Review: Best Brass 7E Groove

[deleted_user_687c31b]

When searching I found surprisingly few reviews of Best Brass mouthpieces. Since you've all been so helpful, I figured I'd do my part and write a little review on the one I own: the 7E Groove.

Disclaimer: all of this is my opinion. Your mileage may vary. I don't know much about mouthpieces/trumpets other than the equipment I play on.

Weight/size:
The mouthpiece is huge. I've noticed I tend to favor heavier mouthpieces but even compared to those, the Groove is big, fat, heavy and long.

Cup/rim:
The cup is rather shallow as expected, but a noticable feature is that the inner cup textured rather than smooth. The rim is fairly wide. With the rim and cup, it feels pretty 'flat' (which makes switching mouthpieces with it during a gig a bit akward).

Shank:
The mouthpiece's shank is slightly wider (or more tapered) than the Bach mouthpieces I have. This means the mouthpiece gap is a bit larger. I don't *think* that's an issue for me personally, but I can imagine it may be (for others at least, if not myself as well) so I figured I'd mention it.

Sound:
I initially picked this mouthpiece for my Olds Recording, but for a more balanced review, I also tried it on my old Getzen. The sound is less to my liking, but the natural sounds of both trumpets are altered in a similar way (i.e. more jazzy).

When I first tried the Groove, I was looking actually for a shallow mouthpiece (for high notes) and I had the luxury to compare it to a few other shallow mouthpieces (Bachs and Yamaha's I think). The Groove stood out in the sense that the sound was more open and broad, but also raw. It sounds well enough in the upper register, but I ended up buying it because of how it sounds in the mid and lower registers. For some reason, it's very easy to make all sorts of jazz sounds with it, be it smokey, velvety or growling. It's never particularly sharp or bright, so don't play classical music or flugelhorn parts with it, but if you want to play jazz, it really responds well to the sound you want to make.

Playing/endurance:
The mouthpiece plays smoothly enough although it can be hard to switch back and forth to it when fatigued. It did help me learn to play more efficiently (due to the shallow cup), which resulted in my range improving on less shallow mouthpieces as well. I found it initially hard to accustom to (but that may also have been my lack of experience playing shallow mountpieces). Compared to the Bach mouthpieces, I find it less fatiguing to play and entire gig.

Bottom line:
It should come to no surprise that I personally like this mouthpiece very much, and as such I'm pretty biased. To me, it is a bit of a niche mouthpiece (I wouldn't use it for classical music, or even salsa/latin) but for jazz/pop/funk, it really helps me to sound like a proper jazz trumpet player.

All in all, it IS a bit...different and the sound it produces as a result is different as well.