Posted by The MPiece dance on August 09, 2003 at 01:10:52:
In Reply to: MF mouthpiece on large tubas posted by Thomas on July 27, 2003 at 07:57:34:
I have a pre-Perrantucci Kurath which is essentially the 3050. I did the mouthpiece dance for several years before I hit upon a good compromise. I started with a PT 48 and tried the 88, 42, 36, 84... That's all I can remember. I liked the 88 which is what Perrantoni recommended. It played well, especially down low, but I couldn't get the projection I wanted in the orchestra. I had to work really hard to balance in the orchestra, which is very unusual for this instrument. I also noticed that as I switched between funnel and cup shaped mouthpieces, the intonation problems all these horns seem to have changed. Also, certain notes don't resonate as well as others and these moved around with mouthpiece changes too. As a last resort, I wrote Marty Erickson for his advice. He put me onto one of his mouthpieces, an ME 4, that they recommend with the 3050. The tone quality is very dark and heavily fundamental, but the intonation smoothed out, the "wuff" tones were minimized and I could project and balance the orchestra just fine. The downside is that the sound is way too dark and heavy to play as a solo or quintet instrument.
Good luck with the mouthpiece dance.