I recently acquired a metal PPT 8* mouthpiece from Pete, not for any other reason than I wanted to try something new and different to my Sakshama made Guardala MB2, the main requirements I were looking for were serious amounts of volume and projection and brightness to the tone (so I can be heard over that bloody trumpet!) Pete told me from the off that it wouldn't be as bright as the Guardala, which worried me ever so slightly but I needn't have!
Anyway my first impression's when I got it were how well it played in tune right across the range, something that was sometimes a bit of a problem with the Guardala, and no squeaks on middle E! hurray what a luxury!, the internals seem to be somewhat of a cross between a Lawton bullet chamber but with ultra thin Guardala type rails.
I always used Fibracell 3.0 and 3.5 reeds with the Guardala which always worked well for me apart from delaminating after a very short space of time (sometimes only a couple of weeks) this prompted me to switch to Alexander NY cane reeds in a 3, these were very good with a nice thick sound, with the PPT however the Fibracell's sound terrible just sterile and very very buzzy, the Alexanders were very quiet and very stuffy so I decided to try a Bari soft, something Drew Stansall told me about, anyway I must have gotten a dud as it was like having a builders plank strapped to the mouthpiece! so back to the drawing board, now I remember a couple of years ago trying two Legere signature reeds a 2 1/4 and a 3 both were very dark sounding without much in the way of projection and both squeaked all over the place so I didn't fancy those...however I've never tried their Studio cut so thought i'd give them a try, ordered a 2 1/4 strapped it on and wow! everything I could ever want, bright, loud..VERY LOUD! a kind of fullness to the tone, decent sub tone but above all else in tune and absolutely no squeaks! Altisimo needs work as I can easily get between D4 and Bb5 but anything below the D is very hit and miss so just needs working on I guess (cant get G3 to save me life!) I don't really use much altisimo during performance but like to pop the odd one in now and then.
[EDIT by Pete - incorrect information re: plating removed - quoted and addressed in my reply below]
Anyway my first impression's when I got it were how well it played in tune right across the range, something that was sometimes a bit of a problem with the Guardala, and no squeaks on middle E! hurray what a luxury!, the internals seem to be somewhat of a cross between a Lawton bullet chamber but with ultra thin Guardala type rails.
I always used Fibracell 3.0 and 3.5 reeds with the Guardala which always worked well for me apart from delaminating after a very short space of time (sometimes only a couple of weeks) this prompted me to switch to Alexander NY cane reeds in a 3, these were very good with a nice thick sound, with the PPT however the Fibracell's sound terrible just sterile and very very buzzy, the Alexanders were very quiet and very stuffy so I decided to try a Bari soft, something Drew Stansall told me about, anyway I must have gotten a dud as it was like having a builders plank strapped to the mouthpiece! so back to the drawing board, now I remember a couple of years ago trying two Legere signature reeds a 2 1/4 and a 3 both were very dark sounding without much in the way of projection and both squeaked all over the place so I didn't fancy those...however I've never tried their Studio cut so thought i'd give them a try, ordered a 2 1/4 strapped it on and wow! everything I could ever want, bright, loud..VERY LOUD! a kind of fullness to the tone, decent sub tone but above all else in tune and absolutely no squeaks! Altisimo needs work as I can easily get between D4 and Bb5 but anything below the D is very hit and miss so just needs working on I guess (cant get G3 to save me life!) I don't really use much altisimo during performance but like to pop the odd one in now and then.
[EDIT by Pete - incorrect information re: plating removed - quoted and addressed in my reply below]
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