What Is the HR* CUSTOM DARK Alto Saxophone Mouthpiece?

      The HR* CUSTOM DARK is our premium line of hard rubber saxophone mouthpieces, where the goal was to make the most beautiful sounding and playing pieces that we possibly could. 

      As alto sax players, we know there are often a lot of unpleasant highs in the sound, especially on the higher notes.

     With the HR* CUSTOM DARK Alto, we retained the fun of playing a great alto mouthpiece while taking all the unpleasant highs off.

    By shaping a beautiful rollover baffle to the Custom Dark Alto, we get the pop and feedback that alto players are used to.

     We then gave this mouthpiece a big, large chamber and bore to give it this mellow, warm pretty sound.

The HR* CUSTOM DARK Alto uses the finest material used in hard rubber mouthpieces today, which is our proprietary Chedeville^® Rubber. CHR (Chedeville Rubber) is a softer purer formula than regular standard hard rubber. This rubber imparts a rich warm sound.

Next we made rounded sidewalls that add complexity to the core sound.

A large round chamber puts the timbre in a warm dark zone and the thick heavy gold-plated brass band on the shank boosts the amount of harmonics in the sound.

The facing curve and baffle on the HR* CUSTOM DARK are what truly make the mouthpiece a joy to play.  We have applied our twenty years of making mouthpieces on these two key components of a mouthpiece, with a combination of science, technology and old fashioned made by hand craftsmanship.

4 = .066
5 = .072
6 = .078
7 = .083
8 = .090
9 = .100