Bigger Chamber

[KRiTiC]

I'm quite new to Sax, but Just got my hands on a nice 12m Conn Bari.

Cause I had very little money left the only mouthpiece i could afford was a modern Yamaha with a 5 lay.

Ive browsed your forums a lot and you all say the same things about 12m's and their mouthpieces.

That they can be picky, especially trying to get sharp. You all seem to come up with with the same solution's to this problem, in most cases get a mouthpiece with a bigger chamber.

What does bigger chamber mean? And how can i spot if I'm struggling to get sharp?

Thanks for your time

Rob

[themacintrasher]

Try a harder reed.

[gearaholic]

Chamber is the volume inside the mouthpiece. Check out the mouthpiece glossary section on Theo Wanne's site: www.theowanne.com. Also, search the forums for something like "mouthpiece large chamber" or something. There's been a pretty good bit of discussion about mouthpieces with large chambers. Links are a great choice for jazz. I'm not really about bari classical mouthpieces. Good luck!

[KRiTiC]

wow, amazing link.

Cheers, and ill try harder reed too. Many Thanks guys.

Rob

[gearaholic]

What strength reed are you playing now? You have to understand, some people just throw out blanket advice without asking any questions. :)

[dirty]

Have you played the Yamaha and the 12M together? Are you having issues with being really sharp? A lot of people talk about these horns only playing in tune with vintage mouthpieces, but I spent a summer with one right before I left for college a couple of years ago and it played in tune just fine with my Rico Metalite mouthiece, which is anything but traditional. It also played in tune with a Graftonite and an Otto Link. To me, that's an indicator that the horns are fairly mouthpiece-friendly, as those are all three rather different from one another. Awesome sound with any mouthpiece, that's for sure.

If you're not having problems with the Yamaha, you might want to just stick with it for a bit. Those are decent mouthpieces to start on, and they play easily and with decent tone. If you are having intonation trouble, try a few different mouthpieces of various styles (Otto Link, Meyer, Berg, Dukoff, Rico, etc) and check the intonation against a tuner. If the problems go away with a certain mouthpiece, then you'll know that your Yamaha mouthpiece is holding you back. If the problems are about the same with every mouthpiece, then stick with the Yamaha while you sort out the intonation of the 12M, which was tricky for me for the first little while, but quickly got sorted out.

[warp x]

Try a harder reed.

Very helpful. Did you actually read the original post?:?

[KRiTiC]

just got myself some harder reeds an......


works like a charm!

Many Thanks guys