How do these jazz cats sound so mellow

[240z]

I see lots of jazz players playing on 500 bore horns and 7c or smaller mouthpieces... Sure a lot of it has to do with playing quite and smooth doodle tonguing etc with proper microphone placement... If I play a small bore with anything smaller than a 5bs or 51d I sound bright as a 1000 watt light bulb... any ideas, my sound isn't bad but I'm used to playing a .547 bore with a large mp...

[240z]

Only thing I can think of is that my lips are too far apart

[Doug Elliott]

You're trying to play it like you'd play the .547
Back off the air. Combination of sound concept and effort concept. They're very different animals.

And using the same rim as you use on rhe .547 helps a lot too.

[240z]

Makes sense sounds about right.... I also sound a little airy when playing quite

[tbdana]

I play a .509 bore horn with a gold brass bell, and a modified Bach 11C mouthpiece. I can get a fairly warm and mellow sound out of it when I do it right.

Yes, part of it is playing softly into a close mic. I like to think of it as "sneaking up on the mic and whispering in its ear." Being delicate is imperative. When you get close enough to the mic it also picks up the actual air coming out of the bell, and that gives a rather breathy (not "airy") quality to the sound and makes it perceived as mellower. But you can also get a mellow, warm sound without a mic simply by keeping the volume down, though projection can become an issue in that case. And yes, using a very soft tongue is a big component, as attack is fundamental to the brain's perception of tone. Also, part of it in my case is the gold brass bell which has a darker sound than the yellow brass.

Doug made a good observation about air. You can't approach playing small bore horns the way you do a .547 bore or you'll overblow it and "sound bright as a 1000 watt bulb." Small bore horns require much more subtlety in the use of air, and a ton of support for a relatively smaller amount of air being put through the horn. And small bore horns must be played much more delicately to get that warm, mellow sound. Any "push" can destroy it. It's a seduction of the instrument, not a domination of it.

[Doug Elliott]

And actually, .547's sound good when you approach them that way too. Add more dynamic range on the soft side.

[240z]

Well, back to the PC shure sm57... to work on sound... Thanks for the tips

[240z]

I just realized part of my problem was upwards compression ie I had makeup on with to slow of an attack time... it really kinda hard to know what you sound like in front of the bell... proximity effect really adds mellow sound but... I was just trying to use it as a gage of how I sound.

[Doug Elliott]

You'll get more from playing into a wall and listening for what bounces back. Technology not needed.