Yes Syos interests me, for instance, a BC piece is the same price as a Sop Clarinet pieces, same with a Bari Sax.
Also, Pete Thomas has an arrangement with Syos for a discount.
Also, Pete Thomas has an arrangement with Syos for a discount.
Me too! lolThat, I'd like to see
Yes. I honestly believe if you purchase a custom mouthpiece, you will get great customer service. If you don’t like your mouthpiece you can send it back and they will make you another. Of course you have to pay for shipping and any duty frees.Regarding Syos, I went to their website. First thing I should mention is that they're currently doing a 10% off sale for new customers.
Anyway, I played around with their customizer. I think that's just all sorts of cool, right there: you can use sliders to customize tone and "power." However, you can also click on samples of some sax players (they need more) and accept what Syos considers the player's levels to be. I, of course, chose Paul Desmond. It then asks for your current mouthpiece brand and allows you to change the tip opening. I chose a Selmer C* and I wanted a larger opening. Just because. Then you choose your pick of 9 colors for a mouthpiece and ligature. Then an engraving design.
I tried the customizer for both alto and bari and the prices were the same: 270 Euros (Syos' website says $319 US). A Selmer Soloist C* alto mouthpiece is $200. If you're lucky, you can get an MC Gregory 4a 18M mouthpiece, the mouthpiece Desmond used, per Wikipedia, for around $375.
I posted an article here, probably at least a year ago, about how some museums are using 3D printing to make copies of rare mouthpieces and other instrument parts. I guess this is the mainstream version.
WOW! That’s impressive!My gear varies at times based on the horn, or what genre I'm playing. Some horns I have, have very specific MP/reed needs, but here goes:
Soprano
Conn, Pan American Curvy Bb Soprano: Bilger Gold
Mark VI Bb Soprano: vintage Dukoff D8
Conn New Wonder Series II C Soprano: Conn Eagle C soprano MP
Alto
vintage Dukoff D8
vintage Meyer 6M (used in the big band I work in)
Runyon Custom 8 with spoiler
C Melody
Runyon 6 C mel MP with spoiler
Tenor
vintage Dukoff S7
vintage Dukoff D7*
Olds Super tenor: Apollo Series brass 6* by Claude Lakey
Bari
Couf Blackgold bari: Theo Wanne Durga 8*
Mark VI & Martin Committee III baritones:
vintage HR Berg 100/2 SMS
vintage SS Berg 110/2 M
Bass **
Runyon blank 7 - customized for bari by Paul Coats
Vandoren bass sax MP
** Just got the Couf bass in 2021, and haven't settled on a MP yet
Hey Keesha, I answered you questions in the quote.......
May I ask how many saxophones you have? Honestly, I'm not sure off the top of my head. I also own a bunch of clarinets, so all in, around 30 horns give or take. (I had to sell some to finance my "new to me" bass sax, when I sold my old Buescher bass in spring last year.
Do you like the curvy soprano as opposed to the straight? It depends on what I'm playing. These days I find myself using my Mark VI more more than my curvy. Why? B/C after 20+ years of searching, 2 years ago I found the PERFECT Dukoff mouthpiece I had been looking for. It had been refaced by Theo Wanne himself.
Can you hear your own sound better with a curvy soprano ? Hard to say. The sound is most definitely different to my ear. About 5 years ago I had my curvy lovingly overhauled by a tech I know on Vancouver Island. Claudio did a fantastic job, but since then I have only gotten to use it a handful of times. The MP it requires to play in tune is very different. Therefore the sound is very different as well. So to answer your question, I guess the answer would be "yes", I suppose that I can hear my sound easier on the curvy, but if I'm using monitors, it makes no difference.
What’s considered vintage in years? Well that's the million $$ question. It will naturally change over time. At this point the most common answer is any saxophone made prior to the 1980s. As far as MPs goes, I haven't spoken to anyone about this, but again, logic would dictate the same pre 1980s classification. However, "vintage" means much more than its simple age. I wrote an article about this that might be helpful. That same criteria should be applied to MPs as well. Cheap, plastic student MPs from the 1970s are old, while a HR Geo Bundy from the 1930s is a pro piece. It can be rather confusing.
My oldest mouthpiece is 70 years old but most are 35 to 40 My oldest pieces are nearly 100 year old bass/bari MPs.
Meyer 6 is a great mouthpiece. The new ones not so much, but the vintage ones, absolutely. That's why they are so crazy ass expensive. For generations they have been paired with the Mark VI alto to provide "the" section sound in big bands. That is what I use mine for.
It seemed that most players seem to prefer the 6 to 8 mouthpiece sizing. It was what available to me. If a 7 or 8 would have been available, I would have gotten it, but hey, it was free, and I got it.
You play soprano, alto, tenor AND baritone? soprano, alto, c mel, tenor, bari, bass
That’s truly remarkable? Your embouchure must be in amazing shape? The trick is to do LONG TONES on every horn. (5 minutes per horn every day usually does it. I have an exercise I do that I was given by my instructor 25 years ago, that I still use today, and give to my students. It is fantastic.) I also am lucky to have fantastic muscle memory, so it usually doesn't take me long to get my chops back in shape if I've laid off a horn for a while.
Do you play them all often? It depends. I am primarily a bari/bass player. Those are the ones I play most. C melody is the one I play least. Of my 3 sopranos, I play my C pitched one the most, b/c I am doing duets with a friend of mine who is the oboe player in the symphony. That keeps my small horn chops in shape. She has perfect pitch. She makes me work hard.
If you’ve been playing your baritone for a long period of time how difficult is it to go straight to the soprano? Not difficult at all.
Do you play in a band? Have you ever taken all 4 different saxophones? Yes, I play in multiple bands, plus I have my own jazz band. However, due to COVID, things are a little messed up right now. I play in 17-piece big band. I play the baritone chair. It doubles on alto when the Alto 1 picks up the clarinet. Hence my need for a Meyer MP on my Mark VI. I am currently in the process of transposing some of bari parts to bass. Should be we ever be able to host dances again, or play at another festival, I will be playing bari/bass/alto in the big band.
Probably not but I had to ask?
Which saxophone was your first? Like most people, I started on alto, but switched to tenor in my 2nd year of playing.
Do you have any music you’d like to share with us? Until recently I have made it a point of not having my stuff online. When my former bandleader and blues partner died last month though, I wrote an obit for him. In it, I posted a couple of old video clips of his band that I worked in for 10 years. They were shot on a Panasonic DLSR camera, so are pretty rough, but they give you an idea of what my blues tenor stuff sounds like. (Lots of growl, lots of edge, many many overtones.) In total there are 3 solos, and numerous examples of background fills.
Sorry for all the questions. I actually have a lot more but I don’t want to overwhelm you. Ask away. I am an admin here, and one of the resident sax people. I have been playing for around 35 years now, and have played professionally for 20 or so of them. I have worked in almost every type of band imaginable, and have played almost all styles of music. I had been away for a bit due to a medical emergency, but I am back now.
Hey Helen,Hey Keesha, I answered you questions in the quote.
So whereabouts in Canada are you? I am in Metro Vancouver.
If you want to see any of the saxophones I have, my gigging horns are shown on my website under the Gear section. The big exception is my Couf Superba I bass that I got last spring. I haven't had a chance to take my own photos of it yet. But I did write a review of it already with photos.
No way! Eh! Lol!I live North of Canada, eh.
Detroit, Michigan area. North of Ontario Canada. LOLNo way! Eh! Lol!
Windsor, Ontario if you want to be more specific.Ok check. North of Ontario.
I wouldn’t expect you to know otherwise.
You live in Windsor Ontario?Windsor, Ontario if you want to be more specific.
But I figured you would figure it out. It's a long standing joke for SE Michigan people. I guess only funny to us.