POLL: Eb tuba mouthpiece

[cjk]

The 24AW is very popular for use with compensated Eb's in the UK both in bands and orchestras. It does produce a good warm tuba tone from Eb's (as you can hear on many recordings), but at the same time IMHO the sound is a bit woolly.

If you could produce an Eb mouthpiece with that characteristic warm tone without the woolliness, then I would think it the ideal for compensated Eb's.

I cannot see any reason why you could not change the rim, while maintaining tonal characteristics

Forgive me, but you have contradicted yourself. If the tone is woolly, then it is not optimal, and therefore the mouthpiece is not optimal, and further design work is necessary to balance the cup, throat and backbore to maintain the warmth while getting rid of the woolliness. And the rim has nothing to do with maintaining tonal characteristics.

One reason the 24AW is popular is because its throat (at least according to spec, and that is taken with caution, because of the inconsistency of Bach mouthpieces) is 8.84mm, even wider than a Wick 3, so a player can push a lot of air through its reasonably deep cup. However, this may be part of what makes it woolley on a Sov eefer. So something like a 24AW cup, which is deep but not too deep, with a different throat and backbore, may have potential.

And I believe this is just what bloke is trying to accomplish. Hey bloke -- that is an idea: try grafting a 24AW cup with a shaved rim so it doesn't bang your nose onto your standard reverse throat and backbore and see what happens.

Oh, bloke, - BTW - I agree with you on the wide rim. When I first got my Curry 128D, it had a wide rim approaching 24AW, and it did the same thing to me, causing the mouthpeice to ride down and lose centering on my embouchure. I had to have Vladimir @ Dillon Music shave it down to 18 contour. Now it's just right.

So iiipopes, what mouthpiece do you play on your EEb ?

[iiipopes]

Right now, I don't have an eefer. When I did play eefer for a season some years ago for a couple of pieces that needed tubas in octaves in the local community band, I played an MF4 (one of a special run that had a .500 shank) and a Wick 3 after trying Wick 1, 2, 3, 24AW, MF4, Bach 18 and several other mouthpieces. A friend of mine has a Martin eefer that I play occasionally which has a great tone, great intonation for an old 3-valve, but it has an interesting quirk: once you hit false pedal Ab, anything from there on down is more embouchure dependent than valve dependent, to the point that valves are almost optional. It sounds fantastic with a Wick 3.

So I confess I don't do eefer that much, being mostly a BBb guy (see my signature). But for cash issues in this economy, I would really like to get an older B&H or Besson 3-valve comp eefer with its small bell to match my BBb 3-valve comp, and a St Pete eefer to match my 186 detachable with the retrofit St Pete upright bell.

[GC]

I switched over to Eb a year and a half ago. Courtesy of Lee Stofer, I'm getting pretty good mileage from a Rudy Meinl 9 with a .78 backbore on my 1914 Conn Monster Eb (they also make a .80 backbore). It has an inner diameter fairly close to a Bach 18, but a shallower bowl. It's pretty versatile tonally, sounds good in all registers, and slots better on Eb than the Bach 18 does. Lee has said that it's a favorite of his for Eb and F tubas.

Kanstul has made its Eb-F mouthpiece with a reasonably similar diameter but a very shallow cup, and it slots and articulates VERY nicely but is very bright.

I have a couple of other mouthpieces I use on teensy-receiver antique tubas, but I really prefer the RM9. It's just not offered in a small Euro shank.