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Marantz Slant Legacy - New HR Tenor Sax mpc with video from Joel Frahm!

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#1 · (Edited)
Marantz Slant Legacy - New HR Tenor Sax mpc with video from Joel Frahm + hi-res photos

The newest offering from my shop: The Marantz "Slant Legacy" HR mouthpiece for tenor sax. I'm also very excited to announce that NYC saxophonist Joel Frahm personally stopped by the shop and bought one of the mouthpieces from the 1st batch. He's now using it at gigs all over NYC and abroad.

I've got a video of Joel playing it uploaded at a Youtube! link here:

The Slant Legacy is the newest mouthpiece in my Legacy sax mouthpiece line, which is a line of mouthpieces that uses modern technology to recreate the most sought after vintage models for sax mouthpieces.

This particular piece is hand finished and sold exclusively through JL Woodwind Repair on 12th St. in Manhattan, which is the new and high quality NYC repair shop for all things saxophone where I've partnered with head repairman John Leadbetter to offer NYC saxophonists a one-stop-shop for horn repair, mouthpiece refacing, custom saxophone parts, custom mouthpiece fabrication, as well as in-store demos of all our saxophone and custom mouthpiece inventory items for local customers.

The Slant Legacy is a close-as-possible recreation of the classic Slant Signature Link design made with the absolute highest quality European hard rubber rod bar stock we are aware of in the world today. The mouthpieces start out as bars of hard rubber. They are then machined into rough blanks using a highly consistent CNC milling method, and are then completely hand finished including tip size setup, custom facing work, removal of all machining marks, play testing, borderline obsessive tweaking during play testing, and extensive hand polishing before they're considered ready for sale.

The result is that since moving the Marantz Custom Mouthpiece workshop out of my home workspace and into JL Woodwind Repair in Manhattan this year, numerous professional players on the NY scene including amazing altoist Pat Carroll http://www.patcarrollmusic.com/ , tenor/alto wizard Dan Pratt http://www.danpratt.com/ , the one and only Joel Frahm http://www.joelfrahm.com/ , Michael Scott in Memphis who performs with Aretha Franklin's band, as well as numerous other Broadway and touring musicians have started moving over to Marantz Legacy saxophone mouthpieces.

Pricing is set at $575 for the black HR model. This mouthpiece will also become available in some marbled HR colors soon as well at $600, but the marbled colors are still in the works. I'll update the thread when the alternative colors become available. Pricing is high which we're aware of, but they are meant to compete directly with other mouthpiece makers in the same boutique hand finished field. We also have a lot of overhead costs to cover that result from both the high quality of materials & extensive manufacturing methods used to make these, which are both aimed at making the best mouthpieces possible. Plus, the time involved in making just 1 of these is many hour's worth and you know what they say: Quality doesn't come cheap, and quality is our top priority.

Pictures below, and feel free to ask any questions! I don't think a better sound demo could be made than the one Joel so generously gave us, but here's another video demo of me testing out the Slant Legacy piece at a larger tip size of 8* .115" on a MKVI 209,XXX tenor sax which is also for sale through JL Woodwind Repair: https://www.facebook.com/matt.marantz/videos/vob.504693466/10153218245683467/?type=2&theater
 

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#2 ·
This piece has been finding its way onto many band stands here in NYC as well as Broadway stages, and it's also been seeing action as far away as South Korea and Germany! Been making a steady stream of them at the shop here in New York.

Just wanted to let everyone know that as of mid-October, the Slant Legacy will be available in red/black color marbled hard rubber in addition to the current black hard rubber it's made with.

Here's a fresh recording of me playing one on a gig recently:
 
#3 ·
I'll bet your new Slant Legacy is fantastic, Matt. I purchased your East Coast Legacy HR and Double Ring metal mouthpieces from you in 7*, and have since traded with a SOTW member for a Double Ring in 6*, so I have three of yours - all play efficiently and for me, very expressively. Keep up the great work.
 
#4 ·
Hey Johnnyc! Thanks so much for the nice words. Cheers. So glad to hear the pieces are making it around the world and folks are enjoying them! That is indeed the goal. Have a good one!

-M
 
#5 ·
Here are some soundclips and some shots of some recently completed Slant Legacy pieces. This piece is getting quite popular here in NYC and abroad!

Here's me testing out a black colored one pre-shipment after I hand finished it:

And here's the test drive pre-shipment of a red one, sweet player! Link:

Best,
Matt Marantz
 

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#7 ·
Thanks Walter! I am so glad o hear you enjoyed it. Cheers,

Matt
 
#8 ·
A big batch of these is going out to China this week! The Slant Legacy for tenor sax will be shown at many trade shows in China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Macau this year including Music China 2017. Please check them out if you'll be there!

Cheers,
Matt
 

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#13 ·
Thank you for your commendable efforts Steve, and for including me in your great catalog of awesome mouthpiece reviews!

Best,
Matt
 
#14 ·
I'm not as adept as Steve Neff and many others here at describing sound and such, but need to call out Matt for his great work.

I have his Florida Legacy and Slant Legacy 'pieces in 7*, and have found his 'pieces to be a great investment in finding in my sound. Both will take any reed I put on, easy blowing but with enough feedback, and frankly sound beautiful. The Florida is what you'd expect compared to a Slant - slightly more punchy when pressed and I find ultimately versatile for what I need.

The Slant, on the other hand, offers a richness and tone pallet that just blew me away from the first blow. I've tended to prefer metal mouthpieces, but I think that's in my head. I connected with Matt's HR 'pieces right away - this Slant Legacy, and Matt's original HR East Coast Legacy that I bought a few years ago and still have.

I'm fortunate to have both Matt's Florida and Slant, and believe players would be well-served to give Matt's work a try.
 
#15 ·
Thought I'd resurrect this thread instead of starting a new one!

Yesterday I had the privilege of hanging with Matt and trying out several of his pieces, including a couple Slant Legacies. They're some of the best pieces I've ever played on, and I'd say I've been pretty spoiled in the mouthpiece department. I'm definitely going to be getting one.

These are the real deal. Matt's doing some of the best work out there right now AND he's a world-class player. Much respect, dude!
 
#19 ·
Celebrating 3 years of this mouthpiece being in production with this new video from Ben Wendel showcasing what it'll do when a megasaurus saxophonist like Ben gets behind the wheel of one of these puppies!



Best,
Matt
 
#20 ·
I am happy to announce my 1st official endorser Melissa Aldana for the Marantz Slant Legacy line of HR sax mouthpieces. Melissa is the winner of the last Thelonious Monk Saxophone Competition and she is now a ferocious & individualistic tenorist at the height of her career & artistic output. I am extremely proud to have her as an official endorser of my products. I believe she is one of the leading voices in today's world of saxophonists and she has a bright future ahead of her. Melissa is playing an 8* .115" that I personally setup, faced, and customized to her liking. The only real customization to the piece I did for her were on the beak height. Everything else was as I generally make them for each order, she liked it just the way I usually make them!

Cheers,
Matt
 

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#25 ·
Hi Matt,

Congrats on the endorsement! She has the best sound of anyone alive in my opinion. She always sounds full and warm all over the horn. Her sound is never strained or "pinched". I was wondering why would you not sell the the piece to the exact specifications she has? I've seen her with orange box reeds on facebook- I guess she must use a 4?
 
#24 ·
Thanks Steve! Yeah man, all the crazy years of way too many bench hours are starting to see a return...
 
#29 ·
I can't remember what she's playing for reeds off the top of my head, but I don't think they're super hard.
 
#30 ·
Also, FWIW, I also play one of these personally and over the years I mainly used Select Jazz 3H Unfiled was my go-to jam. Select Jazz have always been my favorite reeds, since Rico started making them until now when D'Adarrio makes them. When you find the good ones, they last, and they are so deep and toneful. This year, maybe I either got weaker or the hardness scale at the factory changed not sure, but they are the same great reeds they just (for me) seem to have gotten slightly harder. I switched to 3M and now I'm groovin' again.

OTOH, the 3M's are ever so slightly less hard than what I am used to. I have always played 7*'s, 8's, and 8*'s on this Slant Legacy design. Now I'm on an 8 but I feel like a slight increase in tip size is gonna be the way to go, for me, since the 3M's feel a tad bit soft. The great thing about being a maker is I can just break out the tools and change the tip size!

For people that use Select Jazz, Vandorens, Rigotti's, or any other reeds on my pieces, I recommend sticking with whatever tip size you are used to and using what works for you! You can always adjust the reed strength to match the resistance you are looking for. I cut these facings so that people can generally use hard-ish or medium hard reeds on them. That's what players in NY are doing now (think Mark Turner etc.) they're using medium tip sizes with hard reeds. The fact of the matter is many of the most classic facings from vintage pieces or even great modern pieces are not designed with using super hard reeds in mind. But modern jazz tenor players often want a dark sound that still projects and has great altissimo response. Tenor players these days need to be able to access the bottom of the horn just as easily as the very tip-top altissimo range of the horn. Of course, most of that is the player, but I have found that using medium-hard to hard reeds with a very free blowing & responsive facing curve is one of the best ways to achieve that kind of ease of response in all registers of the horn. So that's how I set these up. A medium-long to long facing curve (I often ask what kind of reeds and strength the player is using and use that as a guideline for facing choice when making a custom piece), but like I said, for Melissa we tried a bunch of different curves on the piece I made for her, and she settled on the most free blowing curve which is the one I use on most pieces that I send out that get ordered from my site unless someone has specific guidelines they want me to adhere to. So, in essence, she is playing the stock curve on this piece. My "stock curve" is quite a bit more free blowing and responsive than many curves you'll find out there on other pieces, but it's something personal I've arrived at after lots of experimentation and trial/error.

Cheers.

Matt
 
#33 ·
Re: Marantz Slant Legacy - New HR Tenor Sax mpc with video from Joel Frahm + hi-res photos

How long is your standard facing? E.g. for a .105 tip. Do you adjust the length on a larger tip?

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If I remember correctly he uses a 25mm curve on a .105 tip. Feel free to confirm that with him, this is off of memory from a conversation he and I had last Fall.
 
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