{"id":28561,"date":"2015-08-11T12:48:12","date_gmt":"2015-08-11T17:48:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.neffmusic.com\/blog\/?p=28561"},"modified":"2015-08-12T18:59:54","modified_gmt":"2015-08-12T23:59:54","slug":"benjamin-allen-alto-saxophone-mouthpiece-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.neffmusic.com\/blog\/2015\/08\/benjamin-allen-alto-saxophone-mouthpiece-review\/","title":{"rendered":"Benjamin Allen Alto Saxophone Mouthpiece Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today, I am reviewing another\u00a0mouthpiece made by\u00a0Benjamin Allen.\u00a0I have reviewed a number of Benjamin Allen’s tenor mouthpieces<\/a> which were all fabulous in my opinion. \u00a0I now have in front of me a Benjamin Allen prototype of an alto mouthpiece that he has been working on. \u00a0This is not the finished product but rather a “prototype” of a mouthpiece that he hopes to have available soon. I believe he is calling it the “Shema” (although I’m not sure if this is 100% nailed down…….I will change it here if it is something different)<\/p>\n

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Benjamin Allen Alto Saxophone Mouthpiece<\/strong><\/p>\n

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I\u00a0won’t go into details on the outward appearance of the mouthpiece as this is a prototype and made from a blank of some sort I assume. \u00a0There are no model markings or tip opening on the mouthpiece (although there is a mysterious 184 marked on the table). \u00a0The rails and tip are nice and thin and even. \u00a0It looks to have a substantial rollover baffle that then slides down into a medium chamber. The side walls don’t look scooped but rather open up\u00a0smoothly into the chamber.<\/p>\n

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Benjamin Allen Alto Saxophone Mouthpiece<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u00a0used a Rigotti Gold 3 Medium reed on the Benjamin Allen alto mouthpiece and that seemed to work well. \u00a0The tip opening is .070 which is a bit smaller than I usually play as I like alto mouthpieces in the .075-.080 range usually. \u00a0I tried some softer reeds but they were all too soft for me on this .070 tip opening.<\/p>\n

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Benjamin Allen Alto Saxophone Mouthpiece<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Benjamin Allen alto mouthpiece has a bright sweet sound to it. \u00a0It was easy to play although the smaller tip opening took some getting used to. \u00a0The piece blew very smooth throughout the range of the horn. \u00a0Playing fast sounded smooth and like butter to me. \u00a0The smaller tip gave it more of a focused sound in my opinion as opposed to larger tip openings that tend to give a bigger more spread sound. \u00a0To be honest, this mouthpiece reminded me of a vintage NY Meyer mouthpiece I tried years ago. \u00a0It also had a smaller tip opening like this mouthpiece and played with a bright sweet sound also. \u00a0I felt like it had a unique tone and vibe to it and wanted to buy it but the owner wanted 500.00 for it which I thought was ridiculous back then. (This was in the early 2000’s sometime……..if only I knew what they would go for today……..)<\/p>\n

On the Benjamin Allen mouthpiece, the top notes on the horn just had this beautiful singing quality about them that I loved. \u00a0“Sweet and pure” are\u00a0the perfect words I think. With a little vibrato added they were perfect……….<\/p>\n

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Benjamin Allen Alto Saxophone Mouthpiece<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Benjamin Allen Alto\u00a0Saxophone Mouthpiece\u00a0was fun to play. After reviewing all\u00a0of Ben’s tenor mouthpieces and now his alto prototype it is obvious that he knows what he is doing! \u00a0I can’t wait to try this mouthpiece when the final product comes\u00a0out in a bigger tip opening that I am more comfortable with.<\/p>\n

If you like the sound of the clip below and the mouthpiece catches your interest then please contact Ben and get on the list to get\u00a0one when it comes out!\u00a0You can contact Benjamin Allen\u00a0at his website at\u00a0Allenmouthpieces.com<\/a>.\u00a0 Tell him Steve sent you………….Great work\u00a0Ben!!<\/p>\n

Let me know what you think in the comments below. Thanks, Steve<\/p>\nhttps:\/\/cdn.neffmusic.com\/2015\/July\/BAAltoClip.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n

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Benjamin Allen Alto Saxophone Mouthpiece<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today, I am reviewing another\u00a0mouthpiece made by\u00a0Benjamin Allen.\u00a0I have reviewed a number of Benjamin Allen’s tenor mouthpieces which were all fabulous in my opinion. \u00a0I now have in front of me a Benjamin Allen prototype of an alto mouthpiece that he has been working on. \u00a0This is not the finished product but rather a “prototype” […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":63,"featured_media":28562,"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],"tags":[297,1222,658,117],"class_list":{"0":"post-28561","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-alto-medium-baffle-reviews","8":"tag-alto-saxophone","9":"tag-benjamin-allen","10":"tag-review","11":"tag-sax-mouthpiece","12":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.neffmusic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28561","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=28561"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.neffmusic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28561\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.neffmusic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28562"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.neffmusic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.neffmusic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.neffmusic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}