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Kanee Alto Mouthpieces - Nigel's Impressions
My experience: Amateur - 4 years
There are three alto mouthpieces in the Kanee pass-around:
New York- Hand crafted - Large Chamber 6
CNC edition – New York - Medium Chamber 8
CNC edition – Studio 8
My current mouthpiece is a Rousseau NC4. I also have a Pillinger NYA6*
Caveat: I am a relatively inexperienced amateur, and I didn't try these mouthpieces for very long, so my impressions are not well-founded. But as I see it, part of the point of a pass-around like this is to get impressions from people with various levels of ability.
The two mouthpieces with 8 openings are too wide for me, so I couldn't try them properly.
The NY 6 mouthpiece has a larger shank diameter than my current mouthpieces, and I needed to wrap some plumbers tape round the cork to get the mouthpiece to seal and play in tune.
I had difficulty playing this mouthpiece at first, but it got easier after a couple of sessions. It seems to be quite intolerant of the wrong reeds - I started with a reed that was about 1/2 strength too hard and I was getting motor-boating and having a lot of difficulty. (My sax was serviced a month ago, and I am pretty sure it has no leaks.) The problems went away when I found reeds that matched. The best for me were Hemke. Once I found a reed that worked, things got a lot better, but I never felt comfortable with this mouthpiece. I could get a decent tone from it, but playing my normal mouthpiece feels a lot easier.
Since I have a Pillinger mouthpiece based on a vintage New York Meyer, I decided to compare it with the Kanee. This could be considered unfair, because the Pillinger is a much more expensive mouthpiece, but in practice they are not rivals. In fact they sound nothing like one another. The Kanee is much warmer than the Pillinger (Sherry, rather than Dry Martini). In tone it is closer to my classical Rousseau NC4 than to the Pillinger, even though the chambers of the two NY mouthpieces look alike to my untutored eye.
So for me, the Kanee New York 6 Alto was a warm, smooth-sounding mouthpiece with a sound that I liked; but it seems to be too reed-intolerant for me to want to own. It may well be that a better player will not experience any difficulties, but I would not recommend this mouthpiece to a beginner.
My experience: Amateur - 4 years
There are three alto mouthpieces in the Kanee pass-around:
New York- Hand crafted - Large Chamber 6
CNC edition – New York - Medium Chamber 8
CNC edition – Studio 8
My current mouthpiece is a Rousseau NC4. I also have a Pillinger NYA6*
Caveat: I am a relatively inexperienced amateur, and I didn't try these mouthpieces for very long, so my impressions are not well-founded. But as I see it, part of the point of a pass-around like this is to get impressions from people with various levels of ability.
The two mouthpieces with 8 openings are too wide for me, so I couldn't try them properly.
The NY 6 mouthpiece has a larger shank diameter than my current mouthpieces, and I needed to wrap some plumbers tape round the cork to get the mouthpiece to seal and play in tune.
I had difficulty playing this mouthpiece at first, but it got easier after a couple of sessions. It seems to be quite intolerant of the wrong reeds - I started with a reed that was about 1/2 strength too hard and I was getting motor-boating and having a lot of difficulty. (My sax was serviced a month ago, and I am pretty sure it has no leaks.) The problems went away when I found reeds that matched. The best for me were Hemke. Once I found a reed that worked, things got a lot better, but I never felt comfortable with this mouthpiece. I could get a decent tone from it, but playing my normal mouthpiece feels a lot easier.
Since I have a Pillinger mouthpiece based on a vintage New York Meyer, I decided to compare it with the Kanee. This could be considered unfair, because the Pillinger is a much more expensive mouthpiece, but in practice they are not rivals. In fact they sound nothing like one another. The Kanee is much warmer than the Pillinger (Sherry, rather than Dry Martini). In tone it is closer to my classical Rousseau NC4 than to the Pillinger, even though the chambers of the two NY mouthpieces look alike to my untutored eye.
So for me, the Kanee New York 6 Alto was a warm, smooth-sounding mouthpiece with a sound that I liked; but it seems to be too reed-intolerant for me to want to own. It may well be that a better player will not experience any difficulties, but I would not recommend this mouthpiece to a beginner.
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