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Link Quality Issues

184K views 307 replies 110 participants last post by  larryrph78 
#1 ·
Many of you especially the mouthpiece refinishers have been saying for a long time that all stock Links can be improved. Both isaxman and Sigmund451 have raised the issue of Link quality recently. Here is my recent experience.

I have 2 Otto Link STM NY 7*'s purchased 6 weeks apart from Saxquest and they are different! The difference is greater then I would expect for process variation! The first one (Link "A" which replaced a regular STM ) has a sound I really like but I heard the siren call of an even better piece. I will not part with Link "A" so I ordered a second one (Link"B") hoping! it would be equally as good. It could then be sent to MoJo for analysis and see what he recommends to improve it?

Link "A" has no baffle and a nice smooth floor from tip to bore. . Link "B" has a flat baffle extending out from the tip about ¼ inch before angling to the unfinished floor. At first I was thinking this was intentional, but it just may be sloppy finishing. It looks like it was hit with a grinder at the wrong angle giving it the effect of a short baffle. The suppliers have been constantly out of the popular sizes recently so the factory has likely been under some pressure for quantity which ALWAYS sacrifices quality.

Link "B" has wider rails and from the shank looks like it came from a different mold, but is the same basic design. I have been A-B…ing the two for 5 days. Link "B" does appear to sound brighter and harsher to my ear. I am being very picky here! Just changing rooms makes a much greater difference.

I cannot envision an easier blowing piece or a sound closer to what I am looking for then Link"A" I played Link "A" with a FL lig. for several days including church, concert band, and some jazz and have since switched back to the stock lig.. I thought the FL gave a slightly richer sound! but it was imparting a slightly breathy buzz that is not present with the stock lig. I ran a number of different reeds, but that's another story.

The FL now resides on my Soprano on a HR Otto Link 6* and shows promise of an easier blow and clearer tone.!
 
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#104 · (Edited)
Rubel said:
Why would you buy a mouthpiece you describe as "terrible"?

Rubel
We have to be very careful when we talk about "terrible" wether we are talking about "terrible workmanship", "terrible playability" (subjective), or "terrible sound" ( very subjective) AND what horn is it being played with which reed!.

The two Otto Link NY 7*'s from which I started this post look nearly identical externally and both "play" very easily. One sounds great (subj.) and one screeches on a JK Shadow with Superial #3. The "bright" one has a step baffle and is poorly finished inside. The "dark" one as a nice smooth interior like the external finish and no step.

All of the discussion regarding table flatness, rail variation, and facing curve variations is great and may enhance playability! and sound? That would be great. These were not issues for me. It's all about the sound.

To further illustrate the need for defining all the conditions: an Otto Link hard rubber 7* which was my "dark" piece on a Grassi and a B&S 2001 was what on the Shadow I described as "muddy" which may be the same as some call "stuffy"?
 
#105 ·
mountainman said:
To further illustrate the need for defining all the conditions: an Otto Link hard rubber 7* which was my "dark" piece on a Grassi and a B&S 2001 was what on the Shadow I described as "muddy" which may be the same as some call "stuffy"?
It is also important to note WHO is experiencing the subtle differences. The guy with the piece of metal sticking out of his face or the listener. The way equipment resonates and vibrates in our mouths and through our hands really tricks our ears.

My sax is unlacquered because I notice a significant difference when I play it compared to the lacquered version. On tape there is no difference...and everyone I A/B'ed them to heard them as the same.

Of course, our own perceptions will effect the way we play but it is only as important as we let them be. Joe Schmoe on table 6 is not going to hear it the same way as the player will.
 
#106 ·
Thomas said:
Mojo-
in fact in the past I have had Links reworked both by Theo Wanne and JVW and as remarked above the improvement was minimal at best and unjustifiable in the cost/value ,gain ratio. I currently have a bought off the shelf STM 7* ($75.00)and a Tenney 7*S ($300.00+)and the perceivable difference in response,playability, reed friendliness, or tonal pallette is virtually nonexistant. I'm not knocking your craft but I think a lot of players are looking for something that they aren't gonna get from a mpc, refaced or not.
I agree with everything that you say except the reed-friendliness...in my experience this is the biggest difference. On most of my hand-faced pieces, I can play all the reeds in nearly every box just fine...some take a little break in, but after 2-3 shots for 10-15 minutes they all play...my Wanne Link is still the best with reeds.
 
#107 ·
Wow!

Although it has cost me about a half day's worth of work:) , I've really enjoyed reading this thread!

I was raised Catholic, so it's good finally to discover that it's okay to enjoy playing with my link:twisted:

Seriously, though, I posted a question about some problems I've been having with my link Hr and the overwhelming opinion I got back was that it was surely a bad one which needed to be repaired or tossed.

I listened, of course, but the idea that there's a whole bunch of bad links circulating around just didn't seem right to me. What I needed, it seems to have turned out, was to experiment a bit (and be more careful with) the placement of my Rovner ligature. It works better placed back further on my 8* than on the 6*.
 
#111 ·
MojoBari said:
...Moving your lig back may do things like opening/closing the tip some based on how it bows the reed....
I sense this very much on my Link STM 6*. I use the stock lig. with it and depending on what kind of playing I am doing, I move my ligature up or down.

When I move it up, the high register and altissimo are easier and I can fly across and up, but the really low subtones are too hard.

When I move it down, I can subtone all the way to Bb, but I can't altissimo higher than C#4.

The trick with Links (and all other mp's I would expect) is to find that golden spot to put your lig. and develop your playing on it. Personally, I keep my lig far down in order to get the low notes, because I just love playing down low. And I can still get quite a bit of altissimo (more than I ever need).
 
#115 ·
ssleb said:
The trick with Links (and all other mp's I would expect) is to find that golden spot to put your lig. and develop your playing on it. Personally, I keep my lig far down in order to get the low notes, because I just love playing down low. And I can still get quite a bit of altissimo (more than I ever need).
Regardless of whether you have mpc quality issues, there is a significant amount you can do to manipulate mpc response by reed and lig placement. This can be useful to extend the lifetime of a reed or to improve the playability of a reed.
I'm thinking in particular here of how close the reed tip and mpc match/overlap and how much of the reed can be allowed to vibrate. For harder reeds in a batch, putting the lig further back on the stock seems to allow more of the reed to vibrate and improves response. It can be truly surprising how critical reed placement can be, and how much tonal variation results. I don't doubt that issues with the table will also impact, but before you get too excited with refacing, it's probably worthwhile to look at consistent and possibly different reed placement
 
#116 ·
Ol' Mpc Doc said:
It's not the "thickness" per se of the reed table that's important. It's the position of the reed plane relative to the tip rail, baffle and chamber as well as the position of the tip rail relative to the bore centerline that is very important and can be influenced by the "thickness" of the reed table on some designs.
I never read this thread, but your comments are consistent with my observations. Like Mojo said, the listener probably can't tell, but the response is dramatically different...do you also think that the angle of the table, then, is also a contributor to the response.

Also, Phil, some of us aren't obsessed about the equipment that we actually play, but we have analytical background that just drives us to be curious about "why does this work" and "why doesn't this??"...that's probably what drove Doc and Mojo to study how to make mouthpieces play easily and consistently on any reed, which (IMHO) is the biggest benefit of having a mouthpiece carefully faced by hand to a specification.
 
#117 ·
gsaxman100 said:
Aw c'mon, Phil. You don't really think we're spending all our time obsessing about mouthpieces when we should be practicing, do you? Absolutely not true, we're also obsessing about reeds, ligatures, the metal coating on our necks, the right cork greese, wind direction, the proper phase of the moon...
I'm obsessing on the chicks at the bar table in front...
 
#118 ·
mountainman said:
If Babbitt uses a little fixturing and a cylindrical grinder there is no reason why the table should not be perfectly flat and the facing curve uniform from side to side and perfect every time! If they use a fixture, a milling machine, and quality control; OR a CNC machine there is no reason why the baffle and throat leading to the bore should not be consistent.
There are companies that make extremely consistent playable mouthpieces in a mass-production facility...Vandoren, Yanagisawa, to name a couple. I have been very impressed with the Yani pieces and play them on Bari and soprano. But I still play a Link on tenor and a Meyer on alto...don't know why, just because.
 
#119 ·
BATMAN said:
I've never head a link described as "pompous". LOL.
That's why when you describe sound you have to use words that everyone understands. Bright, dark, thin, spread. Otherwise nobody knows what you're talking about. I certainly I hope Batman doesn't think Coltrane sounded like Hank Mobely. I'd know Trane in two notes way before the announcer said anything which is my point, let's say, Links allow you to get the post personal sound possible. I could also tell Sonny R very fast or most legends but I certainly don't see any similarity between any of the sound wise. Phil
 
#120 ·
mountainman said:
You can badmouth Bergs all you want I have played a "decrepit" second hand HR Berg 2M .105 opening on Bari for the last 15 years and would really like to be able to duplicate it when it dies!!!!
Yeah, some of the bari ones were good. Ronny Cuber gave me both of his when I customized a Link for him. Ya know, in every instance you have to consider that a certain player might have played a Berg or anything else for a reason. They got old and it was easier to play, endorsment deals, was just trying it out, maybe he sounded better on the Link but didn't know it. Phil
 
#124 ·
Dr G said:
It all depends on the landing.
Years ago, I dropped my alto C* on a hard tile floor (teaching a lesson at a school at 6:30 am- after a long gig the night before- ugh!).

It all happened in slow motion, and the tip didn't break off..... until the third bounce!:evil:
 
#125 ·
Please send me all your BAD links. I like making them better. I have one metal #6 STM that at first I could not play .. but I measured the facing and found a slight bump on one rail. I eliminated that bump so the rails and facing are equal -- now it plays fine !

BTW the table thickness is .130" Is that thick or thin? Yes the table is absolutely flat

Send me your bad links!!

Fraser in Toronto
 
#126 ·
ChocolateSlim04 said:
Otto Link 6* - THIS mouthpiece must have been the worst link they released out of the factory because it was terrible the first time I played on it. It was stuffy and very inconsistent when going through the full range of the horn. I picked it up a few days later and tried it again it was a little better but was still very uneven and inconsistent. It is relatively dark mouthpiece not to dark but dark. I was a little disappointed to find that all the rumors were true about links being inconsistent and that you have to try a lot of them to find a good one. I have played on a link on alto for 6 years and I have never had a problem and I love it most people like the link on tenor but I jus tried it on alto and I loved it but that doesn't excuse that sorry excuse for a link that I played on last week. The altissimo range is very hard to play in. Babbitt needs to put some better care into making their mouthpieces. :cry: On a scale from 1 to 10 I give it maybe a 4 or 5.
I'd like to know what kind of piece you were using before you purchased this Link. Because if you were playing a brighter design and Link would sound stuffy to you. By the way, you say that the piece is stuffy but not that dark, stuffiness is when a mouthpiece is so dark it crosses the threshold of darkness into stuffiness. Furthermore, I don't believe that the reasons any mouthpiece is "bad" is due to any cosmetic flaws you see. You wouldn't believe what I've seen that plays great. Lastly, new Links, when about the same opening are not THAT different. Phil
 
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