plastic mouthpiece

[vatubist]

A friend advised using a plastic mouthpiece for Tuba Christmas. I use a Bach 12. What is comparable? What do you recommend?

[bighonkintuba]

An old TubeNet thread (can't seem to find it...) indicates that a Kelly 18 is pretty close in rim width to a Bach 12. The Kelly 18 is ~33mm (measured for that thread; I also measured one) while the published value for the Bach 12 is 32.75mm. I don't know if that means you can expect a similar feel/sound as I've never played a 12. It might be close enough for government (or TubaChristmas) work. I do know that the Kelly 18 is and feels wider than a Bach 18.

I've only used metal mouthpieces for outdoor TubaChristmas concerts and will again this year. Keeping the 'piece warm with my hand in a jacket pocket when not in use works fine.

YMMV depending on the weather.

[Kevin Hendrick]

A friend advised using a plastic mouthpiece for Tuba Christmas. I use a Bach 12. What is comparable? What do you recommend?

Here's a Bach-vs-Kelly cup diameter comparison chart:

tuba mpc comp chart - bach vs kelly - png.png

According to both companies' published specs, the Kelly 18 looks like its diameter matches that of the Bach 12.

Hope this helps!

[bighonkintuba]

My mistake on the 12 (read the dimensions for the 7). I looked again for that thread, but can't find it. I deleted the bookmark after switching to a different mouthpiece.

[iiipopes]

You can almost invariably count on two things when discussing Bach mouthpieces:

1) They are usually larger in cup diameter than "spec," and
2) They are so inconsistent from year-to-year that you can't rely on "spec."

My two Kelly 18's measure 1.28 and 1.285, as they are from a really old run and a not quite so old run. New spec on a Kelly 18 is advertised as 1.29.

A Kellyberg is 1.30.

The other option is to do what I did: I like the feel of lexan, so I bought a blokepiece Imperial, a lexan rim and a spacer, and I use that both indoors and out.