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Tone Master copies for tenor

13K views 32 replies 18 participants last post by  Tzadik 
#1 ·
I've noticed a few Tone Master copies out there lately, the Matt Marantz piece (which sounds amazing in his demo clip) and the Sakshama piece that he's been making for a few years. I always assumed that those old pre-Florida Tone Masters were pretty dead and stuffy after trying one at a shop years ago at a shop in L.A.....the piece I tried played absolutely TERRIBLE!

I got a Sakshama Tone Master 8 in a trade (purely out of curiosity and my quest to try as MANY mouthpieces as possible) and this mouthpiece is fantastic! It looks great, and plays with a fat warm sound, but has a suprising amount of projection as well. I'm not sure how true to the original Tone Master design this piece is, but it has a very authentic Otto Link vibe to me. I get a strong Steve Grossman vibe from this piece, especially if I use a fairly soft reed. Here's a clip I did today.... the setup is my Viking M40 CB, Sakshama Tone Master .110, Florida-era Otto Link ligature, and Rigotti 3 medium reed.....

http://www.soundclick.com/player/single_player.cfm?songid=12948472&q=hi
 
#3 ·
Hey David,

Yeah the Tonemasters can be awesome! As you found, many of the originals probably don't have nearly as much baffle material as we're all used to on modern tenor pieces. I checked out your clip and looked at some photos of Sakshama's piece as well to try and see how it compares to the one we're releasing soon. Nice playing, sounds like a good classic tenor tone you're getting there. Judging from the level of brightness and the photos, I'd say that the baffle construction on Sakshama's is probably pretty close albeit a bit higher than what we're going with for a baffle on our Tonemaster copies. His looks awesome in the photos.

I think the general trend if guys are going to make closely emulated copies of the Tonemaster is that the chamber shape will probably be the same but the rollover baffle material will most likely need to be increased somewhat. Granted it's not a ton higher, and we're only talking rollover baffles here not step baffle additions which would make the piece a totally different animal (this is a subtle addition), but yeah you are gonna want to have a little more rollover material than what the originals generally had otherwise with that huge chamber the mouthpiece is just going to sound dead.

So I can't speak for exactly what Sakshama did with his, but I know with ours the chamber is that same huge chamber the originals had. The main difference is that there's a ton of rollover material to work with on the blank so a variety of sounds can be scultped from it. On the prototype, I went medium-low to make sure that with a low rollover baffle the sound wasn't going to sound too tubby if someone wants to order one with a low baffle, and was pleased with the results of that test. Likewise, to begin with I made the facing without changing the baffle from stock just to see how bright the piece can get when the baffle is as high as it comes off the machine. It was a little chirpy at the tall rollover height for me, but it had lots of brightness and power. I prefer something a little more sublte so went with the medium-low rollover after all which, to me, is the best of both worlds because you still get some power and brightness but you get more warmth and spread in the tone.

Personally, my favorite Coltrane sound was in the 50's when he was playing a Tonemaster. There is so much warmth, texture, and soul in that tone! The later sounds he got were of course nothing less than awesome as well, but there's something about that mellow, sweet, woody sound that he was getting in the 50's with the Tonemaster that is so beautiful and that's the tone we generally want to pay tribute to with the MVF Master model that's coming out soon.
 
#4 ·
The first thing you need to so, if authenticity is your goal with original designs in the baffle and everything else, is the make ltip openings between .080" and .090" with the nothing bigger then .095 the renowned players who used tone masters were playing these smaller tip sizes. Ben Webster and Trane both played 5* and probably everyone else too. An 8 tip is far from anything original and isn't gonna give you the vibe
 
#5 ·
There is some truth to this, although there were some originals with larger tip sizes too. Just because Trane played a 5* doesn't mean that there weren't larger sizes available also.

The first one I made of these copies happened to be a 5 .080" tip. I thought it would be uncomfortable to play at that size as I usually play 7*, but was pleasantly surprised to find out how at home it felt. I used a 4M or 4H reed with it to counter the resistance and make it feel similar to my usual 7*/3M setup, and it felt very close resistance-wise but the sound was more flexible, fuller, and had a haunting quality to it. I actually really dug it, and it was different sounding than the larger tips. I think you get more definition of articulation and more texture with the smaller tip and the harder reed. I had recently switched to a similar setup on soprano and found everything about it (intonation, articulation, tone) was better as well.

On the other hand, part of the beauty of designing a tribute series is that if you build enough material into the blank, you can make the tip any size under the sun so there's something for everybody.
 
#7 ·
A couple of years ago, I had a chance to try a completely stock Tone Master. The baffle was actually pretty pronounced. Almost every Tone Master I played before had the baffle knocked down. (I see this modification on a lot of vintage Brilharts too.)

Anyway, this piece played great! Had that sparkle that we love in early Coltrane recordings.

Sadly I could not keep the mouthpiece and have been looking ever since for another like it.

(Matt: I packing two pice for you to look at. I'll be sending them out soon.)
 
#8 ·
I made my Tone Master after one absolutely fantastic original 7 that Antoine Roney has, keeping the same projection. I don't subscribe to the view that 8 tip is anything but original. I have original Double Ring 9 measuring .110 and it is great mouthpiece, original Florida 8 no USA that is simply the best there is. There are a lot of half truths going around about that era mouthpieces in general and one of them is that Tone Masters play the best at 5 to 6 tip. Some mouthpiece makers at that time simply didn't know certain protocols about opening a piece to a larger tip and if they had to do it they played very stuffy. To illustrate the idea better let say everybody want to go back to small tips and they like the Guardalas to take them there. Try to make a Guardala play great at .080 or 5. Looks like the challenge the makers faced when they had to make no baffle piece that plays great at .080 play the same at .110. So there was some time to adjust and they produced.
 
#14 ·
Trane and webster both had wedges in their pieces----ask Bergonzi.
I've talked about this a lot with him and other guys that have seen their pieces and many of the older players went this route. People always talk about the small tips these guys played, but never know about a lot of them making wedges to help with the volume.
Many of course played on small tips just as they were--- with no extra help with wedges.
i also have a triple ring tenor mpc here with the original black 8* box that I've had for years. It's an 8* with no wedge. Aside from the one you speak of that our mutual friend owns, I have not seen another for tenor. I had one for bari long ago.
The tenor one I have is like the first double rings with an extra ring. The one you speak of is like a Tone Master model.
I also know Tranes facing curve numbers and its like an alto curve. VERY VERY VERY short for a tenor mouthpiece. I was asked to not share the numbers, so I won't.

Sakshama and Matt both make very nice mouthpieces and if you want a Tone Master type of piece, you can't go wrong with either one!
 
#16 ·
I was asked by the owner of some of his mpc's not to share the numbers, so I won't.
If you can find them somewhere, than they are not a secret. I was just asked not to tell that info, and also not share the full serial number of his SBA.
I didn't ask why or make a judgement on it, I just agreed to honor the request.
 
#24 ·
I spent some more time today playing this fantastic piece from Sakshama. Another day and another reed, this time a LaVoz Medium which seems to be a better combination for me than the Rigotti I used in the first clip.

http://www.soundclick.com/player/single_player.cfm?songid=12949410&q=hi

To my ears this clip sounds a lot better, and maybe more characteristic of some of the sounds I've heard guys from the past get out of Tone Masters?
 
#30 ·
David, you sound not a bit, but much better with the La Voz medium (IMO that is!). Rigotti seems to make your sound really bright on ALL mouthpieces you post clips of.
 
#26 ·
Like you guys, I've seen Links from all the eras and the baffle shapes aren't written in stone. I had a "no USA" Link that probably had one of the higher baffles I had ever seen on a Link. Being hand finished there is a lot of variation.
Maybe that short facing is why we've seen photos of Coltrane playing short shank Soloists and Ebolins.
I played on Grossman's mouthpiece in the 80's and it was a Tonemaster with a white replacement bite plate. As I remember it felt like a 5* with a soft reed. I was playing 6 or 6* Tone Edges at the time so it didn't feel that much different to me. It played well but nothing particularly remarkable. I'm probably lucky I've lived to tell that story.
 
#33 ·
I've seen a pic... and the light on Coltrane shows the mouthpiece was black (so... hard rubber) but with a very slim profile.
Coltrane used both a Soloist Short Shank and a Brillhart Ebolin... but a slim hard rubber tenor mouthpiece can be easily a Berg Larsen piece... and it'll will not sound strange to me: with a hr Berg you can easily get a kind of "nasal" quality in the sound.

Back to the tip opening-vs.-reed strenght... to me it's just a matter of sound concept and technique.
To me... it can be easier to play with a medium tip opening and medium reeds than a close mouthpiece and harder reed... if we a considering a "jazz sound".

Honestly I can recall many players that use a closed mouthpiece with very hard reeds... the first it comes in my mind is Bearzatti: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=francesco+bearzatti+solo
 
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