What is the relationship between the facing curve's characteristics
near the tip and the tone quality? Is it consistent, or does it vary
from piece to piece?

Specifically, I'm wondering if making a slightly tighter curve away
from the reed at the tip will tend to mellow/warm the sound, whereas
flattening it might make the reed "slap" against the mouthpiece more,
and generate a harsher, buzzier tone.

Thanks,
Doug

There has been some discussion on this group about the "flip tip", which 
is an increased curve near the tip.  Search the archived messages for 
those posts.  Long and short - seems to increase altissimo response, 
possibly at the expense of warmness and fullness.  Others on this 
newsgroup know *much* more about this than I.

Dan T

dcb_76 wrote:

>What is the relationship between the facing curve's characteristics
>near the tip and the tone quality? Is it consistent, or does it vary
>from piece to piece?
>
>Specifically, I'm wondering if making a slightly tighter curve away
>from the reed at the tip will tend to mellow/warm the sound, whereas
>flattening it might make the reed "slap" against the mouthpiece more,
>and generate a harsher, buzzier tone.
>
>Thanks,
>Doug
>
>
>
>
>
>
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I have found that the curved tip lay does have better
altissimo and the flat tip lay is warmer in tone, rr


visit with me at http://www.misterross.com

> Specifically, I'm wondering if making a slightly tighter curve away
> from the reed at the tip will tend to mellow/warm the sound, whereas
> flattening it might make the reed "slap" against the mouthpiece more,
> and generate a harsher, buzzier tone.
> 

If just the tip rail is flattened, I do not think there will be any "slap"
effect.  If a flat is 5-10mm long, it will be edgy.  This may be from a
slap or some other phenomenum more difficult to visualize.

I prefer a slight curve to the very tip.  I do this mostly by eye.  It is
probably only 10% of extreme flips I have seen on some mouthpieces.  A
slight curve is usually enough to recover decent altissimo response.  I
hear no negative effects.


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--- In MouthpieceWork@yahoogroups.com, Richard Ross
<richardsaxross@...> wrote:
>
> I have found that the curved tip lay does have better
> altissimo and the flat tip lay is warmer in tone, rr
----------------------------------------------------------------
 I presume everyone is talking about the curve of the lay as viewed
from the side of the mouthpiece. However, refering back to post 4001,
which I feel was not satisfactorally answered, despite the many
replies, there remains confusion in my mind as to what people are
actually talking about when they discuss a "flat tip". Most are
thinking of the curve of the lay I guess, but are some thinking about
the "flat/curve" when viewed from the tip end (post 4001 side swiped
tip) ? Two different things, with different effects are they not? The
terminology lacks clarity. 

Talking about the curve of the lay (the last part near the tip rail as 
viewed from the side) I found something of sligth different. I think 
the difference in sound is simply due to the different heigth between 
the final position of the reed (on the rails) and the baffle. If you 
reduce the height the suond becomes richer. You can experiment this by 
moving a very small baffle in that region improving the response in a 
particular range of frequencies. If you have the possibility of 
analyzing these frequencies by using spectral methods or simply your 
musical sensitivity (sorry I don't know the right English words) you 
can accordingly change the curve in the right points. Obviously the 
mathematical model should be recalculated. That's my personal hopinion 
of course (but it works fine on my mouthpieces ;) ).

Dan

Spectral methods? I guess you mean a breakdown of the power in
different frequency ranges. Has anybody tried this and found it to be
any better than using the ear?

--- In MouthpieceWork@yahoogroups.com, "lcchtt" <Letydan@...> wrote:
>
> Talking about the curve of the lay (the last part near the tip rail as 
> viewed from the side) I found something of sligth different. I think 
> the difference in sound is simply due to the different heigth between 
> the final position of the reed (on the rails) and the baffle. If you 
> reduce the height the suond becomes richer. You can experiment this by 
> moving a very small baffle in that region improving the response in a 
> particular range of frequencies. If you have the possibility of 
> analyzing these frequencies by using spectral methods or simply your 
> musical sensitivity (sorry I don't know the right English words) you 
> can accordingly change the curve in the right points. Obviously the 
> mathematical model should be recalculated. That's my personal hopinion 
> of course (but it works fine on my mouthpieces ;) ).
> 
> Dan
>

--- dcb_76 <dcb_76@...> wrote:

> Spectral methods? I guess you mean a breakdown of the power in
> different frequency ranges. Has anybody tried this and found it to be
> any better than using the ear?

There are a few of techincal papers that show fequency response curves in
addition to qualitative judgements of the sound.  Several are in the
Literature Links on the site.


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