How the Best Saxophone Mouthpieces are Made

The sound that you get when playing a saxophone is created by the vibration of a reed that gets attached to the mouthpiece. You probably already knew that, but did you know that the mouthpiece has a greater impact on the sound that comes out than the instrument itself?

You are unlikely to hear much of a difference when a saxophone player changes the saxophone they are playing, but a change in mouthpiece can make an enormous difference that anyone will notice.

Tour of the JodyJazz Factory

Crafting high quality saxophone mouthpieces is a delicate mixture of precision science and acoustic art and at the JodyJazz factory in Savannah Georgia, they are making some of the world’s finest mouthpieces using cutting edge technology combined with musical expertise.

We are going to learn step by step how these incredible tools are made from scratch by machine and human hands.

The Beginning Shape of a Saxophone Mouthpiece

We start with bar stock in a few different materials. We have different types of material, German hard rubber, Aluminum and Bell Brass. The first step is to cut the bar stock into blanks using a lathe machine.

The mouthpiece blanks in the video are soon to become BetterSax Burnin’ alto mouthpieces.

How the General Shape of the Mouthpiece is Formed

A 5 axis CNC machine is used to cut the blanks, which runs a highly detailed program. Combined with very sophisticated software, this machine basically acts as a 3D printer in reverse, where instead of laying material down, it removes material from the mouthpiece blank we started with.

While the machine is running, liquid is sprayed everywhere to act as a coolant. It keeps the mouthpiece from heating up too much as it’s being cut and helps wash away the cuttings at the same time.

The 5 axis capability of the machine allows it to cut extremely intricate shapes and designs performing a dance-like operation that is a marvel to watch.

Rough Cut, Semi-Finish, and Final Finish

It’s worth noting here, that in order to get the accuracy and consistency for a top tier saxophone mouthpiece, these machines need to run very slowly. One of the engineers agreed to let us see the process happening without the coolant spray inside so that we could get a better look.

Each mouthpiece CNC program takes between 20 and 30 minutes to complete. To make a BetterSax Burnin’ mouthpiece the machine does 3 passes. The first is called a rough cut.

In addition to doing the logo engraving, it carves out these steps inside the mouthpiece. Setting us up for the next pass which is the semi finish.

On the final finishing pass, the tip, rails and beak get shaped to a high level of precision

This is what the Burnin’ mouthpiece looks like straight off the machine. It is absolutely playable right now, and there are other mouthpieces available on the market that are sold like this, straight off the lathe with no human hand finishing.

But, at the JodyJazz factory, we’re only just getting started. The rest of the steps are all done by highly trained and skilled mouthpiece technicians.

You see, to get a really great playing mouthpiece that sings, there is a level of fine detail that CNC machines are still not capable of. For that, we need human hands and expertise. The CNC machine just gets us close enough to remove the guesswork from the hand finishing process to follow.

Hand Finishing Mouthpieces

Once the mouthpiece comes off the CNC machine the interior of the tip gets filed by hand. Each mouthpiece design has its own unique requirements and the only place to learn exactly how to do this work is with on the job training.

For a JodyJazz Metal DV mouthpiece, the first step in hand finishing is to cut in the corners at the tip rail. Then the tip rails are carefully filed down. It will be finished with fine grain sandpaper in order to achieve a uniform thickness of .025 of an inch. Lots more hand work goes into the side walls and the rest of the mouthpiece at these stations.

Once the mouthpiece interior has been expertly hand finished, it’s time to work on the exterior. We met up with Robbie who is working on some BetterSax Burnin’ mouthpieces. His job is to remove any marks left on the outside by the machine and to give it that beautiful hand finished look. He will use three different grades of sandpaper on these getting finer and finer with each pass.

Finishing Touches

A lot more hand work goes into making these mouthpieces than people realize. We meet Kristin who is hand painting a batch of BetterSax Burnin’ mouthpieces. First she applies the gold paint and once it dries, she will carefully remove the excess all the while looking for any imperfections that would need to be corrected.

Once painted, each mouthpiece gets treated with food grade mineral oil which helps protect the hard rubber and give it a beautiful dark color. If you have hard rubber mouthpieces that have faded to a more grey or brown color, try applying some oil from the kitchen. I use our local olive oil on mine which works great.

Finally, she applies our clear mouthpiece patch over the top. At this point it looks like a finished mouthpiece right? Not quite.

Final Play Testing

We have arrived at what is perhaps the most important step in the entire process, the play testing. There is only so much we can see with the naked eye and since the tolerances here are measured in thousandths of inches, no mouthpiece leaves the factory before it gets played by Jody himself or one of his testing team.

Combined with all the precision work, very tight tolerances and dedication to delivering the absolute best mouthpieces available anywhere this final play testing step ensures that every customer is getting a beautiful, flawless mouthpiece that plays just like the original design.

The system here ensures the highest quality and consistency every time and that is why I chose to work with JodyJazz for the high end BetterSax mouthpieces.

Design Process

Thanks to modern technology, we can now produce a range of different mouthpiece designs that are highly specialized and refined to match a diverse palette of sound concepts. The process of creating these designs is very involved though.

There are many variables that each have countless possibilities leading to basically infinite options when designing mouthpieces.

Here’s the thing though. Only a small percentage of those designs will even work to produce a satisfactory sound and finding the magic combinations that result it the finest musical tools, well that requires decades of experience refined musical taste, hard work and a lot of trial and error.

The design process starts with an idea. For the Burnin’ mouthpiece I told Jody I wanted a pretty steep roll-over baffle that curved into a deep chamber with the idea of getting a sound with power and edge while also offering warmth and control at the same time.

Many iterations were designed, built and tested each with variations in the mere thousandths of inches, before we arrived at the final Burnin’ mouthpiece design available today.

It’s not just the sound the mouthpiece produces that’s important. We also factor in air flow, ease of play, comfort, how well reeds pair with the facing, and more when choosing the final version.

When I visited, Jody was working on a Rousseau baritone mouthpiece design. He and Zack have several candidates with very slight variations. The final step in the design process involves a lot of play testing.

Keep in mind that this process is done with a single tip opening starting out. Once that design is finalized, it has to be recreated for the other tip openings.

This is not just a simple matter of making the tip opening larger or smaller. Every minute change to the design, especially near the tip, can result in a change in character of the sound, so making a mouthpiece that plays with a consistent sound profile across multiple tip openings is another challenge in itself.

BetterSax Burnin’ Soprano Mouthpiece

As I was in the process of creating this video, I received tip opening prototypes for the BetterSax Burnin’ soprano mouthpiece that I need to test out. It has really been a great experience working with Jody Espina and his team on these mouthpiece designs.

I have always been a fan of JodyJazz mouthpieces, but I truly feel that the Burnin’ designs are some of their best work to date. I’m extremely proud of these and once this soprano mouthpiece design is finalized, we will have completed the Burnin’ family of hard rubber mouthpieces. And that’s worth celebrating.

We’re not done yet though. Our next project is the Burnin’ metal mouthpiece which I am super excited for. Stay tuned for updates on that and watch this video next to learn more about how saxophone mouthpieces work acoustically and how the various parts affect the sound.