I guess the only way to know is to remove the cork but I can't really do that with my Pomaricos (maybe you should remove part of it if there is really cork over a tenon shoulder that makes it impossible to insert the mouthpiece).

FWIW I attached a couple of photos of Pomarico mouthpiece tenons. Especially the front one is a climber too.

tictactux said:
The idea with milling away treacherous engraving is intriguing - but why would they go the extra mile and exchange or add the tenon sleeve?
Click to expand...
By tenon sleeve, do you mean that tenon shoulder/step at the inner end, covered by the cork? I really don't think anyone added it. It might have been ordered this way from whoever made it, or it was just made this way. Or maybe you mean the metal cap? I'm not exactly sure what you mean.

Anyway I have no idea who made it. Pomarico is probably just the most likely.
 
tictactux said:
How would I accurately measure the tip opening, short of a plain surface and my caliper?
Click to expand...

A flat surface and your caliper would suffice nicely I think. Just keep the flat surface flat up to the tip of the mpc. Then when you use your caliper don't use any pressure at all when it opens out to a stop. maybe make several measurements and average out.

Of course, this measurement also requires the table to be perfectly flat too. If you can rock the "flat" thing around the table then the table (or thing you are using) isn't flat. I've found alot of rubber mpcs that have issues may have uneven tables or even a slight "ramp" near the tenon end where the table starts ramping up.


I find it ironic that I've probably have had well over a hundred OBrien's in my hands but not one Pomarico that I can recall.
 
Okay, I measured it, several times, on several surfaces, with comparable results.

The tip opening, measured right at the corner between tip and rail, is 1.2mm, in the middle of the tip it is 1.3mm.
The facing length is (measured with the mouthpiece held down with table down and a very thin piece of paper slipped under the tip until it jammed) is 17mm at the corners, 19mm in the middle.

Looks somewhat middle-of-the-roadish, what do you think?
 
FACINGS
Facing Length - Approximate Length
Short - 15 millimeter (0.59 of an inch)
Medium Short - 16 mm (0.629 ")
Medium - 17 mm (0.669 ")
Medium Long - 18 mm (0.708 ")
Long - 19 mm (0.748 ")
Very Long - 20 or greater (0.787 ")

TIP OPENINGS
Tip Definition - Approximate Opening
Very Closed - 0.95 mm (0.037 of an inch)
Closed - 1.00 mm (0.039 ")
Medium Close - 1.05 mm (0.041 ")
Medium - 1.10 mm (0.043 ")
Medium Open - 1.15 mm (0.045 ")
Open - 1.20 mm (0.047 ")
Very Open - 1.25 mm (0.049 ")
Extremely Open - 1.30 or greater (0.051")

above taken from http://www.clarinetperfection.com/clmpcTypes.htm
 
...I also measured a brand new Fobes Debut, of which the dimensions are known, and got 1.0mm tip and 17mm facing, so my measurement method seems to be accurate enough.

Getting back to Fobes' dimensions chart, I got the dimensional equivalent of a "Jazz" mouthpiece.

Should I go buy a silly hat now? :cool:
 
<slaps forehead> Right, there's still the pork pie hanging on the rack!

I guess I'll then bring the piece to the next rehearsal and intimidate the small brass a bit...
 
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