{"id":101398,"date":"2020-11-12T11:37:41","date_gmt":"2020-11-12T16:37:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.neffmusic.com\/blog\/?p=101398"},"modified":"2022-11-15T15:05:33","modified_gmt":"2022-11-15T20:05:33","slug":"phil-tone-orion-alto-saxophone-mouthpiece-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.neffmusic.com\/blog\/2020\/11\/phil-tone-orion-alto-saxophone-mouthpiece-review\/","title":{"rendered":"Phil-Tone Orion Alto Saxophone Mouthpiece Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today I am reviewing another great alto saxophone mouthpiece made by Phil Engleman at Phil-Tone mouthpieces<\/a>. \u00a0I have reviewed quite a few Phil-Tone sax mouthpieces on the site<\/a> already and am always interested when Phil announces a new Phil-Tone saxophone mouthpiece model.<\/p>\n

A couple of months ago he announced that he had a new mouthpiece model called the Orion model that was based off of the old Brilhart Tonalin alto saxophone mouthpieces. I don’t think I have ever played a Brilhart saxophone mouthpiece on the alto sax so I was not sure what to expect from the new Phil-tone Orion model of alto sax mouthpiece.<\/p>\n

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Phil-Tone Orion .076 Alto Saxophone Mouthpiece<\/strong><\/p>\n

Here’s a quote from Phil about the new Orion alto sax mouthpiece from his website:<\/p>\n

The Orion alto sax mouthpiece is a professional piece at an intermediate price. It achieves what no other mouthpiece can. Handmade precision and play tested adjustments for a price point of machine made pieces. The Orion is based on the old Brilly pieces\u2026think Charlie Parker. It has the same chamber but with the response and accuracy you would expect from Phil-Tone. -Phil Engleman\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

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Charlie Parker with his Brilhart Alto Saxophone Mouthpiece<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Phil-Tone Orion alto saxophone mouthpiece I received to review is made of resin. The look and feel of the outside of the mouthpiece resembles hard rubber in my opinion.\u00a0 I actually wasn’t sure if it was hard rubber or resin and had to email Phil to ask him what it was made of.\u00a0 The clue for me that it was perhaps resin, was that the inside bore of the mouthpiece was super shiny.\u00a0 I have never seen a hard rubber mouthpiece with a chamber and bore that shiny before so guessed that it was a resin material.\u00a0 Phil confirmed this for me via email.<\/p>\n

The exterior of the Orion alto sax mouthpiece is pretty plain looking. \u00a0There is no engraving on it except “Phil-Tone” hand engraved on the top of the body of the mouthpiece.\u00a0 \u00a0The mouthpiece is a .076 tip opening or around a 6 tip opening.<\/p>\n

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Phil-Tone Orion Alto Saxophone Mouthpiece<\/strong><\/p>\n

The mouthpiece tip rail is very close in shape to all of my alto sax reeds and the table and rails look even and well made as they are on all of the Phil-Tone mouthpieces. \u00a0The baffle has a nice medium rollover to it and then the baffle heads down at a curve into the chamber area.\u00a0 After the baffle rolls over, the descending slope of the baffle looks to have a side to side curve to it where the outside edges are a little higher than the center. The sidewalls are straight and look to angle inward slightly as they approach the chamber area.<\/p>\n

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Phil-Tone Orion Alto Saxophone Mouthpiece<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Phil-Tone Orion alto saxophone mouthpiece has a unique shaped chamber that I am told is the same as the old Brilhart Tonalin alto saxophone mouthpiece chambers.\u00a0 The straight sidewalls give the chamber sides a straight edge and the bottom of the chamber looks slightly lower and wider than the top of the chamber.\u00a0 Like I mentioned above, the inside of the chamber and bore are incredibly shiny and smooth looking.<\/p>\n

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Phil-Tone Orion Alto Saxophone Mouthpiece<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Phil-Tone Orion alto saxophone mouthpiece played incredibly well with every reed I tried on it.\u00a0 It was very reed friendly!\u00a0 I ended up recording with a Lupifaro Evo 3 reed that Lupifaro sent me to try out but my Rigotti Gold and Boston Sax Shop alto sax reeds played equally as well on it.<\/p>\n

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Phil-Tone Orion Alto Saxophone Mouthpiece<\/strong><\/p>\n

The .076 tip opening felt very comfortable for me and the mouthpiece had a clear, pure and focused tone to it that I would classify as medium bright.<\/p>\n

At the beginning of the sound clip I start with a little of “There is No Greater Love”.\u00a0 The Orion has a a nice crisp bop sound to it that really sings in the upper register.\u00a0 The tone sounds light and beautiful to me.<\/p>\n

I then go into my usual “The Summer Knows” melody that I have been playing on all of my recent alto saxophone mouthpiece reviews. I love this melody and I especially love how it sounds with the Orion alto mouthpiece!\u00a0 \u00a0(Also, check out the clip with a little bit of reverb added which is the second sound clip.)<\/p>\n

I have been playing many of the same melodies and lines on my reviews lately so that listeners can more easily compare the sound clips and hear how the same lines and melodies compare to each other from mouthpiece to mouthpiece.<\/p>\n

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Phil-Tone Orion Alto Saxophone Mouthpiece<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Phil-Tone Orion’s chamber and straight sidewalls seems to give it a crisp focus of tone.\u00a0 That crisp focus also makes it fun to play straight ahead lines because the crisp brightness of the tone seems to make the jazz articulation and accents “pop” a bit more in my opinion.<\/p>\n

The Orion alto sax mouthpiece played smoothly and evenly throughout the range of the horn and the intonation was excellent.\u00a0 The articulation was clean and efficient also.<\/p>\n

I would say the Orion would rate at 7 if I was to rate it 1-10 as far as volume. It does get a bit brighter when really pushed but, as you can hear in the sound clips, I didn’t go into my usual “Sanborn” type licks.\u00a0 I guess I could have, but the Orion alto mouthpiece seems more at home to me with sweet melodies and bop lines.\u00a0 I was inclined to think more of Charlie Parker, Paul Desmond and Phil Woods while playing the Orion mouthpiece.
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Phil-Tone Orion Alto Saxophone Mouthpiece<\/strong><\/p>\n

Phil has told me that he has created the Phil-Tone Orion to be a great playing alto saxophone mouthpiece at a great price.\u00a0 I would have no reservations in suggesting this mouthpiece to an alto sax\u00a0 student, whether young or old, who was looking to step up to a more professional mouthpiece.\u00a0 In the past, I have suggested refaced Meyer mouthpieces for students but the Orion is in that same price range while giving the student a different direction and sound in my opinion.<\/p>\n

If you like the clips below and the Phil-Tone Orion alto saxophone mouthpiece interests you, contact Phil Engleman via his website at Phil-tone.com<\/a>. \u00a0 Phil is very knowledgeable about sax mouthpieces and will answer any questions you might have about the Orion or any of his other mouthpiece models. \u00a0Thanks for letting me try the Orion alto saxophone mouthpiece Phil!<\/p>\nhttps:\/\/cdn.neffmusic.com\/2020\/PTOrionAlto.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n

Phil-Tone Orion .076 Alto Saxophone Mouthpiece-Lupifaro Evo 3 Reed-No Effects Added<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\nhttps:\/\/cdn.neffmusic.com\/2020\/PTOrionAltoReverb.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n

Phil-Tone Orion .076 Alto Saxophone Mouthpiece-Lupifaro Evo 3 Reed-Reverb Added<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n

Disclosure: I received the sample mouthpiece reviewed above for free in the hope that I would try it and perhaps review it on my blog. Regardless, I only review sax mouthpieces that I enjoy playing and believe will be good for other saxophone players to try also. Steve<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today I am reviewing another great alto saxophone mouthpiece made by Phil Engleman at Phil-Tone mouthpieces. \u00a0I have reviewed quite a few Phil-Tone sax mouthpieces on the site already and am always interested when Phil announces a new Phil-Tone saxophone mouthpiece model. A couple of months ago he announced that he had a new mouthpiece […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":63,"featured_media":101416,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1123,46,487],"tags":[297,2002,197,165,658,117],"class_list":{"0":"post-101398","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-alto-medium-baffle-reviews","8":"category-alto-mouthpieces","9":"category-mouthpiece-reviews","10":"tag-alto-saxophone","11":"tag-orion","12":"tag-phil-engleman","13":"tag-phil-tone","14":"tag-review","15":"tag-sax-mouthpiece","16":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.neffmusic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101398","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.neffmusic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.neffmusic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.neffmusic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/63"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.neffmusic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=101398"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.neffmusic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101398\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.neffmusic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/101416"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.neffmusic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=101398"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.neffmusic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=101398"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.neffmusic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=101398"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}