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I recently received in a Mercer and Barker 4W tuba mouthpiece the other day that I will be using on my besson sovereign ee flat tuba.I have always used a denis wick 3L mouthpiece on my ee flat.The MB is a pleasant surprise and very different then the wicks I have used in the past.Has anyone else had any experience with the Mercer and Barker line of mouthpiece’s that are manufactured in England?

I have the MB5 for my Besson 994GS, i really like the sound and how it plays. Just the round rim is not too my liking. I am now trying a 3D printed version with a more flatter rim.

The cup shape is very round at the bottom, more then for instance a PT-88 which is often used as an example of a bowl shaped mouthpiece

Maybe @andycat can provide some more info, the MB5 carries his name afterall.

Hi,

Yes, I helped develop the range of Mercer and Barker Tuba mouthpieces. They also have ranges for all brass band instruments, and a very popular range of trombone mouthpieces getting traction in the Orchestral world.

My particular model, the MB5, was designed (selfishly) for my particular use case: BBb bass in a high standard brass band, but for me to be able to do everything else I do on a BBb (Orchestra, 10 piece, big band etc.). It was tested on Neo, Imperial and Sovereign tubas along the way.

Took 2.5 years to get the result I wanted, and obviously a lot of other players like it. It's the companies highest sales volume mouthpiece over the entire range of instruments, for the last 3 years on the trot. Works very well on BBb or CC (apparently!) and there are players , quite literally, all over the world using it. Ukrainian Symphony Orchestra, Spanish, Portugese, Slovakia, Japan, Australia etc. Quite a few in the states.

Possibly of no interest to most on here, but the engineering is done all in England. They are produced at a specialist engineers near me, their main other work is Military spec. Then plated in Sheffield, where, historically, the best platers for almost anything have been in the UK.

Anyway, if you want any info on ANY model, get in touch!

Can you provide some more background on the reasoning of the cup shapes? the MB line is much more bowl shaped than other tuba mouthpieces
I have added an screenshot from the VennCAD software in which I compare the MB5 (red), PT-88 (green) and Helleberg (blue).



The PT-88 is generally considered a bowl shaped mouthpiece and the Hellberg a funnel shape, but in the image you can see the bottoms of the cups are not that much different. the MB5 is way more bowl shaped. Did the tuba world get "stuck" with funnel designs after the succes of the original Hellebergs? for Euphonium mouthpieces there seems to be more difference between bowl and funnel

it clearly works for me (and others), just wondering about the "idea" behind the MB line

Luckily for me, I had an almost blank canvas.

Carl Mercer and George Barker are both friends, and also very local to me (less than 3 miles away...) so I could pass by almost every day if required.

Lots of ideas after 30 years of playing Wicks, Bachs, PT, Finns, KG etc, so I picked what I liked from all the ones I had and then trial and error.... I mainly wanted the comfiest rim (for me) that I could have, as the band playing is quite taxing at times, and very intense compared to other tuba gigs.

Went through about 7 versions before honing down to this, then many smaller adjustments, and some of the other models in the range were 'lucky' by products, ie not what I wanted, but others liked them, so they went into production.

Other players helped with the smaller models (Simon Gresswell, Les Neish etc) and Jim Gourlay has a couple of models, as do quite a few other prominent players.

I'm using an MB3 on my JP377 Eb almost exclusively. I injured my lip back in late September, laid off for a couple of months and had to miss a few concerts, started up again on BBb, and am back to Eb. I feel that the MB3's comfortable rim has helped me get back into playing Eb in brass band again.

Since they’re sort of the standard, does there exist a direct comparison chart, etc. between the Wick/Bach/M&B pieces?

This is a bit more for @andycat…

Andy, have you had any “face time” with the new Yamaha NEO tuba mouthpieces, the 67D4 and 68D4? I’m curious what you thought if you did.

MiBrassFS wrote: ↑Sun Jan 19, 2025 8:08 am Since they’re sort of the standard, does there exist a direct comparison chart, etc. between the Wick/Bach/M&B pieces?

This is a bit more for @andycat…

Andy, have you had any “face time” with the new Yamaha NEO tuba mouthpieces, the 67D4 and 68D4? I’m curious what you thought if you did.

https://mercerandbarker.com/product-specification/ are specs with suggestions

As for the Neo mouthpieces, I haven't, no.

Thanks for that @andycat. Great chart. I missed that.

Those Neo pieces seem to be a mystery!

MiBrassFS wrote: ↑Sun Jan 19, 2025 11:23 am Thanks for that @andycat. Great chart. I missed that.

Those Neo pieces seem to be a mystery!

I've been with Yamaha recently, band are getting 2 Neo EEb's, and neither rep has even mentioned the mouthpieces!

andycat wrote: ↑Mon Jan 20, 2025 4:48 am

MiBrassFS wrote: ↑Sun Jan 19, 2025 11:23 am Thanks for that @andycat. Great chart. I missed that.

Those Neo pieces seem to be a mystery!

I've been with Yamaha recently, band are getting 2 Neo EEb's, and neither rep has even mentioned the mouthpieces!

Hmmm… I’ve heard they’re available in Germany (through Thomann) and in Canada. A mystery!