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Thread: Tuba Mouthpiece Size Chart

  1. #1

    Tuba Mouthpiece Size Chart

    There is a pretty good tuba mouthpiece list on this site. It's not 100% complete, but I'll try to catch it up when I have a chance:

    http://www.dwerden.com/Mouthpieces/tuba.cfm
    Dave Werden (ASCAP)
    Euphonium Soloist, U.S. Coast Guard Band, retired
    Adams Artist (Adams E3)
    Alliance Mouthpiece (DC3)
    YouTube: dwerden
    Facebook: davewerden
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  2. #2
    Join Date
    Dec 2011
    Location
    Central North Carolina
    Posts
    2,369
    This is a GREAT resource, and I know what a pain it must be to aggregate and maintain these data. Take this from someone who has spent an unhealthy amount of time and money in trying/buying/selling tuba mouthpieces for several instruments over a period of years.

    The feature of showing mouthpieces similar to one in terms of rim diameter can be extremely helpful. I can imagine a way (and interface) of expanding that to a richer notion of similarity (to include, for example, selecting cup depth, throat, and backbore under control of the user), but you may not want to go in that direction. And given the number of mouthpieces, I'm not sure that it gains enough to be worth the effort.

    Some examples ...

    If I select the DW 5 mouthpiece, for example, I quickly see that the Bach 30E shows up as similar. It's in cases like this that additional information would be useful (but again a pain to gather and add to your data). The DW 5 is very deep, and the Bach 30E is medium shallow. You can't see this difference in the current chart since depth information for the DW 5 is missing.

    And the DW 5 has the "old European small shank" while my recollection is that the 30e has a "standard" shank. Still, the chart as it is provides me the utility to see quickly that I might want to reconsider the 30E as an alternative for the DW 5 for my 1924 Buescher horn (and then possibly have the shank turned down if the 30E works well).

    There are more subtle issues of similarity/dissimilarity as well that require a little more exploration. For example, if you just look at the chart data, the DW 2, 2L, 2SL, and 2XL are identical -- since of course they all have the same rim diameter. The 2 and the 2L differ only in shank size, but the 2SL is different in having a shallow cup and the 2XL is different in having a significantly different rim width and contour -- which makes it QUITE different in terms of playability. (There is a minor error in the chart since it lists the rim widths of both the 2L and 2XL as 7.73 mm while the rim width of the 2XL is in fact 8.60 mm.)

    Still, the chart in general allows you to explore these more subtle similarities and differences since with few exceptions it contains links to the manufacturer's web page where more details are (often) available.

    Some added utility could be had by including additional information in the "comments" field, but this is a huge effort for one person (Dave) to make. Perhaps others could submit such information via the "contact form" and Dave could just plop it into the chart -- which in itself would be significant added effort for him.

    Again, a great resource and very useful.
    Gary Merrill
    Wessex EEb Bass tuba (DW 3XL or 2XL)
    Mack Brass Compensating Euph (DE N106, Euph J, J9 euph)
    Amati Oval Euph (DE 104, Euph J, J6 euph)
    1924 Buescher 3-valve Eb tuba (with std US receiver), Kelly 25
    Schiller American Heritage 7B clone bass trombone (DE LB K/K10/112/14 Lexan, Brass Ark MV50R)
    1947 Olds "Standard" trombone (Olds #3)

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