F-Mezzo Soprano Sax Mouthpieces

Gandalfe

Gandalfe

Striving to play the changes in a melodic way.
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Here are the pictures of the two F-Mezzo mouthpieces that I have. The sop and alto ones are for comparison. From left to right we have: Conn soprano, Theo Wanne Mezzo, Mezzo from eBay, Otto Link alto, Meyer alto.

Playing, with the Theo Wanne piece the instrument is very much in tune except for the D3 and higher notes. But it looks like the key heights for the palm keys are set too high. The Alto mouthpieces are way too big. The soprano mouthpiece fits, albeit snuggly. But the intonation of the horn is then totally off.
 
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The only alto mouthpiece I could get to work on F saxes was a Lakey. The neck goes right up to the back of the baffle, so I carved a "bullet" shape into the back edge of the baffle to ease the transition into the neck.
It's really loud, and it makes the Mezzo sound like an alto. Intonation is a bit off, but manageable.
 
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I took the f-mezzo into to Paul Woltz and he adjusted the left-hand palm key heights and added a cork wedge (effectively making the tone hole smaller) to each of the the palm keys. Then I took the instrument to a lesson. I had the teacher play my Yanagisawa S992 (best inherent intonation for a sop I've found yet) and I played the f-mezzo. We used the Santa Baby arrangement from Merlin.

Wow, just wow. I was easily able to keep the upper and lower notes in tune. The instructor said that the intonation was excellent, especially considering the vintage of the instrument. Very impressive.

When I picked up the instrument the saleperson, a contra-sax player said he'd also picked up an f-mezzo last month that wasn't nearly as nice with dents and more wear, but it had the original mouthpiece. He paid $1000 more for his than I'd paid for mine. Sometimes you get lucky.
 
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