{"id":55212,"date":"2019-01-10T20:44:08","date_gmt":"2019-01-11T01:44:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.neffmusic.com\/blog\/?p=55212"},"modified":"2022-11-16T12:31:15","modified_gmt":"2022-11-16T17:31:15","slug":"saxscape-live-slim-profile-tenor-saxophone-mouthpiece-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.neffmusic.com\/blog\/2019\/01\/saxscape-live-slim-profile-tenor-saxophone-mouthpiece-review\/","title":{"rendered":"Saxscape Live Slim Profile Tenor Saxophone Mouthpiece Review"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Ken Barry, at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.saxscape.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Saxscape mouthpieces<\/a> has been making mouthpiece since before I started\u00a0 my website at neffmusic.com.\u00a0 About 4 years ago, I saw a clip of one of my favorite tenor sax players (Danny Walsh) on Youtube playing a prototype Saxscape &#8220;Live&#8221; tenor sax mouthpiece and I thought he sounded amazing on it.\u00a0 Here is that Youtube video if you want to check it out:<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/fbVMoXK8bp8\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><br \/>\n<strong>Danny Walsh playing Soul Eyes on a Saxscape &#8220;Live&#8221; Tenor Mouthpiece<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">I contacted Ken at Saxscape shortly after about seeing if I could get a &#8220;Live&#8221; tenor mouthpiece to\u00a0 try out but he never got to the point where he had them in production so I gave up on it after a few years.\u00a0 I&#8217;m happy to write that Ken contacted me a few months ago and he told me the Saxscape Live tenor mouthpieces were finally released.\u00a0 I was\u00a0 super excited!!\u00a0 Ken\u00a0 sent me a production model Saxscape &#8220;Live&#8221; mouthpiece in a .110 tip opening to check out and perhaps review here on the site.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/cdn.neffmusic.com\/2018\/LiveTop.jpg\" rel=\"shadowbox\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" style=\"border: 0px initial initial;\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.neffmusic.com\/2018\/LiveTop.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"350\" border=\"0\" hspace=\"0\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Saxscape Live Tenor Saxophone Mouthpiece<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">The Saxscape &#8220;Live&#8221; tenor sax mouthpiece is made of Delrin which is a polyoxymethylene thermoplastic.\u00a0 Yes, I know I lost most of you already with the scientific wording, sorry!\u00a0 From what I can gather from google, Delrin is a plastic that has been cleared as food safe by the FDA.\u00a0 I have also read that it is a very tough and stable material.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">When I first received the package from Saxscape, it was so light that I wondered if Ken forgot to put the sax mouthpiece in it!\u00a0 After unwrapping it, I held it in my hand and it felt like it weighed next to nothing.\u00a0 It feels so light, in fact, that I have found myself having to be extra careful while handling the mouthpiece so that I don&#8217;t drop it.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">The Saxscape &#8220;Live&#8221; tenor mouthpiece has what is called a slim profile.\u00a0 It is the size of a metal tenor mouthpiece. I used a Selmer 404 silver ligature that I use on my metal Otto Link saxophone mouthpieces and it fits the Saxscape Live mouthpiece perfectly.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/cdn.neffmusic.com\/2018\/LiveSide.jpg\" rel=\"shadowbox\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" style=\"border: 0px initial initial;\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.neffmusic.com\/2018\/LiveSide.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"350\" border=\"0\" hspace=\"0\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Saxscape Live Tenor Saxophone Mouthpiece<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">The Saxscape Live sax mouthpiece looks unique and original.\u00a0 I have tried hundreds of sax mouthpieces and this is the first time I have played a sax mouthpiece made of Delrin that looks like this one.\u00a0 Much of the mouthpiece seems to have some kind of machined pattern in the Delrin which helps give it a modern look.\u00a0 The tip, rails and table look even and well crafted.\u00a0 The shape of the tip matches the shape of the saxophone reeds perfectly.<\/p>\n<p>The baffle of the Saxscape Live is interesting in that it also has a unique and original design to it that I have never seen before.\u00a0 The baffle starts near the tip and about a quarter of an inch in, looks to be scooped out as it slopes down to the beginning of the chamber.\u00a0 What is interesting,\u00a0 is that this &#8220;scoop&#8221; isn&#8217;t across the whole width of the baffle but the edges are left intact on the sides of the scooped out area.\u00a0 This has the affect of bringing the sidewalls in a little bit and creating a small ledge on either side of the baffle.<\/p>\n<p>The baffle ends at the chamber where it has a &#8220;bullet&#8221; shaped end as the chamber starts.\u00a0 I would say that the Saxscape Live mouthpiece is a medium size chamber if you consider an Otto Link to be a large chamber.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/cdn.neffmusic.com\/2018\/LiveSide2.jpg\" rel=\"shadowbox\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" style=\"border: 0px initial initial;\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.neffmusic.com\/2018\/LiveSide2.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"350\" border=\"0\" hspace=\"0\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Saxscape Live Tenor Saxophone Mouthpiece<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">The Delrin has a smooth feel to the touch.\u00a0 I didn&#8217;t want to take the chance that my teeth might mark up the beak so I put a square Forestone mouthpiece patch on it.\u00a0 Interestingly enough, the first patch I put on fell off almost immediately.\u00a0 I thought maybe the Delrin was resistant to the glue on the Forestone patches but later I tried the bigger tear drop patch by Forestone and that has been on the mouthpiece ever since without moving so I guess maybe it was just something with that one patch.<\/p>\n<p>The slim profile feels very comfortable when I first tried the Saxscape Live.\u00a0 The size and shape of the mouthpiece feels so similar to a metal mouthpiece that at times I actually forgot that it wasn&#8217;t metal. (A few people asked for advice on a good metal saxophone mouthpiece to try and I actually suggested this Saxscape mouthpiece and then later remembered that it isn&#8217;t actually metal&#8230;..whoops)<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/cdn.neffmusic.com\/2018\/LiveTable.jpg\" rel=\"shadowbox\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" style=\"border: 0px initial initial;\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.neffmusic.com\/2018\/LiveTable.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"350\" border=\"0\" hspace=\"0\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Saxscape Live Tenor Saxophone Mouthpiece<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">The part I dread about trying and reviewing mouthpieces is always the reeds. I always put my first reed on with a fear that this next mouthpiece is going to be really picky and I will have to go through like twenty reeds before finding a good match.\u00a0 Thanks to Ken Barry&#8217;s craftsmanship, the Saxscape Live was very reed friendly.\u00a0 So reed friendly that I had the opposite problem of having a hard time figuring out which reed to use on it.\u00a0 I started with a Rigotti Gold 2 1\/2 Medium that was on another mouthpiece and it was smoking!\u00a0 I played that for a few days.\u00a0 Then I tried a 2 1\/2 Strong which was also great.\u00a0 Then I tried a 3 Light which I spent about a week on that felt terrific.\u00a0 I was about to record with the Rigotti 3 Light but at the last minute thought I would try another 2 1\/2 Strong.\u00a0 The Rigotti 2 1\/2 Strong was even better than the Rigotti 3 Light and I recorded with that.<\/p>\n<p>Now, I thought I was pretty much done after recording with the Rigotti reed but as I was putting my sax down I remembered that I had these new reeds from Germany in my desk drawer that I hadn&#8217;t really tried yet.\u00a0 They are AW reeds that I ordered from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bostonsaxshop.com\/reeds\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Boston Sax Shop<\/a> earlier this year when I was looking for a darker reed.\u00a0 Although I love the Rigottis, on some mouthpieces they can play too bright and edgy for my tastes so I was looking for a reed alternative that would be darker.\u00a0 I put a AW 2 1\/2 reed on the Saxscape Live mouthpiece, blew a few notes and thought &#8220;Holy Cow!\u00a0 This plays great! I love this!&#8221;\u00a0 ( I know I was really digging it because the sound clip I recorded ended up being 25 minutes long which is a record for me I think&#8230;..don&#8217;t worry, I shortened it down to like 4:00 minutes)<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/cdn.neffmusic.com\/2018\/LiveBaffle.jpg\" rel=\"shadowbox\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" style=\"border: 0px initial initial;\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.neffmusic.com\/2018\/LiveBaffle.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"350\" border=\"0\" hspace=\"0\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Saxscape Live Tenor Saxophone Mouthpiece<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">The AW reeds kind of reminded me of the old Rico Select Jazz reeds that I used to play that had a darker, richer sound to them.\u00a0 On the Saxscape Live they just sound a bit darker and fuller to me than the Rigotti reeds did.\u00a0 The Rigotti reed seemed to have a little more edge and brightness to the tone I think. (I am interested in reading your impressions of the two reeds if you want to share them in the comments below.)<\/p>\n<p>Earlier today, I was listening to a recording of Stan Getz\u00a0 playing on &#8220;Chega De Saudade&#8221; where he plays a few notes from &#8220;When you wish Upon a Star&#8221; in his solo so I quoted those two songs a little bit in the sound clips. (There is also a cool video of Seamus Blake playing &#8220;Chega De Saudade&#8221; also&#8230;&#8230;..)<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">As has been my habit lately, I have added reverb to each of the clips for those of you who like to check out the recording with that added also.\u00a0 I try not to put a lot of reverb on the clip but just enough to thicken the sound a little bit.\u00a0 The reason I think reverb is good to add to the clips is that you can get an idea of how the mouthpiece might sound in a dry room and how it might sound in a room with natural reverb like a garage or bathroom. (I love playing in my garage!!)<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/cdn.neffmusic.com\/2018\/LiveTip.jpg\" rel=\"shadowbox\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" style=\"border: 0px initial initial;\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.neffmusic.com\/2018\/LiveTip.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"350\" border=\"0\" hspace=\"0\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Saxscape Live Tenor Saxophone Mouthpiece<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">The Saxscape Live tenor saxophone mouthpiece had a strong powerful tone from the first time I played it.\u00a0 Actually, I think I blew my first note on it, stopped and said &#8220;Whoa!&#8221;, then went back to playing.\u00a0 \u00a0 The tone in my mind is a good blend of an Otto Link type sound with a Guardala type sound.\u00a0 It sorta sits in the middle of those two concepts but the cool thing is that if you lean either way it is really easy to head more in that direction.\u00a0 I taught a few Skype lessons that were focused on playing standards and the mouthpiece sound killin&#8217; on that stuff.\u00a0 Every student asked me what mouthpiece I was playing.\u00a0 Then I did a couple lessons with some funk and pop type players and the mouthpiece sounded killin&#8217; on that stuff and you guessed it, every student asked me what mouthpiece I was playing on those lessons also.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/cdn.neffmusic.com\/2018\/LiveBottom.jpg\" rel=\"shadowbox\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" style=\"border: 0px initial initial;\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.neffmusic.com\/2018\/LiveBottom.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"350\" border=\"0\" hspace=\"0\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Saxscape Live Tenor Saxophone Mouthpiece<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">On the sound clips below, I try to give a good range and variety of sounds and textures so that you can hear the mouthpiece perform in different styles.\u00a0 What I love about the Saxscape Live is how easy you can change the sound depending on your needs.\u00a0 It&#8217;s not a mouthpiece I would label as bright or dark but it really has to do with how you play it.\u00a0 There were times while playing that I thought it was edgy and bright and other times I thought it was warm and beautiful sounding.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">The articulation was clean and smooth and the intonation was surprisingly great!\u00a0 I write &#8220;surprisingly&#8221; because usually mouthpieces with a bit of a baffle make the middle of my horn (middle D, Eb, E) a bit sharper but the Saxscape Live was very in tune in the middle of the horn without much work on my part.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">I felt like the range of the horn was very even in timbre which makes it really cool to play fast as it sounds really smooth and connected. One thing I did notice,\u00a0 is that because the Saxscape Live has\u00a0 a potential to get louder so easily because of the baffle, sometimes I found notes in the line popping out louder than the rest of the line.\u00a0 There was a few spots in the sound clip where I was playing a line and I noticed that the high B seemed to pop out a little louder than the rest of the line.\u00a0I don&#8217;t take this as any fault of the mouthpiece but more as a fact that I need to spend more time with it and get used to it more.\u00a0 Once I was aware of it,\u00a0 I tried replaying the line I had heard and once aware of it I could fix it easily.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/cdn.neffmusic.com\/2018\/LiveCham.jpg\" rel=\"shadowbox\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" style=\"border: 0px initial initial;\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.neffmusic.com\/2018\/LiveCham.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"350\" border=\"0\" hspace=\"0\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Saxscape Live Tenor Saxophone Mouthpiece<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">In my opinion, the Saxscape &#8220;Live&#8221; is a great tenor mouthpiece for those of you looking for a sax mouthpiece that does it all.\u00a0 \u00a0I think Ken Barry at\u00a0 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.saxscape.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Saxscape mouthpieces<\/a> has done a great job with the &#8220;Live&#8221; tenor saxophone mouthpiece.\u00a0 Ken has recently revamped his <a href=\"https:\/\/www.saxscape.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">website at Saxscape<\/a> so make sure you check it out if you are interested in this mouthpiece.\u00a0 He also has three other saxophone mouthpieces on his site called the Arizona, the Downtown MB1 and the Xtra Dark model.\u00a0 I haven&#8217;t tried any of those models yet but if they are as good as this &#8220;Live&#8221; tenor mouthpiece I sure hope I get a chance to review them also!\u00a0 You can also contact Ken Barry by\u00a0<span class=\"auto-style15\">phone or text: 570-350-5843, by email<\/span><span class=\"auto-style15\">:\u00a0<a href=\"mailto:saxscape@gmail.com\">saxscape@gmail.com<\/a><\/span><span class=\"auto-style15\">\u00a0 or on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/saxscape\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Facebook<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>If you try a Saxscape Live tenor sax mouthpiece,\u00a0 I would love to hear what you think in the comments below.\u00a0 Thanks,\u00a0 \u00a0Steve<\/p>\n<audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-55212-1\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.neffmusic.com\/2019\/SaxscapeLiveAWReverb.mp3?_=1\" \/><a href=\"https:\/\/cdn.neffmusic.com\/2019\/SaxscapeLiveAWReverb.mp3\">https:\/\/cdn.neffmusic.com\/2019\/SaxscapeLiveAWReverb.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong><strong>Saxscape Live Tenor Saxophone Mouthpiece-AW 2 1\/2 Reed-Reverb<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n<audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-55212-2\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.neffmusic.com\/2019\/SaxscapeLiveAW.mp3?_=2\" \/><a href=\"https:\/\/cdn.neffmusic.com\/2019\/SaxscapeLiveAW.mp3\">https:\/\/cdn.neffmusic.com\/2019\/SaxscapeLiveAW.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong><strong>Saxscape Live Tenor Saxophone Mouthpiece-AW 2 1\/2 Reed-Dry Recording<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n<audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-55212-3\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.neffmusic.com\/2019\/SaxscapeLiveRigReverb.mp3?_=3\" \/><a href=\"https:\/\/cdn.neffmusic.com\/2019\/SaxscapeLiveRigReverb.mp3\">https:\/\/cdn.neffmusic.com\/2019\/SaxscapeLiveRigReverb.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong><strong>Saxscape Live Tenor Saxophone Mouthpiece-Rigotti Gold 2 1\/2 Strong Reed-Reverb<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n<audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-55212-4\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.neffmusic.com\/2019\/SaxscapeLiveRigotti.mp3?_=4\" \/><a href=\"https:\/\/cdn.neffmusic.com\/2019\/SaxscapeLiveRigotti.mp3\">https:\/\/cdn.neffmusic.com\/2019\/SaxscapeLiveRigotti.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong><strong>Saxscape Live Tenor Saxophone Mouthpiece-Rigotti Gold 2 1\/2 Strong Reed-Dry Recording<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n<div style=\"padding: 12px; background-color: #f0b646; line-height: 1.4;\">Disclosure: I received the sample mouthpiece mentioned above for free in the hope that I would try it and perhaps review it on my blog. Regardless, I only review mouthpieces that I enjoy playing and believe will be good for other saxophone players to try also. Steve<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ken Barry, at Saxscape mouthpieces has been making mouthpiece since before I started\u00a0 my website at neffmusic.com.\u00a0 About 4 years ago, I saw a clip of one of my favorite tenor sax players (Danny Walsh) on Youtube playing a prototype Saxscape &#8220;Live&#8221; tenor sax mouthpiece and I thought he sounded amazing on it.\u00a0 Here is [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":63,"featured_media":55220,"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":[487,1120,45],"tags":[196,1787,361,658,7,1786,1788,265],"class_list":{"0":"post-55212","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mouthpiece-reviews","8":"category-tenor-medium-baffle-reviews","9":"category-tenor-mouthpieces","10":"tag-ken-barry","11":"tag-live","12":"tag-mouthpiece","13":"tag-review","14":"tag-sax","15":"tag-saxscape","16":"tag-slim-profile","17":"tag-tenor-saxophone","18":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.neffmusic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55212","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=55212"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.neffmusic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55212\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.neffmusic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55220"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.neffmusic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.neffmusic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.neffmusic.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}