Re: And the (mouthpiece) beat goes on...


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Posted by Klaus on December 22, 2000 at 19:24:22:

In Reply to: And the (mouthpiece) beat goes on... posted by Rick Denney on December 22, 2000 at 16:28:55:

My mouthpiece for the York Master (and the Besson 981 and the Conns 26K and 40K) is a PT-50 with a customized backbore. Which I have made myself with a combination of own and borrowed tools.

The reason I took the PT-50 was that it increased my control over the Conn 26K, which is a big soundingh, but not easy animal. Response is good and range is wide. Lips have a large area to work at for intonation control.

The original PT-50 was too bright and resistant for me, so I worked on the backbore. That even bettered the feel for me. Less edge, more foundation.

A sit in in a quintet of brass band people showed the flip side of my alterations. Cornets, alto horn, and euph were notbused to that amount of sound.

So I bought one more specimen of the PT-50, which I did not alter. Only I hardly ever use it, as I find it too bright and unflexible.

Theories of relations between cups, throats, and backbores have been quite faithfully refered to in another answer. However the latest issue of Brass Bulletin has an article on backbore by a Japanese mpc designer. His theories and ideas are amazingly in concordance with my mostly empirically obtained experiences.

Should I add my own opinion, then that it would be, that throats are generally well adjusted to cups by the better designers. Backbores to a lesser degree, as designers do overlook the fact beyond theoretical measurements, that open backbores have one quality of their own: they provide high degrees of control in the "hands" of embouchures and wide windstreams.

However, pianissimos will be hard and no forgiveness is found for bad air support.

Of course I like dark tubas. For brighter basses I prefer bass bones and euphs. Even those schizoid euphs calling themselves F-tubas.

Have a nice Christmas. I think I might survive the Yuletide, as I am out of reach for anything but military equipment for most of the readers of this fine forum.

Klaus


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