I am pleased to announce that my new catalogue of mouthpieces is now available. This has been years in the making and encompasses a full range of models, from close to open facings to accommodate most players.

As most know by now, I relocated to the United States after many years living in the UK, and am now based in Ann Arbor. Fate, you might say brought me back, as I suffered a serious health setback while visiting in early 2019. This resulted in a long-term disability, which fortunately has not affected my mouthpiece work. Sadly, I no longer travel and operate almost exclusively by mail, though I do see customers in person in Ann Arbor.

During my first years back in the USA, my relationship with JJ Babbitt, who had supplied my mouthpieces for years, came to an end. Jim Green, the manager at Babbitt, retired, and I felt it was time to move on. I decided to try my luck with CNC manufacturing and began the search for a company that could make designs to my specifications.

CNC is by no means perfect, nor is it the end game for manufacturing in my opinion. Skilled hands are still needed for the highest levels of refinement and finishing. What CNC can do is allow the maker to control elements of mouthpiece design that were only dreamed of a few years ago – one simply needs the knowledge and ability to wield it.

I eventually found a maker that could produce CNC made mouthpieces to my standards, and we began work using CT scans I had taken of very fine H. Chedeville mouthpiece as our starting point. I chose to begin with close-facing models, as these are the benchmark of traditional American playing and will always occupy a place in my catalogue.

CNC manufacturing is not an automatic process in which a CT scan is simply read and cut out, like something from Star Trek. A map must be created from CAD data that can be interpreted and cut by the CNC machine. No mouthpiece is perfectly symmetrical, particularly when examining the smallest dimensions, so we had to analyse the bore, chamber, baffle and body in the tiniest detail, drawing on my expertise to create sound, well-balanced designs.

We cut many dozens of prototypes, using a number of my trusted professional clients to evaluate, and eventually settled on several designs. Time passed, and I finally settled on a model this year that is flexible enough to accommodate medium and open facings. I am also pleased with the ebonite we are using – very high-grade solid bars made in Germany.

Some have commented on the fact that I do not have an online store. This is entirely intentional. For years, I travelled internationally, working in person with many of the world’s leading professionals. In the USA alone over the past 20 years I have worked with players from virtually every major orchestra, either with refacing or my own models. This one-to-one experience with players of widely differing styles and tonal ideals has greatly honed my refacing skills and my ability to tailor a mouthpiece to each individual. In my business today, I like to remain personally involved with each customer when selecting mouthpieces for trial. Learning about each player’s setup and goals helps me choose the most appropriate pieces from my catalogue to send. In some cases, it also leads to the creation of custom designs, which are available on request.

Prices are $450 plus shipping. Stay tuned for my new bass clarinet models, coming very soon.