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After buying and selling a HR Tone Edge here at the Cafesaxophone with a very quick turn around, I thought I'd air my experiences with them.
My first Link in 1989 was a super tone master 6 for alto.
I knew very little but after chipping my plastic yamaha 4C I decided to upgrade. It looked very very nice and played OK.
That was it in a nutshell. As I progressed, I got less and less satisfaction from this piece and considered the 5C yamaha was doing more for me. I moved away from it and never looked back.
When I bought my first Tenor, new links didn't get past a 5 minute trial in shops, be it STM or Tone edge. Too stuffy all the way.
Then someone gave me an older STM in about 1995. It never came out of my sax case very often. Still stuffy but not bad, I thought I might get used to it one day. A couple of years later the guy who gave me the piece all but begged for it back. No great loss I thought. Though now I would guess it was Early babbit or a more expensive fore runner to that!!!! hence his sudden interest in retreiving it with new found knowledge of its worth.
I was done with links all together for years, yet I couldn't get a common envelope of it's sound qualities out of my ears when I heard it played by the masters. Something inherent that I liked across many different players, all using links!
Then 2 years ago I found a transitional long body STM which would play for me one day but even with the same reed in the same room a couple of days later, it would be dead as a dodo!
Sold it and tried to put the thought to bed again.
A friend of mine had a 7* florida STM and I felt right at home on it despite trying it with a prejudging negative attitude. A good good mouthpiece and the only link I truly got a kick out of at this point in time. However I was happy with my set up and didn't beleive it would cover all my needs as well as my RPC. Apart from the fact it wasn't for sale and I couldn't afford it if it was!
Next thing I know, the new vintage models came out in the USA slightly before they did here. I bought the new slant signature and liked it. Well it grew on me and kept growing on me. All I felt I was missing after it became my main piece was out the right volume of the RPC but it wasn't a loss in my current circumstances (all work - no gigs).
Then I bought a MKVII & an older rubber link was in the deal but I do not know how old it is. This is also a great mouthpiece but a little more refined than my new slant sig. Suddenly I have 2 links that are topping my favourites list!! and I knew there was another one out there (that belonged to my friend)what a turn around!!!
Anyway he sold that on for mega bucks and bought the new vintage STM. He didn't like it ,I loved it, bought it and now I had links that I loved coming out of my ears 😀
Maybe I'd been too dismissive of links in the past thinking them to be stufffy? Maybe I'd simply changed my technique and was now more suited to them?
Then up pops Griff.....selling a modern one. It had to be worth a shot.
Sadly it wasn't for me. Too stuffy again nothing like my others. Now there are people out there who say that this is a better blank than the new slant... horses for courses I guess.
The only other thing to come from this was a direct comparison in shape of this one and the old one I got in the MKVII deal.
Clearly different beasts.
My first Link in 1989 was a super tone master 6 for alto.
I knew very little but after chipping my plastic yamaha 4C I decided to upgrade. It looked very very nice and played OK.
That was it in a nutshell. As I progressed, I got less and less satisfaction from this piece and considered the 5C yamaha was doing more for me. I moved away from it and never looked back.
When I bought my first Tenor, new links didn't get past a 5 minute trial in shops, be it STM or Tone edge. Too stuffy all the way.
Then someone gave me an older STM in about 1995. It never came out of my sax case very often. Still stuffy but not bad, I thought I might get used to it one day. A couple of years later the guy who gave me the piece all but begged for it back. No great loss I thought. Though now I would guess it was Early babbit or a more expensive fore runner to that!!!! hence his sudden interest in retreiving it with new found knowledge of its worth.
I was done with links all together for years, yet I couldn't get a common envelope of it's sound qualities out of my ears when I heard it played by the masters. Something inherent that I liked across many different players, all using links!
Then 2 years ago I found a transitional long body STM which would play for me one day but even with the same reed in the same room a couple of days later, it would be dead as a dodo!
Sold it and tried to put the thought to bed again.
A friend of mine had a 7* florida STM and I felt right at home on it despite trying it with a prejudging negative attitude. A good good mouthpiece and the only link I truly got a kick out of at this point in time. However I was happy with my set up and didn't beleive it would cover all my needs as well as my RPC. Apart from the fact it wasn't for sale and I couldn't afford it if it was!
Next thing I know, the new vintage models came out in the USA slightly before they did here. I bought the new slant signature and liked it. Well it grew on me and kept growing on me. All I felt I was missing after it became my main piece was out the right volume of the RPC but it wasn't a loss in my current circumstances (all work - no gigs).
Then I bought a MKVII & an older rubber link was in the deal but I do not know how old it is. This is also a great mouthpiece but a little more refined than my new slant sig. Suddenly I have 2 links that are topping my favourites list!! and I knew there was another one out there (that belonged to my friend)what a turn around!!!
Anyway he sold that on for mega bucks and bought the new vintage STM. He didn't like it ,I loved it, bought it and now I had links that I loved coming out of my ears 😀
Maybe I'd been too dismissive of links in the past thinking them to be stufffy? Maybe I'd simply changed my technique and was now more suited to them?
Then up pops Griff.....selling a modern one. It had to be worth a shot.
Sadly it wasn't for me. Too stuffy again nothing like my others. Now there are people out there who say that this is a better blank than the new slant... horses for courses I guess.
The only other thing to come from this was a direct comparison in shape of this one and the old one I got in the MKVII deal.
Clearly different beasts.
