BBQ AND CLONING PROCESS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11

[Charlie A.]

I have gotten the first draft, if you will, of the first attempt of cloning my mouthpiece and guess what!!!! To my delight the DOGGONE THING PLAYED AND PLAYED WELL!!!!!
We have worked out the details etc. and the Charlie A "BBQ" mouthpiece will most definitely be offered in the next few months. Whether it will be received favorably or not will be up to you players that want that particular sound.
I did discover that we can build as much resistance into it as we need to for those "particular", not peculiar, players that might want more resistance, without destroying the sound that I wanted it to produce.
We still have a lot of work to do with it as far as the manufacturing and the manacuring but we know now that it can and will be done.
Presently I plan to offer it in only tenor. I have an alto that is made and customized exactly like the tenor but I will have to just start with tenor. The alto project will be next and hopefully not too far down the line.
I plan to offer it initially in tip openings of approximately .090, .100, .110. and .120. From the blanks we can make some variance in these openings----+ or - a few thousandths either way.
I plan to send some of these pieces out to a few excellent players for their evaluation initially and see what they think.
Each piece will be custom made and played by me before it is shipped to a customer. I will guarantee it to play as I want it to from the box. They will be gold plated and will include a very good metal ligature and mouthpiece cover.
Will let you know as development matures.
Regards,
Charlie A.

[gary]

Charlie - I would just like to reiterate that if you could give the names of some established players (dead or alive!) that personify the sound you are meaning, it could go a long way. As before, for one person the BBQ meant a Breckerish sound, to another a Sil Austin sound. It might also avoid some returns from customers who had something else in mind when they purchased the mpc; less trouble for them and less for you, too.

[kcp]

Someone in the other BBQ thread on this forum has mentioned something about posting sound clips of different players with the mouthpiece. I think it's a clever idea.

Charlie, you have any plans for doing that? I'm sure that would help folks a lot to get an idea of what this mouthpiece sounds like rather than written description.

[Mike Ruhl]

Charlie - what's the tip opening on yours?

[Charlie A.]

Thanks for the interest and replys. All suggestions are welcome as this is a new avenue for me to travel down and I want to make all of the correct turns.
First I don't want to give any one the impression that this is the world's newest, greatest, most magnificant, mouthpiece that has ever been made. It is not! But It is to be a very good piece for certain players that I don't think has been available before for them. This is what it was for me. I cannot say what it will be for you--helpful and productive I hope.

It is difficult for me to describe an exact sound of this piece for you as each of you would probably get a somewhat different sound due to physical makeup differences. I could play Brecker's set up and not sound like Brecker, or play Boot's set up and not sound like Boots and so on and so on. I'm sure that you ALL know about this.
However the sound I get is similar to Boots, similar to Austin, similar to a lot of players out there but the idea behind the piece is that this mouthpiece will have the capacity of some of you producing these sounds in a somewhat more consistent manner than before if that makes any sense.
Kim, I will try to send a few of these pieces out and get those such as yourself to try them and for those that have the equipment to do so to send me a sound clip of how they themselves actually sound on the piece.
I can then place them on my site.
This I think would be the better approach to see how OTHER players sound--not so much just me. But I, as you all have, tried many different mouthpieces and I can assure you that never have I played any other piece that has this particular sound. Many have said it is a great sound as did Boots when he heard me play at the NAMM show in Nashville. He wasn't endorsing this piece he was talking to my wife and I just picked up a tenor that was in a booth next to where we were an just started playing and he stopped talking my wife said and just made the statement that, "your husband has a great sound". I considered this a compliment of the greatest magnitude coming from the player that I most admire.
Some of the old players got similar sounds from Bergs and I did as well but this piece is just different. It has power as well as subtone, it has edge and without the baffle it has not so much iedge if one likes less.
I don't know, it's just difficult to really explain this sound but a heck of a lot of people like what I get out of it and they say it is a "distinctly different" sound. May just be me, I don't know.
Now this may be good or bad, depending on what you want.
I will try to work out something with some excellent players to get some sound tracts on my site for you to hear.
I hope that it's not too much of a problem doing this as some of them have endorsements with other mouthpiece manufacturers and may not be able to do so but I am hopeful that some can and will.
It is definitely not a piece to be considered (I don't anticipate) by such artists that play the "elevator" type music or the more subdued West coast type jazz.
This is a HOSS! Someone asked about my tip opening. It is about a .115 and I use Fibracell reeds #2.5's and 3.0's. depending on what I am playing the style of show being played and the sound and control I want.
Regards and thanks.
Again I don't want anyone to think that what I am writing is a bunch of hype for this piece. It may not be what you want or even work for you. I am just trying to fill a need, as I see it for a certain type of player.
If it does well, fine, if it doesn't then it doesn't. I would not write anything that I didn't feel was accurate about any product that I handle. It just may not be the correct piece for you. We'll see.
Regards and thanks,
Charlie A.