I like my my sound on it and so do the people who call me to play it. With the 321, I've had great results sound wise with the same mouthpiece I play on large tenor. I'm not looking to size up to a mouthpiece that a full-time dedicated euphonium player might choose to match with a larger instrument. I do a lot of pit orchestra work, so that's where 95% of my euphonium playing happens which admittedly isn't that frequent. You can get a small shank mouthpiece with a really large (1.5G-ish or even larger) rim and cup, but the throat and backbore can only get so large before you run out of metal. It's not so much a matter of rim/cup size as it is a matter of throat and backbore. The 321 is quite a small euphonium, so I'm not really sure how much bigger you can go on the mouthpiece (vs readily available small shank pieces like Schilke 51D or Wick 4AY) before winding up with something unbalanced. If anyone has a good lacquer 321 they want to swap for a Wessex Dolce (in need of polishing…) let me know. I’ve always felt the compensating euphs were stuffy down low (including all the nice ones). It’d be perfect with the pitch finder and 5th valve. It’s also super stuffy in the compensating range. I have a Wessex Dolce that is just not cutting it pitch wise (the 321s ive played have been much better). On the way back from my last euph gig I resolved to do just this. In my opinion, it turns the YEP-321 into a lean, mean performance machine. A person might need to go through a European retailer to get a YEP-621 receiver/leadpipe.īassclef.if you can get a mouthpiece receiver/leadpipe from a YEP-621, you will be set.

Availability of parts for Yamaha instruments can be unpredictable. It looks like those horns are available in Europe. I guess there was not much of a market for them here. I remember seeing three or four of those horns here in the states back in the 1990s, but then they vanished. Thanks Jim.yes, the YEP-621 was the model I was thinking of.

A main tuning slide trigger (for tuning) of some kind is also a great upgrade.

Add the plug-in 5th valve, and those horns compete quite well with the compensating models. Ymaha sells the 621 (large shank, non-compensating) leadpipes and it's an easy job for a good repair person to swap it for the standard pipe. Something about the large receiver opening into a smaller leadpipe made it tough to control the PP dynamics. I've also played some where just the receiver was changed on the existing leadpipe, and they played OK, but I found them hard to play soft on. I used to own a 321 with a Yamaha 621 leadpipe on it - great improvement.

Yamaha yep 321