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Who uses one of these and what do you think about it? Do use it as a specialty piece or as your daily driver? Is it a silly thing or is it taken seriously, perhaps used for Eb tubas in brass bands in the UK?

Why does this mouthpiece exist?

Just curious and killing time on a rehearsal break.

[I am thinking it may become the piece I use with that MW 182 carcass I have. It sings in that horn, and the intonation is nearly perfect for me with this mouthpiece. It is a good bugle, but it really lights up as a sort of tenor tuba with this specific mouthpiece stuck into the small end.]

Someone must use this mouthpiece. Tell me why you bought it. It is obviously not for a child. It takes some strong chops. I use it for Bydlo or other small F tuba stuff.

How much would a one-off copy by someone like Houser likely cost me?

I have no experience with the 4, although they've been around for years, so some folks must use them.

Warburton currently lists $475 for a custom piece. Giddings is $549, but it's likely steel. Houser and Schilke will give you a quote. Other places will duplicate a piece for around $300, but if you're serious you'd probably want someone with a rep you trust.

FWIW, Greg Black did a reconfig and replate on an old Bach 12 for me, and he was very good to work with. He doesn't list tuba mp duplication as a service, but he might be able to do it as he does other duplication work.

the elephant wrote: ↑Sun Feb 12, 2023 5:51 pm Who uses one of these and what do you think about it? Do use it as a specialty piece or as your daily driver? Is it a silly thing or is it taken seriously, perhaps used for Eb tubas in brass bands in the UK?

Why does this mouthpiece exist?

Just curious and killing time on a rehearsal break.

[I am thinking it may become the piece I use with that MW 182 carcass I have. It sings in that horn, and the intonation is nearly perfect for me with this mouthpiece. It is a good bugle, but it really lights up as a sort of tenor tuba with this specific mouthpiece stuck into the small end.]

When I first moved back to Eb Bass (I was playing trombone and before that hadn’t played anything for many years) one of the pieces I was using was a Wick 4L. That Wick came with the Sovereign that the Brass Band lent to me and both the mouthpiece and instrument worked well enough for me - though at the time I played only tolerably well in a low capability Brass Band. I didn’t need to play low range notes through the fourth valve and the slightly smaller cup allowed me sufficient lip control.

Now I use a Wick 3 and sometimes a 2 in an Eb Sovereign, to my ears they give a better tone and they speak noticeably better through the fourth valve too, but if a 4 is only what you can manage then it’ll do and it has a slightly easier high range. Indeed the first Eb Bass could likely get away with a Wick 4 and be aided by it in covering the higher notes in the often split part. In the much better Brass Band that I now play in I take the lower part (when it’s split) plus anything that looks challenging is also taken by me too; that’s no claim to skill but rather just doing what I can (and they currently can’t) to support my section mates.

I’d absolutely say that if a Wick 4L matches a particular instrument then use it. Would a Wick 4L suit an F Tuba? I’d have thought it likely and a 5 might be good too … though it’s perhaps counterintuitive bigger isn’t always better.

https://www.deniswick.com/wp-content/up ... -Chart.pdf
https://www.melton-meinl-weston.com/en/ ... bas/182-2/

2nd tenor wrote: ↑Tue Feb 14, 2023 1:03 pm one of the pieces I was using was a Wick 4L.

When was that? Note that the question here is "Original Style from 1986 or Earlier", which implies to me that the current 4L is a known and different quantity. I'm curious what the differences might be. The current 4L has occasionally been put forth as a possibility for young players, I think, but I guess that's to be expected with any smaller diameter mouthpiece.

I am assuming that over the ensuing decades, the design may have changed, like the shank, which on mine is very short. I just want to make sure that the 4L someone in this thread discusses is the same one I am asking about. If the design was changed from the one made about forty years ago I'm not interested in the newer one at all.

This is a really odd mouthpiece and I have very specific uses for it, and a slightly different one might not work nearly so well on my horn. I am interested in buying a new one and sending it to be copied, perhaps with a different rim profile.

Anyway, it is a very odd mouthpiece; at least the old one I have is weird. As I said, it would not work well at all for a youngster. You need very strong chops to play it. The rim is *very* flat. It is very deep, and it is very narrow. Since people today consider it to be a mouthpiece for youngsters, I tend to think it was redesigned a long time ago and that the specific version that I have is no longer made.

I am having a lot of success with it on my 6/4 Kurath F and am not sure why. The intonation is fantastic, whereas the pieces I have used in that tuba have had rather a mediocre intonation. The horn is too big and woofy, to my ears, like the follow-on Willson 3200FA-5. I re-tapered the whole horn from the receiver through the MTS, and many things improved, but some things got worse. With this piece everything locks in really well, with no saggy pitches, the second space C now plays very close to in tune so that a 13 alternate is no longer needed. The upper register finally plays like a genuine F tuba and the suspect low range is much more accessible. The only drawback seems to be the loss of volume. Since the horn generally wants to overpower everything all the time this is also probably a good thing.

I am curious about this unusual mouthpiece because of all this. I have owned it for 37 years and only ever played it for special high and delicate works. I hated it below the staff on all my horns. Until this one came along.

As I said, it is a weird design, and I want to know whether it has changed over the years and whether the modern 4L is the same piece I have. I cannot at all imagine this being used by anyone with less than ten years of playing under their belt. Again, since it is considered by some to be a beginner mouthpiece I have to believe that *that* 4L is not the same as *my* 4L.

Keep those responses coming in, folks. Information is a good thing to have.

donn wrote: ↑Tue Feb 14, 2023 4:04 pm

2nd tenor wrote: ↑Tue Feb 14, 2023 1:03 pm one of the pieces I was using was a Wick 4L.

When was that? Note that the question here is "Original Style from 1986 or Earlier", which implies to me that the current 4L is a known and different quantity. I'm curious what the differences might be. The current 4L has occasionally been put forth as a possibility for young players, I think, but I guess that's to be expected with any smaller diameter mouthpiece.

Fair comment on the date. I supply what information is available to me and the OP makes his choices from there.

At a guess I’d say that my use of a 4L was about nine years ago (2013) but the piece supplied with the instrument and the instrument itself could have been two (1993) or three decades (1983) older. ‘Original style’, what changes there have been I do not know but of the various Wick pieces that I’ve seen there hasn’t been any particularly noticeable and memorable variation. All of my other Wick mouthpieces are second hand and likely decades old, none have a noticeably short shank.

My best guess is that the OP has something from the very early days, that it didn’t stay in production for long and that the number was reused. One way of moving forward would be to contact Wick directly, I’m not sure whether Dennis is still alive but IIRC his son runs the company and is a professional Tuba player.

If the Wick website is long lived - or earlier addresses known - then maybe the wayback machine, or similar, might make old pictures and details available?

There was a thread five or so years ago in Dave Werden’s forum talking about changes in the 4AL trombone/euphonium mouthpiece over the years.

http://www.dwerden.com/forum/showthread ... -zRoi9Okgo

Two relevant takeaways are that there have been changes to the cup and rim, and that, back in the ‘80’s, Wick mouthpieces were not all that consistent from piece to piece.

The only person I ever encountered who used a Wick 4 tuba mouthpiece was an Eflat player in the Salvation Army Harbor Lights Corps band back in the late ‘70’s (?). He was playing a four-valve, non-compensating, SA-built horn with, probably, a 15” bell and sounded great.

If the change was back in the 80s the wayback machine won't see it, obviously. Earliest thing I found on the wayback machine regarding the 4L was here, and that's after they changed the profile. This was a long time after the time the mouthpiece in question would have been created.

I recall when I bought a 1L and a 2L back in the late 90s that there was just the one cup profile. I never tried anything smaller than the 2, so I have nothing to offer on the 4.