This is a Warburton A series 12 degree tenor saxophone mouthpiece that I am reviewing. This tenor saxophone mouthpiece has an 7* tip opening which is a .105. It is silver plated and came with a Rovner light ligature. These are made by the great mouthpiece refacer Eric Falcon down in Florida.
I received a few of these last week and have had a lot of fun playing them since then. The “12 degree” in the title refers to the angle of the baffle in the mouthpiece. The 12 degree baffle is a medium height in between the 8 degree and the 16 degree. Usually, a medium size baffle like this means that it will have a good mix of highs and lows in the sound while still being powerful. Before I even played it I was guessing that it would be less bright than the 8 degree model that I reviewed yesterday.
Warburton A Series 12 Degree Tenor Sax Mouthpiece
The Warburton 12 degree mouthpiece looks great. The first thing I noticed when I opened up the package was that it was one of the longest tenor mouthpieces I have seen. It is really long. The table itself extends a good amount past the reed. This is a good thing for those of you who are worried about where the mouthpiece sits on the cork. This mouthpiece pushes about 3/4 to the end of the cork on my sax depending on the model I am playing. This 12 degree mouthpiece was almost to the end of the cork.
Like I said earlier, it looks great. The baffle, rails, chamber and tip are perfect. The sidewalls of the mouthpiece are straight. The beak of the mouthpiece is probably one of the lowest that I have played in all my years. You can really feel the vibrations through the beak of the mouthpiece, even with a patch on it. I really liked that. The baffle of the mouthpiece is lower than the 8 degree model but that is the only difference I can see with my eye.
Here is what the Warburton website has to say about this mouthpiece:
“The 12 degree model is a good choice for the player looking for a mouthpiece to cover as many styles as possible. Players can shape the timbre most easily on this piece from a beautiful subtone to a screamin’ R&B solo if needed.
Highly recommended for players of: Studio work and Jazz players looking for a warm sound with more projection”
When I played the mouthpiece for the first time it had a very focused thick sound to it. I found to be about half way between the brightness of the 8 degree and the 16 degree I tried later. For me, it played like a more powerful focused Otto Link. Sometimes I get links in here that have had baffles put in them and to me this played like a really nice one of those. I would have no problem playing this on an average gig where I would have to cover a bunch of different styles of music.
In my opinion, the whole range of the horn was nice and fat sounding. The high notes didn’t thin out at all and the low notes were nice, thick and sounded great with a nice sub tone. I really liked the tone of this mouthpiece and the great thing is that it had a ton of power when you really blew into. It could handle an R & B gig just fine I think.
Warburton A Series 12 Degree Tenor Sax Mouthpiece
At the end of the clip I go into some more standard jazz phrasing (In a Sentimental Mood) and you can hear how the mouthpiece sounds in that setting. It does very well in that style also. If you want to find out more about these great mouthpieces visit the Warburton Website for more info. Let me know what you think below. Thanks, Steve
Steve I was wondering, do you consider the warburton A series 12 to have a large chamber? Also would you recommend trying a half size larger due to the baffle.
Cornelius,
To be honest, I don’t remember much about the Warburton pieces. You would have to look on my site to see what I thought about them.It looks like a large chamber in the pictures on my site. The largest chambers are a NY Otto Link or the Theo Wanne mouthpieces that I have seen. I think the Warburton have a large chamber like a link type piece……….