BACKBORES
This is what makes or breaks a mouthpiece .
For decades we have been told a wider rim and a deeper cup is the way to achieve a bigger sound. Or that a shallower, smaller cup is what you need for a lead sound.
This is not our philosophy. At AR Resonance we believe the most important element in a mouthpiece is the backbore, then comes the throat, then the rim and finally the cup.
Follow us and you'll see why.
The most important and often totally neglected parameter each player needs to address is the level of back pressure. This represents how much the mouthpiece-horn system fights your blowing habits. The tighter the system is, the more you will need to blow to "open the sound". The larger the system is the more you will need to squeeze your lips to accelerate the air.
We don't want the player to have to manipulate, we want the player to feel like he/she is sitting on a comfortable sofa: middle, high and low notes should not require a different approach, they should all feel the same: easy.
When a mouthpiece is too tight the high register becomes flat and the low register is sharp. The natural consequence is that you will need to overshoot high notes and undershoot low ones.
This is why playing the trumpet is so difficult for many people.
If the throat, or the backbore,, are too open the opposite will happen: high notes will be sharp and tiring.
The additional piece of the puzzle we need to address is that people play in different ways, with different skill levels and with different instruments. Assuming that one setup will fit all makes no sense at all.
This is why for shops we offer two throat sizes on trumpet mouthpieces with 3 different backbores for each, Small, Medium and Large.
If you feel like you need even more options contact us directly, we can provide a total of 20 different models and each offers a different back pressure level and harmonic spread so that players can find what suits them.
We don't want the players to adapt to us, we don't like the idea a player needs to "acclimate" to the equipment.
This is why so many top players are switching to AR Resonance: no one else takes care of them the way we do.