Wild Thing & mutes

[Ian Wood]

What's the story w/ the WT and mutes? I've heard 2 things: that standard mutes a) don't work at all with it or b) they work but need to be re-corked.

Any WT players with some experience to offer?

[tom turner]

Hi,

The bell flare of the WT makes the throat diameter of the inner bell, where it contacts the mute corks, a little larger.

This means that some mutes will bottom out in the bell and need to be recorked.

It is a simple matter to swing by an auto supply store and get a $4 sheet of thin gasket cork and then cut and glue on a thin section on top of each existing cork.

I consider it a very minor thing to do in order to get that awesome WT sound!

Sincerely,

Tom Turner

PS: Flip will personally shim your mutes for you to fit your new WT trumpet and/or cornets. There are also mutes being sold today that pose no problem at all with the WT bell.

Hope this helps.

[bachstrad72]

Tom Crown mutes come with a great deal of excess cork that would probably be too much even for a WT
_________________
~Perry Sutton~

[bgwbold]

If you might want to make up two sets of mutes and cork them differently, I have several sets of harmons, stonelined cups and straights that were out of the collection (garage) of a friend. They were all mutes that came out of horns he bought over the years. All are in decent working condition with good corks and such, but are not lookers because parts of them may have been reglued and painted, harmons may be dented, etc. They are corked for regular bells, not WT. You would need to do the recorking for WT yourself.

I am not looking to make a killing off of these, so I would sell them on average for 7 dollars each plus another seven dollars for shipping the group. It doesn't hardly make sense to sell them one at a time because of the shipping.

Mike

[WaxHaX0rS]

bgwbold, I might wanna buy a couple of those off of you. Are all of them dented? To tell you the truth, I'm a high school student I only have one mute, it's a 3-in-one mute where it's a straight mute, then you pop on a cap and it's a cup mute. Then I think it can be a plunger or something. Anyway, it's crap because the cup always falls off, so I wanted to buy a separate cup mute. Also, I could use a harmon mute, I don't need them often, but the very few times I do, I just don't play those parts... so I would really like to have one. So, could you sell me a harmon and a cup perhaps? (I have a Bach 180-37S if that makes a difference in maybe which mutes would work best).

[bgwbold]

No. Some of the harmons are pretty good, but not all of them. It is first come, first served and I will be able to tell you the condition of everything before I send it out. If you will email me through the link below, I will get it. Sorry to post this here on horns, but WT owners who have another non WT horn sometimes like to have two sets of mutes.

Mike

[WaxHaX0rS]

No to which question? No they aren't dented, or no you won't sell just 2 of them?

[DizzyChrizzy01]

I bought my mutes directly from Flip Oakes. They all came re-corked to fit the WT.

While I was happy with my Olds Recording and a copper “Harmon brand” harmon for years, I started experimenting with mutes and made the observations:

a) There are horns, that can be regarded as “mute horns”, others not. My Calicchio Studio 2 is not the perfect “mute horn”, the Wild Thing definitely is.

b) There’s not a “best harmon mute”. It is at least a question of personal taste or even more a question of choosing the right tool for the job.

c) You should record yourself before with different mutes and listen to it afterwards. Especially if you are working in studio situations or have mic in front of you on live gigs (or clip mic). I could not believe, how I misjudged my sound.

These are my current mutes with the WT and a brief statement about them:

1) “Best Brass”, aluminium: Excellent sound, sizzling, best of all harmons I ever played concerning intonation

2) “Jo-Ral”, copper: Excellent sound, bright, lots of high frequencies, cutting through with ease, but very very heavy

3) “Walt Johnson”, fiber: sound like Miles’ sound, a bit stuffy, not very flexible - best when played very softly, should be miked very closely

4) “Bobby Shew Soloist”, copper: must be very closely miked, not my recommendation for the WT

The Best Brass and the Jo-Ral are my recommendations, you can cover a wide range of sound with these two.

I play the Wild Thing with #J3 tuning slide, usually with a GR 65 S or GR e65 MS mouthpiece. When playing with a harmon - and when I have the chance to change the mouthpiece -, I prefer the deeper cup of the GR e65 M.

Chris

[bgwbold]

you wrote...
No to which question? No they aren't dented, or no you won't sell just 2 of them?

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Thanks for emailing me off line. We made arrangements for two.

Mike