horncups.com

Looking for a bit of advice!

I've been playing on a 4B for many years, but having read so much about the benefits of the PHC mouthpieces I'm keen to get stuck in!

After doing a lot of reading on here, it seems that the closest thing to a 4B is an AS rim on a 23A cup.

However, I've read a lot about the double bowl of the 22A so I'm considering a 22AZ and using it with my "4" rim to see how I get on for a few months.

Does this sound sensible? I'm not sure there's much sense spending money on something too similar to my 4B, because I've already got a 4B!

I do a mixture of playing (high, low, symph orch, chamber orch, chamber) and play an Alex 103 / Paxman 40, so possibly down the line something smaller for the high stuff/descant (21/21A?) and bigger (24(A)/25(A)) for the 2nd/4th stuff on the Alex.

So, some questions!

1) does this seem like a sensible plan of attack?

2) will changing from a "4" rim to an AS / AS-18 make much of a difference? Is it worth it?

3) what's the difference between the different rim materials? I've used a gold rim for ages, but the newer silver plated ones won't cause allergic reactions unlike the old Nickel ones, so is there a real need for gold? I know the plastic ones feel "warmer", what about the acetal ones?

4) I hear all about these "heavy" cups what benefits do they provide?

5) What's the difference between the "old" PHC range and the "new" PHC range?

6) Bore/resistance - playing around with this worries me! Presumably a larger bore opens out the sound but increases the chance of it sounding more "trombone" like?? The non A cups are the larger bores aren't they?

Please forgive all the questions but I intend only to buy "Z" cups, so experimenting will quickly become very expensive (as well as slow if I spend months getting used to each mouthpiece!)

Yes.

As an 'umble (and self-taught) 'ammerchewer, my advice maybe should be taken with caution, however, just a couple of thoughts:

I started on a 4C and made the change to AS with 23A a few years ago. My playing at the time probably wasn't developed enough to be sure, but it did seem to help me, and I am very happy with this combination now.
I picked up some other cups, 21A, 22A, 24A (for not too much on ebay), and did try switching for high/low playing, but after a while I concluded that it it really didn't help, and the tone quality was never as good as just sticking with the 23A. I guess it may be a better player would have the skill and strength of embouchure to manage the different cups and get benefit from them, but it didn't help for me.

I have both gold and acetal AS rims, and now always use the acetal one. I much prefer the warm feel, and it seems to help endurance (my theory is that a metal mouthpiece is always going to drop below body temperature if you take it off the lips for any length of time, and sticking cold metal back on warmed-up muscles doesn't seem like a good idea).

Finally, I notice you play a 103. I have been using a standard 23A with my 103, and a couple of weeks ago I took the plunge and got one of the new E taper 23a Z cups. It was not in hope of anything dramatic, but I had decided I had enough rims and cups I would never actually use that I could probably recycle them through eBay again and raise enough cash for the new one. After a couple of weeks with it, the difference actually is quite astonishing! The horn feels totally different - notes speak distinctly easier, but most of all the harmonics are suddenly in tune from top to bottom. I now realise how much effort I was putting in to force notes into tune, both at the top and the bottom of the range, where now it is just there without effort. My tone quality is noticeably better, I guess because my lip is more relaxed and not forcing notes away from the centre. Endurance is also noticeably better, I guess for the same reason. Particularly at the top, the harmonics have distinct slots, where it was all slightly vague before.

I suspect this is mainly due to the tapers matching properly - not sure how much the Z part is involved. If you go for this I would strongly suggest getting the E taper for your Alex, though I guess now you need another one in standard taper for the paxman - sorry!

Hope this helps!
Sandy
(And in case you want to experiment with the various cup sizes, look out for my "collection" appearing on eBay - the credit card bill for the new one will be due soon!)

Thanks for the responses!

What makes you think that it's the taper rather than the "Z"-ness that makes the difference?

I too changed from a Paxman 4 to an AS rim - the AS is much flatter in profile and therefore perhaps, seems to feel wider.

I suppose it comes from the physics degree I vaguely remember doing a looong time ago. I can easily see how a very small variation in the shape around the end of the mouthpiece, and in the distance from the narrowest point of the mouthpiece bore to the start of the leadpipe, could make a significant difference to the behaviour of the air column, and so to the stability and the exact pitch of different harmonics. The more I think about it, the less surprising it gets that this factor should be important. I have a harder time seeing how a subtle difference in the molecular structure of the mouthpiece metal would make such a significant difference, given the same shape and mass. I'm not saying it couldn't, but it seems less obvious, and my gut feel is any such effect would be much less significant than a change in the shape of the air column.

Of course if PHC were to lend me a full set of 23A cups in all possible combinations of standard/E taper, z/non-z, heavy/normal weight, silver/gold plate/stainless then I would be happy to spend a year or so exhaustively testing to determine which factors make which differences (an entirely selfless undertaking, for the greater good of course!) ..... No? oh well, I guess there are many others better qualified for that job anyway

Best thing IMO that you can do, is try and get a couple of cups (and perhaps rims) on approval, and try them out for yourself.

Two comments:

Stick with your current Paxman rim unless you have a reason to change rim (reasons might include muscle fatigue and note production issues). The Paxman rims fit PHC cups as well. Changing rim requires rebuilding the embrochure, changing cup only is less dramatic but can still achieve the desired improvements in tone and response.

Mouthpiece-leadpipe taper fit has a huge effect on airflow, intonation and tone. This is best understood by considering the effects of a mis-fitting taper. If the mouthpiece sits too low, there is a sudden step in bore at the end which can cause turbulence => harsh tone, split notes. If it sits too high, there is an increase and then decrease in bore before the start of the leadpipe taper proper. While some horn makers (eg Lawson) make horns with double venturi to smooth out the overall response of the horn, these need to be very carefully designed and optmised for the bell taper. Randomly created chambers due to mouthpiece misfit could cause stalled airflow and/or shifts in the resonant frequencies of the partials of the horn => note production and intonation issues.

You're one physics degree ahead of most of us I suspect Sandy, (me for sure). Do you have a view on why an increased part of the bore at the end of the mouthpiece is significant, but the increases at tuning slide ends (up to nine of them) seem less important? My experience (without any theory behind it) does suggest that how far the mouthpiece sits in the receiver make a real difference to how the horn plays. I have also heard of a reputable maker 'fixing' a duff note by modifying the end of a tuning slide so the bore decreased there instead of increasing by placing an insert in the slide tube that covered the gap.

Tom

My engineering degree and first job included aerodynamics, which has the same fundamental equations as acoustics. ISTR that it was from Benade's book* that I learnt that sudden changes in the rate of expansion of the tube cause undesirable reflections of the pressure waves. I don't remember him discussing steps in cross sectional area, but my intuition tells me that they are worse than slope changes if they are not immediately reversed (mouthpiece end), but not so bad if they are (tuning slide ends), because in the second case a reflection of opposite sign follows closely behind the first one.

* A. H. Benade, Fundamentals of musical acoustics, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1976).

I heard the same story of a player. It might have been Dennis Brain, but then again I expect a lot of stories got transferred to him.