Marmaduke Hard Rubber Alto Mouthpiece

Today, I am reviewing a new alto saxophone mouthpiece that is made by Alex Miyatake in Japan. I have reviewed one of the Marmaduke tenor mouthpieces in the past. These alto mouthpieces are brand new and I am excited to try them out. I am trying two alto mouthpieces today. One has a .072 tip opening (5) and the other has a .078 tip opening (6). They both have a 20mm long facing curve and a medium large chamber. The chamber looks very close to the size of a medium Meyer size chamber.

Marmaduke Hard Rubber Alto Sax Mouthpiece

These Marmaduke alto saxophone mouthpieces look great. The tip and rails are thin and even. The tip matches the shape of my reeds perfectly. I used a Ishimori Woodstone 3 reed on these clips and both mouthpieces played great with that reed. The mouthpieces have a slight rollover baffle. The chamber is about the size of a medium Meyer chamber.

Marmaduke Hard Rubber Alto Sax Mouthpiece

I played the .072 tip mouthpiece first. This was the 5. It had a nice crisp brightness to the sound. Even though the notes were bright and tone was thick and fat in my opinion. It reminded me of that vintage “Meyer” type brightness and power. A nice compact powerful tone.

The 6 (.078 tip opening) had a slightly darker sound to it for me. The two clips below are a good example of how increasing the tip size by just .006 can change the sound. Many times moving to a larger tip can make the sound a bit darker and more open sounding. The tone sounded a bit rounder and sweeter to me than the 5 tip opening. The 5 seemed a bit brighter and more aggressive to my ears.