You probably know the feeling: you try a mouthpiece and it's almost right. The embouchure feels comfortable, the high register comes more easily than usual – but the sound is too bright for you. Or the other way round: the sound is exactly what you want, but after the third movement the rim sits on your lip like an edge. So you keep looking. Next mouthpiece, next compromise.
The reason is simple. A conventional mouthpiece is a single piece of metal, and it holds two completely different questions that you can only answer together: How does it feel? And how does it sound?
Two parts, two jobs
The rim is the contact surface. Its width, contour and edge sharpness decide how long you can play, how secure your slurs are and how freely you can move between registers. The rim is the question of comfort – and your lip answers it, not your ear.
The eight FENIX rim profiles: rim widths from 4.8 to 6.2 mm, plus different contours and edge sharpness.
The cup – the body, in FENIX terms – is the sound chamber. Depth, shape and bore determine whether your tone is focused and projecting or soft and broad, how much resistance you feel and how the instrument responds across the registers. The body is the question of sound, and you answer it together with your instrument and the music you play.
The six cup shapes A to F in cross-section – from deep and funnel-shaped to shallow and bowl-shaped.
In a one-piece mouthpiece, these two answers are welded together for good. Change one and you inevitably change the other too. That's exactly where the search begins – the one many of us have been documenting in our mouthpiece drawer for years.
What happens when you separate the two
FENIX makes mouthpieces from two parts that you combine freely within one size: a body for the sound, a rim for the feel. The two are screwed together and then sit so precisely that you don't notice the joint while playing.
The practical effect is the interesting part. You can keep your usual rim and still screw on a different body for big band than for the church brass choir on Sunday. Your embouchure stays where it is – only the sound chamber changes. And the other way round: you like your sound, but your lip gives up after two hours? Then you swap the rim and leave the sound untouched.
18 bodies and 27 rims give you 99 ready-to-play combinations, because body and rim have to be the same size. In practice you need two or three of them – but exactly the two or three that suit you.
How to get started
A good start doesn't mean changing everything at once. Go about it in this order:
- Start with the rim. First find the contact surface that still feels good after a long rehearsal. Everything else builds on that.
- Then choose the body for your main purpose. What do you play most often? That's what your first body should be based on, not the one-off gig.
- Add to it later. Once your first setup is in place, a second sound character only costs you one body – not a complete new mouthpiece.
- Give yourself two weeks. A change always feels strange on the first day. Judge it once your embouchure has settled in.
And the point you won't find in any table: bring your own instrument. A mouthpiece isn't a property in itself – it's always the combination of you, the mouthpiece and the horn.
What you get from us
We've taken the complete FENIX trumpet range into stock – all 18 bodies and all 27 rims, every part available individually.
- Finish: FENIX Golden Coating, gold-plated
- Shank: standard trumpet shank
- Body: €119
- Rim: €69
The names are quick to read: a Body III-C has cup size III with cup shape C, a Rim M-III is rim contour M in size III. You combine them freely within the same size: a body III only fits a rim III.
Which combination suits you? The FENIX mouthpiece finder puts together body and rim for you in four steps – based on your trumpet, how you play and your current mouthpiece. You can find all parts in the collection FENIX rims & bodies.
If you're unsure, ask us
The honest answer to "Which mouthpiece is right for me?" is: it depends. On your instrument, on your repertoire, on what you've played so far and why it didn't quite fit.
That's exactly what we love to talk about. Write and tell us what you play and where you're stuck – and we'll find the starting point together. And the beauty of a two-piece mouthpiece: if we get it wrong, we only correct one half.
