Poll: Does the depth of the cup affect tuning?

[imsevimse]

I make it simple:

If you change your mouthpiece to a more shallow one or a more deep one (same rim) does that then affect your general tuning? Do you have to move your main tuningslide to compensate or play shorter/longer on the slide to be in tune after such a change?

Please If you want to elaborate on the subject I'm grateful.

/Tom

[Matt K]

Maybe this varies maker to maker but I don’t notice much of a change on Doug’s stuff using the same rim. But he also adjusts his shank lengths to accommodate the change in depth.

[harrisonreed]

It's more complex than just cup depth. The internals of the throat and backbore need to adjust for the cup depth too. Everything in a mouthpiece affects everything else in a mouthpiece, so once you start changing even the smallest things, the balance will go out of whack. I haven't noticed that the tuning slide needs to move, but different mouthpieces definitely have different partials tendencies.

You had mentioned that the partials are not lining up right with a deeper cup for you -- that may be an issue with the backbore (AND how it works with the cup). Partials not lining up how you're used to could be caused by the backbore stretching or compressing the octaves. If you are going sharp in the upper register (throat and backbore is too open), all the adjustments you are used to will be affected too. So, I would test out your octaves first. If they don't line up, it could be mostly a "you" problem, but it could absolutely also be related to the throat and backbore.

In general, a tighter throat compresses everything, so the lowest register is sharp and the upper register is flat. You hear this with lead trumpets ALL THE TIME. The notes come out crystal clear, loud ..... And flat! I sometimes ask what backbore and they always say it's a tight throat to make the upper register easier.

A open throat stretches the octaves. Again, you hear this on lead trumpets ALL THE TIME. The notes get muscled through with air, and go way sharp. And they are playing some Monette or Pickett with a huge throat.

So, in both of these cases, the partials will not be right because the octaves are not right. You need to compensate be increasing or decreasing the cylindrical length of the throat, at the design stage and not by drilling. Longer throats compress the octaves (it makes the backbore tighter, by design) shorter ones stretch them (makes the backbore more open, by design).

[Rusty]

As mentioned, there’s a lot more that goes into it than just cup depth, but experimenting with DE cups and shanks the pitch does need adjusting depending on general depth. Most of the time it might just need some time to adjust to the slightly different sound and feel.

[imsevimse]

Hello

I'm the OP.

My experiments and experience

To me intonation change. I investigated this a lot when I tried to find a mouthpiece for my soprano trombone. It came with a Bach 7C trumpet mouthpiece and I started to seek deeper mouthpieces because I wanted a deeper and more trombone-like sound. I've tried a Schilke 24 and it is very large and tuning is still possible but not deep enough to get the more trombone-like sound I'm after. If I use a small shank trombone mouthpiece the soprano becomes unplayable because of intonation issues. The deepest working mouthpiece is a flugelhorn mouthpiece, then I have to tune as high as possible. It was in this hunt I discovered that the deeper the cup the flatter a horn plays.

When the difference is small it is hardly noticeable to me but as the difference in cup depth becomes larger I have to compensate with the tuningslide.

More experiments...

I have experimented a lot with deep versus shallow cups in a tenor trombone both with same rim and different rims. One of my favorite mouthpieces is a Hammond 12M and it is rather shallow, another mouthpiece is a Hammond 12 MXL. It is the same rim but a deeper cup. When I switch between them I have to compensate with the tuningslide (or play shorter on the slide). I have measured this to be about a half centimeter difference on the tuningslide. This means now I allways push in half a centimeter if I go to the deeper mouthpiece from the shallow and pull back when I go back to the shallow mouthpiece. Besides this it is not a problem with intonation when I change. In this change I haven't noticed I have to adjust my positions much different.

I've tried my Alto trombones with Bach 12C, or other "C" sizes and compared this to a Bach 15E and Bach 12E. What happens is I have to compensate with the tuningslide.

I've tried a 1 1/4G bass trombone mouthpiece in my .547 Conn 88h and then the result was the horn played flatter and also the positions did not line up as they did when I used the tenor mouthpiece Hammond 12M. To be able to investigate this more I would need to shorten my tuningslide.

Naturally I have tried a small shank Bach 11C in a bass trombone too with an adapter. I gave that up right away since positions were real weird. I haven't tried this much so haven't thought of what happend to the tuning. I guess the horn played sharper, but I don't remember. The result was undesirable in so many ways (for me) so I did abandon that right away.

...and now to the strange one...

I have a Martin Magma bass trombone that can be played with any mouthpiece. It is a large shank .536 bore bass trombone with 9" bell. I've played that horn with small shank Bach 11C with adapter, Hammond 12M, 12MXL and Bach 1 1/4G and even a Bach 1G and all work. Positions line up as expected with any of these mouthpieces and the only thing I need to change is the tuningslide. I have to pull out to compensate if I use a more shallow mouthpiece and push in if I use a more deep mouthpiece.

Now to the question.

Have others experienced this phenomenon "You have to compensate with your tuningslide (or mainslide) if you change from a shallow mouthpiece to a deeper and vice versa" or is this something that only happen to me? Does a switch from a shallow mouthpiece to a deep mouthpiece or vice versa affect tuning on your trombone? How?

/Tom

[Matt K]

I think in some cases people think something is making them sharp or flat but it might only be making them "sound" sharp or flat. In other words, they re actually playing "at pitch" but it sounds either dull or too bright. That happens to me but playing with a drone helps me be both in tune and...in tone... for lack of a better term. I tend to leave my tuning slide wherever it happens to be and adjust my handslide but that adjustment happens continually as the horn gets warmer and colder depending on how much I'm playing on a gig. If I were to pick a spot when I start playing, I'd be sharp after 2-3 minutes and if I were to keep in that spot, I'd be flat if I set the horn down for 30 minutes and had to come in on a high D (Beethoven flashbacks...)

[sirisobhakya]

For a time period I regularly switched between Yamaha Yeo and 59L (to “cheat” high notes). I have to move the tuning slide around 0.5-1 inch every time. Verified by tuner. I also once forgot to do that and has to pitch shift the entire home recording…

[LeTromboniste]

Very roughly, there are too main things that affect tuning: the volume of air in the cup, and the volume of air past the throat. The balance needs to be right, and right for both the instrument and the player.

So if everything else stays the same, only making the cup deeper will flatten the higher partials and compresses the octaves.

Of course you can have a deeper but narrower cup, or you can have a big cup with also a wider throat and more open backbore, in such a way that the right balance is preserved, but then you've changed several things, and that's where things get infinitely more complex.

[imsevimse]

You don't need a poll, the answer is objectively and unequivocally yes.
....

I think a poll is good. What is science is not easy understood. This poll is for the ones who have thought about this and experimented with different sizes of mouthpieces in the same horn, and you can just share that experience. You do not need to be Alessi who plays several hours a day on a large cup and you do not need to know the physics, it's just about your experience at any level.

My experience from this forum is it is based a lot on what people have for subjective experiences and less about science or conventional wisdom. We have to take everything with a grain of salt EXCEPT opinions. Anybody can be who ever they want, and they can spread whatever information they want and every voice is supposed to be treated equal. We don't know who we talk to Polls is a good way to investigate "the truth" and the ones who have deeper insights can elaborate on the subject. I'm still waiting for the ones who build mouthpieces. I would really love if they could chime in and share their knowledge, because they probably know. Maybe it is so complex it's hard to explain, but I still hope they could help and explain how this works.

/Tom

[LeTromboniste]

You don't need a poll, the answer is objectively and unequivocally yes.
....

I think a poll is good. What is science is not easy understood. This poll is for the ones who have thought about this and experimented with different sizes of mouthpieces in the same horn, and you can just share that experience. You do not need to be Alessi who plays several hours a day on a large cup and you do not need to know the physics, it's just about your experience at any level.

My experience from this forum is it is based a lot on what people have for subjective experiences and less about science or conventional wisdom. We have to take everything with a grain of salt EXCEPT opinions. Anybody can be who ever they want, and they can spread whatever information they want and every voice is supposed to be treated equal. We don't know who we talk to Polls is a good way to investigate "the truth" and the ones who have deeper insights can elaborate on the subject. I'm still waiting for the ones who build mouthpieces. I would really love if they could chime in and share their knowledge, because they probably know. Maybe it is so complex it's hard to explain, but I still hope they could help and explain how this works.

/Tom

Sorry, I didn't mean to say that I disagree with the usefulness of this thread or having a poll! I think it's a great topic! And yes it's important to discuss it in terms of experiences and experiments we've done and how things feel. The answer of does a bigger cup in isolation change intonation is easy, but then in reality it's never in isolation, so everything is much more complex and too complex for simple scientific answers, so these conversations and sharing experiences are very valuable. I'm sorry if I made it sound like I dismiss that, I really don't, I just used a rhetorical formulation that didn't convey quite the right meaning.

[robcat2075]

I looked at my mouthpieces with an eye to this question and realized I don't have any pair that would reduce it down to just the variable of the cup depth. Deeper cups accompany wider rims.

It might be interesting to get some play-do and fashion a shallower cup in my Schilke 60 to see what happens.

But I'm doubtful my embouchure is so consistent that I would be a meaningful basis for the tiny variation in pitch this is likely to produce.

My experience from this forum is it is based a lot on what people have for subjective experiences and less about science or conventional wisdom.

A lot of the conventional wisdom could stand careful re-examination also, I think.

You don't need a poll, the answer is objectively and unequivocally yes.

I think a poll is good. What is science is not easy understood...

Sorry, I didn't mean to say that I disagree with the usefulness of this thread or having a poll!

And yet... you did!

[imsevimse]

A lot of the conventional wisdom could stand careful re-examination also, I think.

Well, since I've been a brass teacher for 13 years and have been educated in trombone at the Royal Accademy of Music in Stockholm where I studied with the best there was at the time and also have been playing professionally for a while I often make references to what's conventional wisdom, or what was taught there. The information I collected there was all about conventional wisdom and I couldn't have been a brass teacher for 13 years without it, but as I've experienced at this forum what is considered conventional wisdom varies a lot over location and also seems to depend a lot upon where you've studied and with whom you've studied, so yes. We might just consider to question everything all the time and doubt everything and demand scientific explanations and references for anything and of course not even trust the data of the scientific source. Another reason to have more of the polls People who know can elaborate more, but all can participate and put their vote and any vote will be at least "true" if honest.
You are right Robert there are conventional wisdoms that are rubbish too.

/Tom

[Kbiggs]

My experience: for some manufacturers, changing the cup depth or shape without adjusting other parts of the mouthpiece (the “guts,” or throat size and shape, backbore shape, shank length) affects pitch and intonation. For other manufacturers that adjust the guts (e.g., Doug Elliott’s like Matt K said) it doesn’t.

I think that changing cup depth and shape often affects the the timbre, which then affects pitch. If you change the cup depth and nothing else in the mpc changes, you’ll notice a change in timbre and a change in pitch. A shallower cup generally highlights higher frequencies, which might actually raise the pitch, or the pitch might stay the same but “seem” sharp. Similarly with deeper cups: they might lower the pitch, or the pitch might “seem” lower.

I’ve been “fooled” into thinking that the pitch of the horn has changed with a different cup depth/shape.

I need pay closer attention to intonation…

[LeTromboniste]

You don't need a poll, the answer is objectively and unequivocally yes.


Sorry, I didn't mean to say that I disagree with the usefulness of this thread or having a poll!

And yet... you did!

Yes, and like I said that's not what I meant, and therefore apologized for saying it, and also redacted my post. Let's move on.
I have read the other replies here with interest and will continue to, I find people's experiences with mouthpiece and how they affect playing to be fascinating, more even than with instruments.


I have had the chance to work with makers on designing mouthpieces at three different occasions in the last few years, testing them between each pass at removing material, which was extremely interesting and eye-opening on just how much difference in playing and tuning can occur after tiny changes in the mouthpiece geometry. When I have more time after the weekend I will write up my impressions and experience of that process.

[Kdanielsen]

I looked at my mouthpieces with an eye to this question and realized I don't have any pair that would reduce it down to just the variable of the cup depth. Deeper cups accompany wider rims.

It might be interesting to get some play-do and fashion a shallower cup in my Schilke 60 to see what happens.

But I'm doubtful my embouchure is so consistent that I would be a meaningful basis for the tiny variation in pitch this is likely to produce.

My experience from this forum is it is based a lot on what people have for subjective experiences and less about science or conventional wisdom.

A lot of the conventional wisdom could stand careful re-examination also, I think.

You don't need a poll, the answer is objectively and unequivocally yes.


Sorry, I didn't mean to say that I disagree with the usefulness of this thread or having a poll!

And yet... you did!

The Griego Artist (ne Alessi) line is exactly this. Same everything but the cups get deeper as you go from A to F within a series. I have noticed that the depth does change where my tuning slide is with a general trend of deeper = more closed tuning slide. I’m sure other things are at play as well.