The Bassic Sax Blog

Posts Tagged ‘Saxophone Mouthpieces’

By Bassic Sax Guest Columnist, Glenn G

I’ve owned my bass for about four months now. As I indicated in my article on bass cases, it is a 10-year-old Keilwerth. The horn was in great shape when I purchased it.

My first challenge was to find a suitable mouthpiece. The previous owner included an old Selmer piece that I think is a modified bari piece and the Keilwerth piece that came with the horn. He told me “No one uses the Keilwerth piece”.

The Selmer piece really didn’t do it for me. The Keilwerth didn’t fit the neck—the opening was too large. Luckily, I had been reading Helen’s Bassic Sax Blog and website and knew that Paul Coats offered a modified bari piece. I ordered one and had great results with it.  

     Photo by H. Kahlke © 2010

     Photo by H. Kahlke © 2010

     Photo by H. Kahlke © 2010

At first, I did have some issues with middle D, E and Eb. I understand that these can be problematic on the bass. I am not a professional musician. I practice regularly with the bass and Paul’s piece. At this point it is all coming together, although I am still working on budgeting my breathing.

I did put some paper on the neck to try the Keilwerth with some Vandoren bass reeds and found that it didn’t work well. I also ordered a Vandoren bass piece, used it with my Vandoren reeds, but returned it. 

The Vandoren bass reeds are $5.00 each, so I’m glad Paul Coats’ bari piece works. I use a Fibracell 1.5 on it; also the Coats modified Runyon 88 bari mouthpiece is less than $100.

I was at a Jazz camp at the end of July. Everyone was congregating in the bar on the final night after the concert. I mentioned to one of the participants that I had a bass. He went on about it having no parts written for it. It was just a novelty for everyone to go ga ga and to say, “Wow a Bass Sax”.  I told him that I didn’t disagree with what he said. He then said: Oh, you own a Bass Sax!  

I don’t care; I’m having fun with it. I see people who buy motorcycles, boats, ski-mobiles, etc, which cost more—sometimes much more—than a bass sax, and are very expensive to maintain and house. A bass sax costs little to feed and house. If I did decide to part with it, I may lose a bit of money or maybe make a small profit. I’m not concerned; I’m having fun with it. It’s money well spent.

© 2010, The Bassic Sax Blog. All rights reserved.

As regular readers of my blog know, over the past week I’ve written a couple of articles about the original Rico Metalite Mouthpieces. These unassuming mouthpieces don’t carry the hefty price tag of other big name pieces, but they were indeed designed by a big name in mouthpieces: the late Arnold Brilhart.

     Source: A Friend Of Bassic Sax

Unlike their Graftonite cousins which Rico continued to manufacture, Metalites were discontinued. Why? Who knows. It’s doubtful at this point even Rico could give you an answer.

In any event, this left players who were looking for these loud, projecting, yet very controllable Rico pieces, relegated to trying to either find them used—or if a person was lucky like I was—as new old stock in music stores.

     Source: eBay.co.uk

After much lobbying by players it appears that Rico got the message, and in 2009 the company did reintroduce the dull grey plastic mouthpieces that had many of the properties of metal ones. However, when the Metalites were reintroduced, there were not as may facing choices for players, and sizes were no longer listed on the boxes.

Because I regularly get people looking for information about the Rico Metalite mouthpieces, I decided to compile a chart of the original facings as they were listed on the boxes. 

Facing Chart For The ORIGINAL Rico Royal Metalite Mouthpieces

     Source: A Friend Of Bassic Sax

When Rico decided to reintroduce the Metalites, they did so only for soprano, tenor, and baritone. To date no new alto Metalite models are available.

     Source: eBay.com

I have read on the Internet—I believe it might have been on SOTW—that Rico decided to not bring back the altos at this time because there is not enough demand for them. I find that hard to believe since we know there are more alto players than any other type of saxophone. Although perhaps they conducted some research and the alto players surveyed didn’t like them. Or perhaps the Internet chatter was incorrect.

Something on the ‘Net wrong?   I know it’s shocking that someone might post something that’s inaccurate, but please try to get over it.

I have an entire Series on the Rico mouthpieces already—which this article is a part of—so I will not review more about the Metalites here. Please see the rest of the articles in this Series to read more about these Arnold Brilhart designed mouthpieces, and why these sleeper pieces are such a good value for your mouthpiece dollar.

© 2010, The Bassic Sax Blog. All rights reserved.

I received a review of the original Rico Metalite mouthpieces the other day by a player with some considerable playing experience. He agreed that I could use his review, under the condition that I not publicly identify him.

A Review Of The Arnold Brilhart designed Rico Royal Metalite Soprano, Alto, & Baritone Saxophone Mouthpieces

By A Friend Of Bassic Sax

I recently purchased two “new old stock” Rico Metalite mouthpieces—a soprano & alto. Both were dated 1988 on the box.

I have bought the entire range of Metalites (except tenor sax) and they are all M9 tip openings. I haven’t bothered getting myself a Metalite tenor mouthpiece because I’ve already got a few Otto Link STMs in my drawer. As a result can’t comment on what the tenor versions are like.

However, I agree 100% with you re: the Metalite baritone version. My Metalite bari mouthpiece is an astonishingly good mouthpiece that really punches above its weight. I’m certainly not saying Metalites are the best mouthpieces in the world bar none, but in terms of sheer value for money they are almost impossible to beat.

Basically, I paid peanuts for a brand new Rico bari mouthpiece to use with my Yamaha YBS-61 bari. The mouthpiece sounds like it cost $300. Incredible, but true. I also have a Rico Graftonite B7 bari, and it’s much gentler.

The only downside to Rico mouthpieces is their appearance—they certainly aren’t pretty and I reckon that must put some people off. Still, looks aren’t everything and you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover. If you can look beyond visual appearances, these ugly duckling mouthpieces are truly excellent.

My Metalite M9 alto is as good as the rest of the bunch. It’s an incredibly loud mouthpiece (even for a Metalite), so it’s like having my own sound amplification system built in. It’s ideal for open air gigs where I need some extra punch.

Oddly enough, although the Metalite sounds well on my YAS-62 Mk 1—and some other professional-grade altos in my collection—it seems to work best of all on my spare back-up alto, a Yamaha AS-100. Strange but true. Fitted to my AS-100, the alto Metalite sounds really nice.

The more I think about it, the more puzzled I am that Rico don’t make Metalite alto mouthpieces any more. True, they have started making soprano, tenor and baritone Metalites again – but not the alto version. In my opinion that’s a great pity because fitted to the right saxophone, Metalite alto mouthpieces can sound lovely

I’ve grown very fond of my M9 Metalite soprano. I actually prefer it to an Otto Link STM (same tip opening) that I borrowed for the weekend to try on my soprano. Given the massive difference in price between these two mouthpieces, that pretty much says it all.

In my opinion, Rico Graftonites and Metalites are the best value-for-money in saxophone mouthpieces. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still a big fan of Otto Link STMs etc, but of course there’s a big difference in price. For those on a budget, or who simply want to try something slightly different at a price that won’t be painful, Rico mouthpieces are well worth a go.

The most important thing about Ricos is that they give students inexpensive access to good-quality mouthpieces that aren’t going to harm their technique, hold them back, or shame them if they continue to play Ricos after developing their “chops”. Me, I’ve been playing the sax since 1978 and I’m still learning.

I’m always wryly amused when I hear “experts”—who’ve been playing the alto for all of 2 years—saying that Rico mouthpieces are no good and the best mouthpieces are made by XYZ etc. But then, I’ve lost count of the times I’ve seen some know-it-all with his shiny new Selmer series III get blown out of the water by a more experienced player blowing a weathered old Yamaha YAS-21 which cost a fraction of the price. Those less experienced players don’t seem to realize that it’s all about having good chops and working on your technique.  (Emphasis added.)

Amen to that. It’s not the gear that makes the player. It’s the player that makes the most out of the gear.

It’s like I wrote about in my article The Source Of Tone: Where Does Our Tone Come From? How Do We Change It? 

Our unique, individual sound originates in our chest cavities…

What is difficult for most players to get their head around, is that the further you get away from the origin of the tone, the less tinkering, or making changes to gear, is going to have an effect on your saxophone tone.

     Illustration by: Helen Kahlke

© 2010, The Bassic Sax Blog. All rights reserved.