Best Brass mini straight bass trombone mute

[ghmerrill]

[ Do NOT be misled by The Horn Guys' insisting on listing this as a "pixie" mute.]

I just got one of these delivered from The Horn Guys. First reaction: AMAZING. I'm not even sure that I'll fiddle with the corks and seating depth on it. Really good all the way down through the peddle range. Seems great on either valve or the double valve combo (but see below). I'm just an amateur with not much mute experience and sophistication, but this thing is remarkable. Definitely worth the money.

Seated in the bell, it sticks out only about 3/4" past the rim, and so fits in the bell IN THE CASE -- though just barely in my case. While you can tell that there's something in the bell, and it adds a little weight there, you can't see it, and the weight is minor in terms of balance. My postal scale says 4.2 oz.

Intonation seems great, and it blows quite freely. Except ... well ... in the first couple of positions on either the F or the Gb valve, it's a bit funky/stuffy -- but nothing that I think can't be dealt with.

Of course, I really need to play on it. But I think it's a real winner.

[harrisonreed]

Video or it didn't happen!

[ghmerrill]

Hmmm ... trust but verify. Fair enough. But I'm not set up very well for videos, and wouldn't be able to do it probably for a couple of weeks at least. I'm about to be attacked by my ENT guy, and when I mentioned the possibility of playing large brass instruments, he said "Not for at least a week."

Also, I'm not sure what anyone should take away from MY performance with a pricey mute. But I'll see if I can give it a try in a couple of weeks.

[bassclef]

Well, a forthcoming video or not, thanks for the info above.

I've had my eye on that mute for a while now and I believe that this thread might be the only review on the entire internet.

[ghmerrill]

... I believe that this thread might be the only review on the entire internet.

But not from an entirely trustworthy source.

[harrisonreed]

FWIW, this is why it is called a Pixie mute on their page:



It's an included feature.

[ghmerrill]

Here's something interesting ...

For a few months now I've been experimenting with a K9 vs. a K10 shank (in my DE LB/K mouthpiece with a 114 rim). I'd settled on the K10 as best since it gives me a bit more facility down low. But today I thought I'd just check back with the K9 shank, and it worked well even in the pedal range that the K10 seemed especially good for.

While I had the K9 in, I put this mute in and tried it. Yuck. It got kind of stuffy and unfocused, especially in the lower range, and I couldn't make it really ring in the high range. Couldn't get decent tone quality. Not as good as my H&B fiber mute (with which I never noticed this phenomenon).

So I unscrewed the K9 shank and put the K10 back in. The mute is great.

Then I tried a couple of other mouthpieces. I Have a Stork 1.5 that I quite like, but it's a little smaller than I prefer to have for general purposes. With the mute, the Stork was great in the high and middle range, good in the open horn pedal range, not as good as the DE in the valve pedal range.

It took me a while to dig my Kelly 1.5G out of my euphonium case (it's there just in case of emergency). The Kelly is surprisingly good across the range with the mute in. In the valve pedal range it's useless (for me), but I think a good player could make it work.

I don't know what conclusions to draw from this experimentation for anyone else. For me, it's to stick with the K10 shank, and that this mute seems to be somewhat sensitive to some mouthpiece features -- probably not a shocking surprise. On reflection, I'd guess that every mute is sensitive to things that vary across horns and mouthpieces.

[harrisonreed]

I've found similar experiences with "bad" mutes. All my mutes play well with my L2 mouthpiece, but there are some mutes that DON'T play well with a more standard .281 throat. They back up and maybe don't play well below low Bb.