After that Carney sound? Maybe your vintage horn just hasn’t given you the sound you expected. Giant chamber, steep beak profile, and closed tip. What more could you want from a vintage mouthpiece as big as two modern metal pieces. This piece is an experience all its own and surprisingly not at all as horrible as I expected.

When it comes to baseline mouthpieces I usually go hard rubber and close tip openings for students new to the baritone. Usually a Yamaha 5C with a 2 to 3 1/2 reed depending on brand and student experience levels. I feel that the 5C offers enough variety that the player can reasonably cover most school genres of music all the way into college if needed. In fact I keep a 5C along with some Vandoren 4’s just in case I need to play in a holiday ensemble, though I don’t get those call as often as I used to. On a whim I bought this vintage piece of rubber.

The first thing that caught my attention when it arrived was how heavy it was. It weighed a few ounces more than my rubber Berg and Link. This was not a surprise as the piece is over 2.5″ in diameter. On close examination I identified a decidedly older design. The piece had: wide rails, scooped side walls, a deep baffle opening to a monster chamber, and a smallish shank. The internal volume of this piece looked to be 25% larger than that of my Berg but only 10 – 15% larger than the 5C.

This large volume made itself readily heard when I strapped a hard reed to the piece and began to play. On my YBS-61 I had to push piece nearly a centimeter beyond when I would place the 5C on the neck to make the piece play in tune. As you may have guessed, the large internal volume made the piece play very flat. After warming the horn up and tuning again I was able to get pretty close to in tune but I had a hard time keeping from falling flat on low notes in soft passages.

The tone was very much what I expected when I bought it. It has a warm, introspective tone that gets thin in the upper registers. The close tip opening didn’t help em either as the tip felt closer than my C*. If I had to guess it would be in the .70 – .85″ range. This piece is hard to put a lot of air through. Projection? As they say in New York, “Forget about it!” Perhaps for a very small venue this would work but on a modern horn and for modern uses its quiet limited.

TAKE AWAY:  Short of amplifying this piece the only way you can get it to the back of the audience is if you threw it. On a vintage Conn or Buescher this mouthpiece would likely be an amazing piece but on a modern horn it’s poorly suited and visually intimidating.

Sound samples on the way

That scrap reed is to keep ligature in lace

Metalite? Is it metal? Is it metal-like? What it is, is a whole  lot of mouthpiece in a small grey form.

I bought this piece because it is the most highly recommended baritone mouthpiece for people who see loud and inexpensive as a must haves in a baritone mouthpiece. I bought this one to find out what the hype was about.

Please feel free to share your comments on my post or your opinion the piece being reviewed.

*** UPDATE #2 ***

I recently got a chance to spend a lot more time with a new Metalite M9. What a difference the M9 is when compared to the M7. Reeds that played well on the M7 played great on the M9. The tone was better on the M9 and the responsive was also considerably better. All in all it’s a better piece than either M7 I had tried. Arguably the newer vintage of the M9 could mean that Rico had improved the overall quality of the mouthpiece since my last M7.  I recommend owning an M9 over the M7 if you can adapt to the larger tip opening.

I’ve read over and over again that natural reeds are failing in quality and are inconsistent within a box let alone between boxes. To test this I purchased some Hemke #4 reeds to use on my Yamaha 5C mouthpiece. This piece is my go to piece for classical practice and chamber work. I really like how dark the tone gets as well as how locked in the intonation is when pared with my YBS-61.

On first examination I found that the heel of each reed is not symmetrical. The left and right sides of the heel end have a wide amount of variability. If you look closely you can see that the individual heels are different thicknesses. This could be due to the reed blank shifting or not secured as tightly as it should have been on the planing machine  Effect on the reed?

My second point of consideration is the file mark and the shoulder. As seen below the file marks are all straight and are the same height. The shoulders are quite the telling characteristic. The shoulders are not cut evenly. The desired rounded “V” or “U” shape made by reed profiler is not centered an any reed but the center one. Some reeds are cut slightly left or right of the center line.

The offset shoulder cut directly effects the shape of the vamp; the area from the file mark to the reed tip. i marked in the image below the point at which the reeds shoulder cut ends at the rails. Ideally this would be even left to right on each reed even if not even between reeds.  As you can see below, the rails begin in very different areas on the same reed.  Will this effect playability?

The next thing I examine is the heart’s shape. Does it have that familiar chevron shape? Unfortunately I was unable to take pictures that would show the heart shapes but the reeds with the best defined heart which terminated before the end of the reed was reed 3 and 5. This I know will effect playability.

Lastly I inspect the reeds tip for warping, splits, or any other damage. Unfortunately I did not have my calipers available to measure the tips for comparison.All reeds had well formed tips with no raggedness or obvious imperfections.

As a charter member of the GAS (Gear Acquisition Syndrome) crew I have purchased, traded, and found many mouthpieces over the years. I have always found my way back to a Otto Link Tone Edge for my Baritone needs. I’ve always loved the tone I heard in recordings but hated the over feel of the mouthpiece. In my head the tone was stuffy and constrained to the horn but wow did it work well in the studio.

Well after a recent stint with the Otto Link Super Tone Master I had enough and decided to get a Berg Larsen and see what the hype was all about. I had my reservations about choosing a Berg. My fear was that it was a chops in a box type piece that would have me two shades from Pepper Adams and a far cry from my desired, dark with edge, tonal concept. Boy was I in for a surprise when she came in from the interwebs.

I waited for 2 months before I found the exact Berg that I was looking for on ebay. The piece is 110/1 SMS. I choose the medium opening of 110 because I have always liked how focused the tone is on more closed mouthpieces. For the baffle I choose a 1 because it is the 2nd lowest baffle and as expected was the 2nd darkest tone. The mouth feel is very neutral for a hard rubber piece, neither too big nor too small for my embouchure. These factors lead to a piece which can be pushed hard before the tone spreads too wide and thins out.

The tone of the piece is what pushed my Link into the drawer. This piece has power in part because of its bullet chamber, medium low baffle, and slight cliff baffle. But power is not all it has in it arsenal. When paired with a full bodied reed this piece has a depth of tone which is reminiscent of an Otto Link Tone Edge but with more flexibility. The combination of power, tone, and a bit of edge (or buzz depending on your favorite nomenclature), fulfills my criteria for a great mouthpiece.

The only con to choosing a mass produced mouthpiece let alone a used one is that you can’t be sure that the facing will be even and that the rails will be even. In my case I lucked out and got one that is quite even and the facing seems compatible with all of my reeds.

Take Away: For the money i couldn’t go wrong. Hard rubber Berg Larsen pieces sell for less than $160. Choosing one with a baffle height and tip opening which suits your playing style and personal tastes can help you sound anywhere from an Adams like roar to a Chaloff  haunting whisper.

Generally I would not review a reed because of the inherent variability that comes from natural products. This variability can make one box of reeds a winner while the next box could be filled with duds. Not to mention that some reeds match and perform better with some mouthpieces.   Lastly, depending on your sound concept the same reed can be too thin sounding or to tubby sounding to different people.  With these caveats in mind I will touch on the quantifiable aspects of these reeds.

Reed Strength: 2.5
Reed Cut: Jazz

**** I measured these thickness at the very edge of the reed and at a point where my probes point is just behind the tip. ****

Unfortunately measuring at the heart is more difficult due to the difference in cuts and my inability to accurately locate the center of the heart as some of the reeds are cut off center. I also found it difficult to accurately measure the side rails of the reeds as well. I am currently working on a multi-point chart for measuring reed rails  and will update this posting when complete.

My sound concept leans towards the center to darker end of the spectrum with enough buzz to be heard. I also prefer a very focused tone with medium spread.   Denis DiBlasio (Vandoren V16), Bruce Johnstone (Drake Ceramic Mpc), and Alex Harding (RIA) just to name a few. I find that these reeds match pretty well to my Yamaha 5C mouthpiece and really gives the buzz to be heard. On my Otto Link STM it’s not a good match. The mouthpiece does need to be worked on to even the rails

TAKE AWAY: These reeds behave and give a similar mouth feel to Rico Orange Box V3’s. To my non-musician mate there was only the slightest of differences in tone between reeds.  For the money I would continue to use Rico Orange Box V3’s but at a price point of sub $10 a box it is worth it to buy Branchers.

Ladies and gentlemen, before you I present one of the best means of supporting your heavy saxophone yet devised. It is the Neotech Soft Harness. Finally, a harness to take the weight of my Low-A Yamaha.

This harness is made of 100% better materials than the ebay harness I previously reviewed. This harness has wide shoulder straps and a horizontal link behind the back which mirrors the cross link in the front. In the front the shoulder straps meet at a “K” shaped junction. The hook is a non-marring swivel hook.

Pros:

• The weight of the horn is carried on the shoulders and not the neck. 
• The shoulder pads are flat neoprene which are easy to hide under garments with minimal bulge
• The hook is non marring and quite sturdy feeling
• When sized right, the strap places the horn in near perfect playing position.
• This strap works well for women of greater endowment as well as men with greater than average belly circumference.

Cons:

• Despite optimal embouchure placement the harness places the horn a bit too close to my body.
• Comes in more than one size and the XL is considerably large.
• If this piece keeps to my previous Neotech experience then the neoprene will stretch and will eventually stop supporting the instrument. For the record my previous Neotech strap lasted 3 years before the stretch became to great.

Take away: I love this harness and recommend bari players try one. I think you will like it too.

I bought this piece because my Tone Edge Hard Rubber Link just didn’t have the gutsy sound I was looking for. Even though I know better than to order a Otto Link or Berg Larsen from the net without playing it first, I was was sure that I would get lucky and get a gem of a piece.