Jon Van Wie’s Words On Mouthpiece Work

Another mouthpiece that I sent Jon to work on and that I still have is my Early Babbitt hard rubber Otto Link.  I’ll never forget when Jon called me up one night all excited about that Otto Link and how well it played. He just kept talking on and on about how it was the real deal. He was so excited.  Jon has since passed away and many sax players miss him dearly. I just found this post and wanted to share it with all of you.  I was just sitting here reading it again and found myself getting emotional just from the passion of his words about working with saxophone mouthpieces.  Jon was a true craftsman and I miss him.

The writings below were written by Jon Van Wie:

“I’m forever trying to find the perfect mouthpiece for myself and up till now, I’ve come up empty handed. I can make them all play, but I’ve been doing some experiments that have given results that have changed the way I view everything.

There’s a secret locked inside, and I may have found it. It has to do with the facing curve, baffle and chamber relationship. They together provide the best possible sound in your horn.

I just did two Otto Links for tenor. (Otto Links have a sound that a lot of players call “tubby”. Not modern in any way.) In the past I would add a little baffle right behind the tip rail and the sound would get a zing it didn’t have before (I would leave the chamber alone). The catch was, how the piece would act in the extreme altissimo range. The notes would pinch off at a certain spot and generally speaking, the upper register would always sound a little thin compared the rest of the horn.

To alleviate that problem, I cut the upper baffle lower and added material behind the upper baffle down into the chamber, filling in the whole circle, side rails as well. The pieces finally had the same punch in every register! They both had a very loud and an easy to control voice, with no chirping! I hit on something that is so vital to the function of the saxophone mouthpiece that it’s one of the biggest advances that I’ve ever made!  I just sent the mouthpieces back to their owners. I can’t wait to hear their views on how they play!

I think there’s a place for every piece to be that makes it the best it can be, but I don’t think its possible to find without the player. I think everyone agrees, when something’s right! The question is for whom? Each player has a different oral cavity that makes their sound their own. The resonant cavity that the reed creates with the baffle and facing curve play a big role in your sound.

Finding the perfect baffle, chamber and facing curve for you is something that requires a great deal of research.

Maybe your piece is not what it should be for you. If you think that, you
should tell me what you think and I will give you a hand.

***The epoxy I use to expand the inside of the piece is non-toxic when cured and will NOT fall out with prolonged use.

This experiment started a few months back when the great player Dave Tofani from New York (who plays with everyone) called me after seeing some of my work that one of his students Mike Lawrence had. (I did 5 Florida Otto Links, 2 Slant Otto Links and a Hollywood Dukoff for Mike!) Dave had a vintage Florida Otto Link 8 that he had since it was new and it never played right. He hoped I could do something with it.

Just because it’s a Florida Link means nothing. Just because it has the size stamped on the side doesn’t mean it was handed down by God. The facing was installed poorly and it was even crooked out at the tip.

So, I refaced Dave’s Otto Link 8 tenor sax mouthpiece and sent it back to him. Dave told me that the mouthpiece was greatly improved and now was a Link with “zing”, but what he really wanted was a more modern sound.

The tubby-ness on the bottom of the stack was something he wanted to lose. I told him that I didn’t like to add baffle to Florida period Otto Links because of their value. He told me that he didn’t care, he just wanted the mouthpiece to work. He was still using a mouthpiece that his teacher, Joe Allard, had given him years ago. It had a baffle in it machined from brass.

I installed a big roll over R&B kind of baffle for Dave and sent it back.  After playing the mouthpiece a bit, Dave came to the conclusion that the piece was now too bright in the upper register. He complained that his high altissimo notes were too thin sounding, yet he was pleased that it lost the tubby-ness, so he sent the mouthpiece back for a readjustment. With the mouthpiece he sent a photo of his favorite tenor sax mouthpiece and I could see that the baffle was long and low.

I lowered the baffle and hit on something that Dave could really make sing. This led me to believe that the angle behind the tip rail going into the chamber was playing a crucial role in the altissimo range. The quality of the notes in the altissimo was Dave’s thing. He didn’t want the extremely high notes to sound thin. Mission accomplished!

The next mouthpiece that I wanted to experiment with was a butchered Otto Link tenor mouthpiece. It was owned by my client David Mann (Tower of Power).  The mouthpiece had the chamber expanded with a Dremel, and a primitive looking baffle was added. I popped the baffle out and there were deep grooves in the baffle area that had the lumpy baffle stuck to it. Now I could see that not only did I need to add a new baffle, but I also wanted to fill back in the chamber that had been mutilated.

I could tell by looking at the mouthpiece that it was an Early Babbitt Otto Link and they have extra large chambers to begin with. I thought it would be good to shrink the chamber a bit from where it was to begin with (Like a Florida Link).  I kept Dave Tofani’s baffle profile in mind and I re-constructed the baffle. The mouthpiece in the end didn’t sound vintage unless I used little air, then it sounded warm, but not tubby. Then when I pushed the piece it responded evenly, even in the altissimo range! It was also about twice as loud as an Otto Link. The work I did with Dave Tofani really paid off. It seems his idea about the baffle profile was hitting on a hidden truth inside the Otto Link blank for a modern player.

I sent that piece back to David and he’ll be getting it on Monday. I’ll post his findings. I think I know what he’s going to say already. The next Otto Link I worked on was owned by Dirk Zeylmans. It was also an Early Babbitt Otto Link. Dirk gave me the freedom to do what ever I wanted. He’s going to be very happy with the mouthpiece! It spoke with the same power as the others. I think the old Otto Link mouthpieces were good for the time, but now players need a little more cutting power for a modern music application. Not bright and edgy, but loud and full.

Players ask me all the time, what metal piece do you think I should buy? I honestly don’t know. I think everything is made today in such a rushed fashion that most of them need to be finished. It takes time to do really excellent work. “-Jon Van Wie