At the beginning of 2023 I asked Patrick Bartley if he wanted to try the Syos mouthpieces and he said yes :)
In order to make a great mouthpiece for him I asked him what was the mouthpiece he was currently playing and if there was something he would like to improve on it.
He said he has been playing on a Meyer 6M for 14 years, that he really liked it but it was a little stuffy sometimes, especially in the upper register.
So I decided to make two mouthpieces, with a different baffle that will go in that direction. On the first one, the red one, I used a circular baffle. Our circular baffles on alto, are really edgy, so I lowered it down a little to keep the ease and projection in a way it won't be too wild and bright. On the second one, the blue, I used a curved baffle. The regular curved baffle is a little smoother so I raised it a little bit and I added some ridges inside to add some projection without adding brightness. Both mouthpieces have medium chambers, because the Meyer has a centered sound so I wanted to keep that.
He tried them, and after a month he said:
"After playing these mouthpieces for over a month now, these have completely shocked me. I've been able to do some things on these that I've never been able to do before, and it's really refreshing to have a new perspective. Even with the struggles I've been having with trying to get used to something new after many years, these are definitely the best mouthpieces I've ever played. I'm extremely impressed."
And here are the musical results:
With the red mouthpiece
And with the blue one:
Pretty good right? I'm glad I got it almost perfect as a first shot!
I met Patrick in Japan and, after several months playing on the red mouthpiece, he now wants to remove some punch from it. So i will make a new version and I hope we will soon be able to release his signature model!
See you on the next episode!
