Advise on New Professional Model Playing Flat

Blancolate

A good friend of mine has been playing a B&S Ellaboration model for a couple of months. He loves the horn, especially for lead playing.

We had not played in a section for a while, but when we did recently we could just not blend. We have played for many years together and always played very well together. We dismissed the whole gig situation and thought it was either the acoustics or that I am getting used to my new horn(V_Rapture).

Well we got together at his home last night to play duets and once again we had the same problem.

We took out a tuner and realized his horn plays flat all the time!! Even, if you push the slide in all the way--Its still flat!

What can be done to correct this intonation problem?

In case you are wondering, he plays jet tone T2B Mouthpiece and when he plays into the tuner with his bach trumpet and jet tone mouthpiece he is in tune.

mafields627 · Posted: Sat Jan 15, 2005 11:00 am Post subject:

After getting other people to check the horn, take a look at the mouthpiece and/or mouthpiece gap. You might need to change the gap between the end of the mouthpiece and beginning of the leadpipe to bring the overall pitch up. Try using some different brand mouthpieces and see if they all go into the receiver the same amount and check the intonation with those.
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--Matt--

No representation is made that the quality of this post is greater than the quality of that of any other poster. Oh, and get a teacher!

Blancolate · Posted: Sat Jan 15, 2005 11:07 am Post subject:

Is there a way to change the gap without having to change mouthpieces?

mafields627 · Posted: Sat Jan 15, 2005 11:39 am Post subject:

Here's a trick you can try to see if the gap needs to be enlarged: http://www.bobreeves.com/faq/papertrick.htm. Unfortunately, the only way to figure out if the gap needs to be reduced is to have the shank turned down so that it goes in farther, or you can have you mouthpieces fit for one of Mr. Reeves adjustable mouthpiece sleeves, which let you custom fit your gap. However, you can reason that if increasing the gap makes it worse, then decreasing it may help improve it.

I took an old mouthpiece and experimented with sanding down the shank and the notes on the horn slotted better than before. I'm currently getting a new leadpipe (MTV-525) installed by Mr. Charlie Melk and I made sure to specify that I played on GR mouthpieces so he could adjust the receiver accordingly when he installed it.
_________________
--Matt--

No representation is made that the quality of this post is greater than the quality of that of any other poster. Oh, and get a teacher!

_Daff · Heavyweight Member Joined: 08 Jul 2003 Posts: 1431

The gap can be decreased without affecting the mouthpiece. The gap, typically averaging roughly 1/8", is the space between the end of your mouthpiece and the end of the leadpipe when the mouthpiece is seated into the reciever.

Opening the reciever, typically by inserting a reamer and twisting it slightly, will allow your mouthpiece to seat further into the receiver, thus reducing the gap, and essentially making your trumpet shorter. This is tricky stuff, and if you over-do it, then turning back means surgery, finding a different mouthpiece, having a mp sleeve made, etc.. If this is deemed necessary, I would most definitely have an experienced brass shop do this work. There are qualified shops all over the country that can get this horn dialed in without the guesswork. A search in the Horns Forum should provide a list of at least a dozen.

Here's what Scott (mulligan stew) offered about the effects in another thread......"The gap affects resistance, slotting, and intonation--with the latter two concepts being very intertwined. Very slippery slotting, which can be a result of a too-small gap, can lead to intonation problems, as the horn is doing less to lock-in the notes and the player must be more reliant on lip to center the pitches."

_londonhusker · Heavyweight Member Joined: 13 Oct 2002 Posts: 658

Hi,

I'll take a slightly different guess at this....

I'll assume that (a) your friend plays really well (as you describe), that (b) the particular B&S Elaboration is a high quality instrument in excellent condition, and left the factory as intended, and that (c) the player has performed consistently well in the past on the mouthpiece in question with his previous instrument.

Then the only two possibilities are as follows:

1. The mouthpiece is not ideally matched to the new instrument, or....

2. The player is not ideally matched to the new instrument.

Since #2 is largely personal choice, I'll discuss #1.

It seems to me that there is something different happening between the combination of mouthpiece and new horn, that wasn't present in the relationship between mouthpiece and previous horn. I'll bet it's either a backbore that's too tight (that will make a typical lead register go flat), or it's a gap issue as discussed earlier.

Even if you prefer a different brand, I would suggest finding a shop with a complete Warburton set, and try out different sized backbores with a reasonably familiar top (using an electronic tuner), and see if the pitch problems disappear or at least improve a lot.

Then go ahead and look at similar setups with the preferred mouthpiece brand, or if you like the Warburtons, stick with that.

Hope this helps!

_londonhusker · Heavyweight Member Joined: 13 Oct 2002 Posts: 658

double post removed

tom turner · Posted: Sat Jan 15, 2005 2:29 pm Post subject:

Hi,

If everyone is flat on the horn, the horn is defective and send it back to the factory to be fixed!

The boo boos that come out of factories would curl people's toes if they knew what sometimes got through undetected. However, any reputable factory with measure all the pieces and determine which one was cut too long . . . and fix the problem.

Sincerely,

Tom Turner