RPC mouthpieces are made by my buddy Ron Coelho in Washington State. He is a sax player who worked with the maker of Lamberson mouthpieces and has a great ear for this work. Ron is constantly searching for ways to make the pieces sound the way he likes and his references for the different horns are impeccable: Alto: Cannonball Adderly; Tenor: Dexter Gordon; Baritone: Gerry Mulligan. These are for his vintage sounding mouthpieces (the ones I use), but he also makes models with a more modern edge. I have one of these modern ones for the Baritone and I love it. I have a hard time deciding what I want the bari to sound like between the Mulligan styled piece and the Brignola styled piece. Another positive thing about his work is that he tests each mouthpiece for several hours to make sure it meets his expectations. He also will take a mouthpiece back and work on it for you for no extra cost, until you are satisfied. He's pretty cool like that.
The drawbacks to ordering from Ron are the interminable wait to get your new mouthpiece and the fact that you must pay up front. I have waited up to a year for some of my pieces. Granted, I own 3 alto pieces, 3 tenor pieces, and 3 Baritone pieces made by him, so I wasn't desperate. But it does stress your patience.
I wish Ron would make some soprano pieces, but he hasn't been doing that lately. I use Springer mouthpieces for the soprano. I have two, and I also have a couple of Vandoren V16 #7 pieces that I like a lot. Patrick Springer is a really nice guy who is very interested in your satisfaction as a customer. I have an alto and tenor piece made by him as well, but it's his soprano pieces that really shine!
I just bought a nice Yanagisawa metal tenor piece that I'm sort of liking too... Hasn't replaced my RPC, but it is different in a nice way.
Check out Ron's stuff here: www.saxmpc.com
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment