Bass trombone mouthpiece

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Robson
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Bass trombone mouthpiece

Post by Robson »

I'm just curious...

Can you tell me why the bass trombone mouthpiece usually has a very thin rim, and the tuba (including mouthpieces for bass tuba) usually have a much wider rim?

Is there a necessity of thin rims for bass trombones?


Robson
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Re: Bass trombone mouthpiece

Post by Robson »

Just to make my question clearer

Trumpet and horns use mouthpieces of the same diameter (or similar diameter)

Trumpet's rim is much wider. It helps a lot with the upper register

Horn's rim is much thinner. It helps a lot with flexibility, considering that the horn has a much larger range than the trumpet

BUT bass trombone and bass tuba cover almost the same range... Why does the bass trombone use a thinner mouthpiece rim?
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bloke
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Re: Bass trombone mouthpiece

Post by bloke »

Robson wrote: Tue May 20, 2025 1:15 pm Just to make my question clearer

Trumpet and horns use mouthpieces of the same diameter (or similar diameter)

Trumpet's rim is much wider. It helps a lot with the upper register

Horn's rim is much thinner. It helps a lot with flexibility, considering that the horn has a much larger range than the trumpet

BUT bass trombone and bass tuba cover almost the same range... Why does the bass trombone use a thinner mouthpiece rim?
because most tuba mouthpiece rims are too wide.
donn
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Re: Bass trombone mouthpiece

Post by donn »

I might be only guessing, or maybe I read someone else just guessing, but it may be simply because they don't go out and get wider diameter brass stock just to cut their widest bass trombone mouthpiece. So its rim can be only so wide. Or that might be just Bach.
Kevbach33
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Re: Bass trombone mouthpiece

Post by Kevbach33 »

It's the trumpet/horn correlation/comparison you just mentioned, but in the other direction. The ranges aren't really that comparable.

The bass trombone has to be flexible enough to cover from below the bass staff (sometimes a lot, pedal tones galore) to well above the staff (I've seen 4-ledger-line high C) at any point in time, all the time, even if the instrument is at its best in the staff. On the mouthpiece end, a narrow rim better helps with that flexibility, not that it has to be Bach 1G or Schilke 60 thin.

To put it a different way, and using an instrument of the same length, try comparing a euphonium mouthpiece with a bass bone piece. Although they may be similar in depth (to a point; bass bone cups get much deeper), often times the euphonium piece will have a wider rim because it spends a lot of time in and above the staff. Few writers explore the low range of the instrument for reasons unknown to me.

Hope this helps.
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Re: Bass trombone mouthpiece

Post by Robson »

bloke wrote: Tue May 20, 2025 1:29 pm
Robson wrote: Tue May 20, 2025 1:15 pm Just to make my question clearer

Trumpet and horns use mouthpieces of the same diameter (or similar diameter)

Trumpet's rim is much wider. It helps a lot with the upper register

Horn's rim is much thinner. It helps a lot with flexibility, considering that the horn has a much larger range than the trumpet

BUT bass trombone and bass tuba cover almost the same range... Why does the bass trombone use a thinner mouthpiece rim?
because most tuba mouthpiece rims are too wide.
:laugh:
Robson
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Re: Bass trombone mouthpiece

Post by Robson »

donn wrote: Tue May 20, 2025 1:33 pm I might be only guessing, or maybe I read someone else just guessing, but it may be simply because they don't go out and get wider diameter brass stock just to cut their widest bass trombone mouthpiece. So its rim can be only so wide. Or that might be just Bach.
One mouthpiece maker once told me that other makers usually use the same tenor trombone mouthpiece blank to save money... Ok! It makes sense, but it's strange that some mouthpiece makers offer bass trombone with a much wide rim, and they are not popular
It looks that bass trombone players really prefer thin rims
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Re: Bass trombone mouthpiece

Post by Robson »

Kevbach33 wrote: Tue May 20, 2025 3:07 pm It's the trumpet/horn correlation/comparison you just mentioned, but in the other direction. The ranges aren't really that comparable.

The bass trombone has to be flexible enough to cover from below the bass staff (sometimes a lot, pedal tones galore) to well above the staff (I've seen 4-ledger-line high C) at any point in time, all the time, even if the instrument is at its best in the staff. On the mouthpiece end, a narrow rim better helps with that flexibility, not that it has to be Bach 1G or Schilke 60 thin.

To put it a different way, and using an instrument of the same length, try comparing a euphonium mouthpiece with a bass bone piece. Although they may be similar in depth (to a point; bass bone cups get much deeper), often times the euphonium piece will have a wider rim because it spends a lot of time in and above the staff. Few writers explore the low range of the instrument for reasons unknown to me.

Hope this helps.
I think you got it right!!!
It makes sense to me
Thanks a lot!
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Re: Bass trombone mouthpiece

Post by bloke »

I offer typical wide rims that are common widths and contours that screw onto my cups, but a very large percentage of players who stumble across my thin tuba mouthpiece rims (such as profile #2 - that some friend of theirs might be using) end up calling me and ordering a #2 profile thin rim (after originally ordering a rim similar to the one they had been previously using featured on another mouthpiece).

Wider rims - and particularly wider rims with severe angled inner turns - do little more than locking the mouthpiece onto the face, and as much as tuba players' jaws open and close from the low range to the high, that's the last thing that we really need (ok: "in my opinion") is to have the mouthpiece stuck on one spot on our face via its own huge footprint and cookie cutter interior edge.
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Re: Bass trombone mouthpiece

Post by Robson »

bloke wrote: Wed May 21, 2025 2:12 pm I offer typical wide rims that are common widths and contours that screw onto my cups, but a very large percentage of players who stumble across my thin tuba mouthpiece rims (such as profile #2 - that some friend of theirs might be using) end up calling me and ordering a #2 profile thin rim (after originally ordering a rim similar to the one they had been previously using featured on another mouthpiece).

Wider rims - and particularly wider rims with severe angled inner turns - do little more than locking the mouthpiece onto the face, and as much as tuba players' jaws open and close from the low range to the high, that's the last thing that we really need (ok: "in my opinion") is to have the mouthpiece stuck on one spot on our face via its own huge footprint and cookie cutter interior edge.
Can you tell me the width of your wide rims and thin rims? Just to have an idea... :thumbsup:
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Re: Bass trombone mouthpiece

Post by grammit »

Anything is welcome to lighten up the horn :laugh:
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Re: Bass trombone mouthpiece

Post by bloke »

Without posting numbers that are meaningless, the most popular ones are at least a couple of millimeters narrower than the widest ones that I offer.
In my view, the flattest rims are the ones that really pin people's faces down and tend to restrict range flexibility without a complete reset, because - even if they're not the widest ones - they pin down more surface area on a person's face.
One-piece tuba mouthpieces are made out of 2 inch stock, and I suspect not too many people (and I suspect that most people would consider this following opening size epic) can really make a good seal with a 36 mm wide opening, so most tuba mouthpiece openings range from 31 to 33 mm, and the temptation is to use most of the remaining width of the raw material on a rim.
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Kevbach33
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Re: Bass trombone mouthpiece

Post by Kevbach33 »

Some of the blank/stock conversation here makes me curious about the stock size Wick uses for their size 4 and 5 pieces... And how big is trombone mouthpiece stock? (For reference purposes)

Although a small diameter (in between the "normal" tuba and bass trombone mouthpiece sizes), the rims (to me) are proportionate to those sizes, neither wide (as if on a bass trombone mouthpiece) nor narrow (as it would be on a larger tuba mouthpiece size). They (well, at least the 4) just have a deeper cup to compensate for the lack of diameter to work as tuba mouthpieces. If Wick made shallow cups (4S and 5S, say) in these sizes (and not touch the rims), they'd work well as cimbasso and contrabass trombone mouthpieces.
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bloke
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Re: Bass trombone mouthpiece

Post by bloke »

I suspect cup depth affects bass versus treble (avoiding more technical/scientific terms), and the width of the cup - allowing for more or less signal to be emitted - more affects the richness and the depth of the more treble or the more bass, but particularly the bass.

Physically smaller (good) bass amplifiers work well as bass amplifiers, but huge (good) ones often work better.

I admit to using a millimeter narrower top-of-cup width with my shallowest-cup personally-used mouthpieces. ...I'm not looking to get a lot of "deep bass" (again, not a technical term) type resonance out of those particular mouthpieces.

A lot of players insist on using the same rim for otherwise quite different mouthpieces for their different instruments. I'm not sure that's either necessary nor wise.
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Re: Bass trombone mouthpiece

Post by djwpe »

I had a conversation with Greg Black at a conference when I asked him if he could make one of his bass trombone mouthpieces with a wider rim. He said “I can now”and explained that previously, the chuck on his lathe couldn’t take stock big enough for a wider rim.

I liked the piece, but hated the thin rim. I liked it better with the wider rim. Felt more like a euphonium mouthpiece.
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Re: Bass trombone mouthpiece

Post by marccromme »

djwpe wrote: Sun May 25, 2025 5:02 pm I liked the piece, but hated the thin rim. I liked it better with the wider rim. Felt more like a euphonium mouthpiece.
Thats interesting. I have the opposite experience.

The best mouthpiece for my Yamaha euoh I did find, is none of the socalled typical euph pieces, but a stock Yamaha 58 and 59 bass bone piece. Great flexibility, good alignment of partials, good intonation, warm, but with core, easy high range and impressive pedals. Whats not to like?

I tried a lot of specific euph mouthpieces, DW 51 D, SM 4 and 5, and a lot if others, most often flexibility suffered, and there is a tendency for the high range to intonate too flat. So they do now live in the shadows of the drawer.

Maybe it depends on what we are used to?

My main instruments are bass bone using a Greg Black 1 1/4 and Eb tuba using a DW AT 3. Picking up an euph with a small bass bone piece is easy. I blow, it sings.
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bloke
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Re: Bass trombone mouthpiece

Post by bloke »

> I suspect people feel how angular the interior edge of a rim is MUCH MORE THAN they feel how wide a rim is.

> I suspect that were more people to try narrower (tuba) rims with not-so-"sharp" interior rim edges, they might (after a few days of A/B/C-ing with other rims) choose the narrower/not-particularly-sharply-angled-interior-rim-edged rim over other choices.

> I've been wrong before.

> I've witnessed people who play like angels on mouthpieces/rims (and tubas) which I personally would judge as ridiculous.
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Re: Bass trombone mouthpiece

Post by catgrowlB »

I did a lot of bass bone playing (big band) up until December of last year. The mpc that originally came with my bass bone has a very thin rim, which I could not really get used to. I was still occasionally scooping/bending pitches -- it felt too slippery and hard to lock into pitch sometimes. I later bought got a couple mouthpieces that I like much better, including the good standard Bach 1.5g. My playing and sound was much better, and better suited to big band.

Same thing on tuba. I tend to prefer mpcs that have a standard semi round or round rim. And I'm one of the few who would prefer the large round 'cushion rim' of the 24aw over the sharp, flat rims of some Helleburg mpcs. That's why I sold several of my mouthpieces to a local player.

Medium rims with medium roundness :smilie8:
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