My Cup Mute(s)

If you’ve read my other mute posts you’ll know that I use a jo ral harmon and straight. So you won’t be surprised to read that I also have a jo al tri-tone mute.

However you may be surprised that this isn’t the mute that I use.

The tri-tone is a good mute which comes with three grades of dampening rings (this isn’t the technical term, but they are ring shaped and they absorb sound). This gives you a physical degree of control with the sound it produces. The more rings; the increasingly dampened the sound.

The problems are:

– It doesn’t fit in the large bell of my Calicchio.
– Even when I use it with my Callet (which it does fit) I don’t need that much control over a cup mute.
– It creates more resistance than it’s mute brothers (harmon and straight)

The mute I actually use is one that I previously thought was crap (getting to the point ). This assumption was made when I was younger and it was purely based on it’s aesthetic look supported by no practical experience.

The Humes and Berg Cup

Not too pretty but an extremely light weight and potent mute. Free blowing and stable in the trumpet bell.

These are the basic short list of properties I look for in my mutes. To put it another way I look for a mute that feels like it isn’t there but sound like it is. That’s the properties of the Humes and Berg Cup!!