This is a new Warburton alto saxophone mouthpiece. These are made by Eric Falcon who is a top notch mouthpiece refacer. This mouthpiece has an .080 tip opening. I consider it to have a brighter sound but still fat sounding. It’s a bit fatter sounding than the PT Meyer that I put up yesterday. There is tons of volume that I could get out of this mouthpiece. The altissimo was easy to get also. In this clip I am just playing around with a simple Bb blues and using a bunch of lines from my “Mastering the Dominant Bebop Scale ” book.
Warburton Alto Saxophone Mouthpiece
- Appearance:
The tip and rails of this mouthpiece are great. The arc of the tip is a little different than my Java reeds but it is very close. It makes no difference in playablity that I can notice. The chamber is nice, smooth and looks to be very symmetrical and balanced. The outside of the mouthpiece is beautiful and the gold band around the shank is a nice touch.
- Tone:
Beautiful brighter tone. Very even up and down the horn . Easy to sub-tone down low. The notes have a nice focus to them but still have a nice round sound to them. The high notes had a tendency to get overly bright but once I got use to the piece it was easy to control. I could morph into a Sanborn type sound pretty easily up high if I wanted to.
- Intonation:
Intonation was very good on this piece and I had no problems playing it..
- Control:
Easy mouthpiece to control from the bottom to the top of the horn. At first I felt like the high end was getting away from me but once I fattened up my lower lip and took a little more mouthpiece the high notes were great. Easy piece to bend notes with.
- Volume:
This mouthpiece had some great volume to it when I really blew. It got a tad brighter but never lost it’s fat sound. Down low it was very focused and I tended to want to sub-tone more down there to fatten it up a bit. It was easy to play from ppp-FFF.
Great Job Eric!
I’m really glad you post this clip! After hearing Eric’s work on the HR tenor piece I went nuts wondering how the alto piece played as well as the soprano.
Just to let you know, I do appreciate the time to create full on reviews. The past reviews were great (what’s better than hearing it in action!) but with this add on it is fantastic! I’m appreciate of the efforts you’re making, great job and great sounding as always
Hey Steve I was wondering how does the mouthpiece, stack up to your Aizen? as I might have enough money to purchase one of the Warburton mouthpieces.
The Warburton is bit more modern sounding to my ears. The Aizen has a more bebop sound to it. It’s hard to explain but when I play the Aizen I usually morph into wanting to play bebop. the Warburton is a little brighter and cleaner sounding to me and can be used for more modern things.
Your review of the warburton alto mouthpiece sounds great! I’d like to try that warburton. Is the Warburton in your review a J series mouthpiece? Just for the record, your review of the ken okutsu traditional made me order one! Thanks & keep em coming! I hope I don’t develope a collection like you.
Hi Cornelius,
That’s great to hear that you ordered a Okutsu mouthpiece. I hope you love it! I honestly can’t remember if the Warburton was a J series or something else. I don’t think it was labeled as such or I would have stated that. Maybe you can contact them and ask. I know it was pretty early in there development so maybe it was a model that became the J? Steve