PPT mouthpieces

Mouthpieces Berg Larsen

I recently acquired an old Berg Larsen metal m/piece with a second hand tenor sax I bought. It's a 90/1/SMS and now having got used to It (always played ebonite) I like it but would like to try a wider tip opening. Does anyone know who stocks Berg Larsen these days apart from Thomann?
 
When I was selling my Berg recently I had a look for UK sales to help me set the price, and I struggled to find any UK retailers who stocked a wide range. There were a few places which had a couple of examples but not a range.
 
Well, there are two basic ways to "add brightness" to a mouthpiece:

1) High baffle
2) Small chamber

The tonal qualities of each are somewhat different. Of course most actual mouthpieces that strive for a "brighter" sound do a combination of the two; Bergs are like this - small chambers AND high baffles (the number indicates the baffle, so keep in mind that saying "Berg Larsen" does not tell you all that much. A 0 chamber is very different than a 3 chamber.)

The only way to know how a particular mouthpiece will sound on your horn with your reeds being blown by you is to give it a try.
 
The only way to know how a particular mouthpiece will sound on your horn with your reeds being blown by you is to give it a try.
Indeed, this is the case. Makes it a bit tricky, though, when considering a Berg, as there are so few being sold in the UK, where @SaxMart and @andyjb both live.

Bergs have been around for a long time, and come in ebonite, stainless and bronze. In more recent years they have two facing curves, four chambers and a range of tip openings. Some have a step baffle, some a bullet chamber. 0 chambers are the brightest, 3 (very rare, most are 0, 1 or 2) the fullest sounding. Even within that you get variances. Some are a bit thin, but the 120/0 I sold recently had a pretty thick tone. I've had some great Bergs, but also one which was virtually unplayable.
 
I recently acquired an old Berg Larsen metal m/piece with a second hand tenor sax I bought. It's a 90/1/SMS and now having got used to It (always played ebonite) I like it but would like to try a wider tip opening. Does anyone know who stocks Berg Larsen these days apart from Thomann?
You can always try to have your mouthpiece opened up. The are not so popular to work on because the steel is so hard. The "1" chamber is pretty bright. I don't like the new Berg Larsen. The old type with surgical steel are IMO better.
 
Don't want to hijack the thread, but i'm looking for a bright mouthpiece. How does the Berg Larson sound?
The Berg Larsen (I just have stainless steel pieces) are good mouthpieces. Larsen mouthpieces was the thing and then many players started to play Dukoff "Super Power" chambers in silverite metal. Less money for Dukoff compared to BL. So it was less money for the shops as well because they could have more mouthpieces in stock.

The Berg Larsen with "0" and "1" chambers are IMO "cutting, piercing" and of course also "bright". A high baffle mouthpiece is the way to go if you are playing blues and in electric bands. A mouthpiece with high baffle and wide tip opening can sometimes be too much. A reed with more wood dampen the brightness a little bit. I liked Vandoren V16. A trick that some BL players did was to play baritone and bass clarinet reeds on their mouthpieces. I don't know any players that are on medium or medium open mouthpieces. Use to be wide tip openings.

Listen to ...

King Curtis mid 60's. I don't know the tip opening and chamber.
Jr Walker. Mid 60's here as well. Don't know tip opening and chamber.
Johnny Paris. Don't know tip opening and chamber.
Pete Christlieb, 130/0
Plas Johnson, 130/0 with baritone reeds.
Lenny Pickett. 130/0 with bass clarinet reeds.
Clarence Clemons, 130/0.

Who play(ed) what is not so important. As it already been written here you must play different mouthpieces-reed combos and make up your mind. We used to have mouthpiece days here around. I used to take 10-15 different mouthpieces with me so the other players could try. To buy without playing is a hazard.But I didn't sell any Mac. I'm talking about rock sax players on a basic level. Happy amatuers.
 
In the - shall we say - mid-early period of rock and roll sax, say the early 60s to the early 70s, the Berg Larsen was pretty much the standard for rock tenor players. At the same time, jazz players were approaching a lot of the rock style in a lot of ways. A whole lot of players took up the Berg at this time.

Dukoff came out with his mouthpieces maybe in the early 70s but they really hit big in the late 70s. A whole lot of players took those up. Although Dukoff made several designs, the late 70s/early 80s rock tenor sax standard setup was the Dukoff D7 or D8.

Now the Berg and Dukoff design concepts are quite different. The Berg is what we would call a "small chamber" - squeezed on the sides and with baffles of varying height but none of them a lowish rollover baffle like you see on a Link. The Dukoff is a fairly large chamber - same size as the cork bore - and a high baffle that drops off fairly early.

I haven't played a lot of Bergs but when I have, I haven't got on with them at all well. I can't explain exactly what it is I don't like about them but they seem real resistant to getting any sound out. On the other hand the Dukoff (and I've played a few other pieces of similar design) blows real easily for me, but I do have to be careful to support the airstream enough to get some thickness in the tone. It can turn shrill and ducky otherwise. I think that the Dukoff and the Link/Meyer pieces I favor, respond somewhat similarly in many ways.

Lots of other folks have the opposite reaction - hate the Link/Meyer/Dukoff response type, love the Berg response. My favorite story, which I'll inflict on you now, is when I used to go over to a buddy's house and play along with Aebersolds with him. We were both playing tenor, me on my old #8 Meyer and him on a rubber Berg (I don't know the spec). Just for fun, we interchanged the two mouthpieces. All I could get out of his Berg was a couple sad little moans and he couldn't get anything out of my Meyer at all. Switch back and all was as it was before, both of us getting normal decent tenor sounds out of our horns. Point of the story: it's all individual, a combination of your own conformation and what you're used to.
 
In the - shall we say - mid-early period of rock and roll sax, say the early 60s to the early 70s, the Berg Larsen was pretty much the standard for rock tenor players. At the same time, jazz players were approaching a lot of the rock style in a lot of ways. A whole lot of players took up the Berg at this time.

Dukoff came out with his mouthpieces maybe in the early 70s but they really hit big in the late 70s. A whole lot of players took those up. Although Dukoff made several designs, the late 70s/early 80s rock tenor sax standard setup was the Dukoff D7 or D8.

Now the Berg and Dukoff design concepts are quite different. The Berg is what we would call a "small chamber" - squeezed on the sides and with baffles of varying height but none of them a lowish rollover baffle like you see on a Link. The Dukoff is a fairly large chamber - same size as the cork bore - and a high baffle that drops off fairly early.

I haven't played a lot of Bergs but when I have, I haven't got on with them at all well. I can't explain exactly what it is I don't like about them but they seem real resistant to getting any sound out. On the other hand the Dukoff (and I've played a few other pieces of similar design) blows real easily for me, but I do have to be careful to support the airstream enough to get some thickness in the tone. It can turn shrill and ducky otherwise. I think that the Dukoff and the Link/Meyer pieces I favor, respond somewhat similarly in many ways.

Lots of other folks have the opposite reaction - hate the Link/Meyer/Dukoff response type, love the Berg response. My favorite story, which I'll inflict on you now, is when I used to go over to a buddy's house and play along with Aebersolds with him. We were both playing tenor, me on my old #8 Meyer and him on a rubber Berg (I don't know the spec). Just for fun, we interchanged the two mouthpieces. All I could get out of his Berg was a couple sad little moans and he couldn't get anything out of my Meyer at all. Switch back and all was as it was before, both of us getting normal decent tenor sounds out of our horns. Point of the story: it's all individual, a combination of your own conformation and what you're used to.
Thanks for that very interesting description, my problem is I like the Berg that came with my recently purchased second hand tenor but would like to try a bigger tip opening but it seems very few shops stock Bergs these days
 
Thanks for that very interesting description, my problem is I like the Berg that came with my recently purchased second hand tenor but would like to try a bigger tip opening but it seems very few shops stock Bergs these days
Even if they did you will always suffer from "they don't make them like they used to" syndrome.
 
Last edited:
Can you buy from Woodwind and Brasswind in the US? Or would customs fees make it impractical?

I just now see their prices are quite high - something like $350 for the "modern" metal and $550 for the "vintage".

You might well want to try something else, but I'm not sure if anyone is currently making the Berg style of MP - most seem to be the high baffle-large chamber concept more like a Dukoff. But there's probably someone here that knows this stuff better than I.
 
The Dukoff is a fairly large chamber - same size as the cork bore - and a high baffle that drops off fairly early.
Dukoff "Super Power" chambers comes(came) in many tenor models.

Tenors (all tenor mpc are from #4=.075" to # 10 = .135". *star facing was 1 point shorter and 5 thousands more open. I have never seen any of these.
D - chamber; high baffle
M - chamber; a little bit darkar than D-chamber
S - chamber; smaller chamber than the D chamber. Gives a compact and piercing sound/tone
X - chamber; same as the D chamber but have a "track" in baffle to make it less stuffy in low register
LD - chamber; a mpc in the style of large chamber mouthpiece. Dark and with spread. No baffle.

Berg Larsen had step baffle and/or bullet chamber. Four chambers 0-3. SMS (short) or M (longer) facings.

A Dukoff X7 is 91 g and a Berg Larsen ss Bullet 95/2 is 101 g. (I use to weigh my mouthpieces. I belive in mass)
 
Dukoff "Super Power" chambers comes(came) in many tenor models.

Tenors (all tenor mpc are from #4=.075" to # 10 = .135". *star facing was 1 point shorter and 5 thousands more open. I have never seen any of these.
D - chamber; high baffle
M - chamber; a little bit darkar than D-chamber
S - chamber; smaller chamber than the D chamber. Gives a compact and piercing sound/tone
X - chamber; same as the D chamber but have a "track" in baffle to make it less stuffy in low register
LD - chamber; a mpc in the style of large chamber mouthpiece. Dark and with spread. No baffle.

Berg Larsen had step baffle and/or bullet chamber. Four chambers 0-3. SMS (short) or M (longer) facings.

A Dukoff X7 is 91 g and a Berg Larsen ss Bullet 95/2 is 101 g. (I use to weigh my mouthpieces. I belive in mass)
Yes, they have offered a range of designs, but the classic Dukoff setup on tenor is the D7 or D8 with a Selmer soprano ligature (Dukoff ligatures were junk). I've seen quite a few guys' setups and I've never seen or talked to anyone who played anything other than a D chamber on a Dukoff. I don't think back in the day when music stores kept mouthpieces in stock, and you bought mouthpieces from what your local stores had in stock, I ever saw any other Dukoff model other than the D. Of course, I'm just one guy and that's my impression in my one particular market.
 
Yes. the Dukoff standard ligature are not so good. But they had the "Vibra Free" ligature that was good. Andrew Clark played a D8 with Vibra Free lig for over over 20 years. I have a Dukoff X7. David "Woody" Woodford told me about Dukoff new model. So I bouhgt one and the track in the baffle made a difference. Woodford was also a Dukoff D8 player.
 

Similar threads... or are they? Maybe not but they could be worth reading anyway 😀

Featured Classifieds

Members' Blogs

Trending content

Forum statistics

Topics
29,504
Messages
511,434
Members
8,710
Latest member
Ted Osmond
Back
Top Bottom