Posted by Joe S. on May 10, 1999 at 21:30:14:
In Reply to: Comparison Chart posted by Brandon Thomason on May 10, 1999 at 16:26:10:
Wouldn't it be neat if someone, as a doctoral project or something, persuaded their school to purchase one of every make and model of tuba mouthpiece made, and was somehow able to do accurate interior profiles of all of the mouthpieces as a visual comparison? That might start to answer a few more questions about a sort of unknown: cup-to-throat contours and their effects.
As a fan of the "cheapo" Marcinkiewicz H-1 (for CC use), I think that the reason that I like it so much over the seemingly pretty-much identical-looking Conn Helleburg (yes, I'm a flat, thin rim fan) has something to do with how the cup contours into the throat. It is my belief that this is a critical area of the mouthpiece for the presence or the lack of undesirable noises within the signal produced by the mouthpiece. (As a music store owner, I RELUCTANTLY tried the H-1 several years ago. A company salesman kept calling and calling trying to get me to carry their stuff. I thought of Joe M. as being some dude who only made jazz trumpet mouthpieces...and why did I need to start carrying his...after all, I already had a bunch of Schilke 13A4a's, etc...THIS is an example of my OWN descrimination against a product (its origin and its price-cheap) related to a "2145" extensive post, below: I ASSUMED that Joe M. was an ignoramus, regarding tuba mouthpieces. I was very WRONG. ALSO, I was hesitant to even bother trying them, because they had no "heritage". Sorry to stray here, but again, none of us should look away from a product due to its price (whether HIGH or LOW) nor its origin if we are seriously searching.
Back to the subject of this post: Who wants to take on this mouthpiece comparison project on as THEIR Masters or Doctoral "thing"? I'm too dern old to go back to school!