Sylvain Rifflet is one of the first Syos artist! I was watching this great show he directed at Jazz sous les Pommiers, a great jazz festival in France and that made me want to tell you the whole story...
Press play, listen and read the story :)
Actually, Sylvain was playing a Syos mouthpiece even before Syos was created...
Indeed, we always tell you that Syos has been created on the 29th of August 2016 (our birthday is close...) but that's the date of Syos incorporation. And we already worked on Syos before that.
So I worked on the first prototypes of Syos mouthpieces during the summer 2015. And at the beginning of 2016, I had the chance to meet Sylvain. We spent all morning trying all the mouthpieces I brought...
Sylvain has a really dark and mellow sound. He is a Stan Getz fan so we worked on a special geometry to emulate this special sound. At that time I was working on a new baffle, the circular baffle, which was perfect for a nice dark sound.
Even if he liked really dark sound, he still needed some projection, which is often difficult to get with really dark mouthpieces. So that's when I invented the Syos "ridges".
Usually, a mouthpiece that has a lot of power will have a high step baffle. But those step baffles will make the sound bright. So instead of doing that, we can use a baffle that keeps the sound dark and add these ridges. The sound will remain dark but it will be more powerful.
So I used these ridges on Sylvain's mouthpiece and he really liked it! He hasn't stopped playing his mouthpiece since 😊 The only thing that changed over time is the color of his mouthpiece, a different color for a different project, but the geometry remained the same.
A blue mouthpiece for his album Refocus in 2017 (Photo by Sylvain Gripoix).
A brown mouthpiece for his album Troubadours in 2019 (Photo by Sylvain Gripoix).
And a grey mouthpiece for his album Aux Anges in 2022 (Photo by Sylvain Gripoix).
Sylvain Rifflet is a really great artist so I encourage to go listen to him if you haven't done already!
And if you are interested by his mouthpiece, you can find it here.
