Top Tips for Choosing the Right Trumpet Mouthpiece Booster

As self-improvement is an ongoing process for trumpet players, they tend to search various helpful tricks, which can help them elevate their skills and playing style. The trumpet is a powerful instrument used across various musical genres, from jazz to pop. However, to reveal its full potential and achieve the desired musical impact on listeners, it’s crucial to have good sound quality with a correct amount of the core and correct pitch. One of the devices frequently used by trumpet players for this purpose is the booster. By adding a weight to the mouthpiece, boosters can improve sound quality, control, and endurance. However, choosing the right trumpet mouthpiece booster isn’t a simple task. In this article, we’ll share some tips to help you select the right mouthpiece booster for your playing style and needs.

1. Understand how the Mouthpiece Booster Works

Before you start surfing on the internet and looking for boosters, you should understand what exactly this device can do and how it affects your playing. Typically made of brass, copper, or other metals, boosters are designed to attach to your trumpet mouthpiece and add the weight to it. By adding the weight, boosters stabilize vibrations, and thus allow musicians to produce a more centered and controlled sound. With boosters, all vibrations are preserved as they travel through the instrument until they come out from its bell.

When speaking about boosters from the technical perspective, the additional weight impacts sound waves and the way they are conducted through the trumpet. With a booster, musicians achieve enhanced projection and better resonance. Players may also notice increased stamina during long playing sessions.

You may have heard that great trumpet players don’t change the position during the whole performance. It means they don’t raise the trumpet higher when they take high notes. This can be achieved when all the trumpet parts function well. The more you preserve vibrations going through the instrument, the clearer the result you get. In this context, boosters hold your mouthpiece in place, preventing it from moving around too much. When you take the trumpet to your face, the mouthpiece feels stable and secure, so you don’t have to move your trumpet up or down. With boosters, you can have more control in higher registers and enhance tone consistency.

2. Select the Booster according to Your Playing Style

Personal style and genre play a significant role when selecting a trumpet mouthpiece booster. Each playing style has its own unique vibe, while musicians have their individual approach to the trumpet. Various models of boosters can affect how the instrument feels and sounds in your hands in different ways.

Classical Players

For classical music, you may want a warm, rich tone with smooth transitions between notes. Heavy mouthpiece boosters can help produce a fuller, more rounded sound. They are also helpful if you want to maintain better tonal control when playing long, lyrical phrases.

Jazz and Pop Players

Musicians playing jazz, pop, or rock, may like light boosters, which will help them achieve sharp attacks and better flexibility in higher registers. Lighter boosters don’t weigh down playing. They help your trumpet sound brighter by making the tone more piercing.

3. Consider the Weight of the Booster

On the market today, you can find mouthpiece boosters available in various weights. This characteristic affects the projection, the tone, and playability of the instrument.

Lightweight Boosters

With the weight around 30 grams, they provide players with better flexibility and responsiveness. This is the best starting point for musicians who have never used boosters before. Lightweight boosters make the playing more stable with better endurance.

Medium-Weight Boosters

Weighing approximately 60–100 grams, medium boosters provide a perfect balance between control and tone. These devices are valued by players who are interested in more noticeable improvement in sound projection. The medium weight makes higher notes more stable as well as help achieve fuller sound across all registers.

Heavy Boosters

With the weight over 100 grams, heavy boosters provide maximum tonal depth and control. Note that these models make your instrument feel more resistant, which can be rather challenging for musicians who rely on speed and flexibility. Heavy boosters are perfect for orchestral and big band settings.

4. Check Compatibility with Your Mouthpiece

Before buying a booster, check the dimensions and design of your mouthpiece and read the product description on the website from which you’re going to buy a booster. Your device should fit securely and firmly on the mouthpiece without slipping around. Otherwise, you won’t experience the stable feeling of your mouthpiece. Moreover, loose boosters can spoil your performance and cause damage to your mouthpiece. Search for boosters that fit well to the variety of the most popular brands’ mouthpieces. 

5. Select the Correct Material and Finish

Today, boosters are made from different materials, each provides its own features. One of the most common materials used for trumpet mouthpiece boosters is brass. These devices perfectly complement classical playing styles, but are also frequently used for jazz and commercial music. There are also boosters made from copper, which are heavier and denser, and thus they help add more resonance and depth to the sound. You can also buy mouthpiece boosters with a nickel-plated finish, matte antique bronze lacquer, silver, gold and even black editions, which make the boosters more durable and create an appealing aesthetics.

6. Explore the Feedback Before You Buy the Booster

Before you buy a specific trumpet mouthpiece booster, explore the feedback on it. Watch detailed reviews of the product by musicians who can demonstrate you how the device works in practice. Also, ensure you have no issues with installation and removal. For this purpose, manufacturers typically provide a guide on how to place the booster and fix it on your mouthpiece.

If possible, try various models of boosters out for different mouthpieces. By testing boosters with your instrument, you can have the clear comparison and understand how the material and weight affect your playing.

What are the Benefits of KGUmusic Boosters?

Finally, we want to share some facts about boosters designed by our company. We offer boosters made from raw brass, silver, gold, antique bronze lacquer, matte bronze lacquer and black editions. They consist of two parts: a part with a screw thread and an open end, and a part of a slightly conical shape, designed to fit the mouthpiece.

To assemble the booster, you need to place the part with a more open end on the part of a conical shape and screw it in that part. Then you insert the mouthpiece into the booster until it clicks. After that, you need to unscrew the booster, reverse the conical part in the right position and screw it onto the mouthpiece until it sits firmly on it.

KGUmusic boosters are available in a few shapes. Featuring an affordable price, our devices are compatible with a range of popular mouthpieces: Bach, Schilke, Jet-Tone, Olds, Reeves, Yamaha, Getzen, and others.

How the KGUmusic Boosters Affect the Sound of your Trumpet?

Boosters are awesome tools for musicians who want to add some weight to their mouthpiece. Instead of using the heavier mouthpiece, they can simply use a booster. Thus, in their reviews, musicians admit that KGUmusic boosters help simulate the feel of a heavyweight or megatone mouthpiece. The result may vary depending on the mouthpiece model you use.

In case you expect huge alterations, you should lower your expectations as boosters don’t hugely change the sound, however they add a bit of a core and strength to the sound, making it more full-bodied. You may notice that boosters can shave off a couple of highest overtones, however they also help you produce correct sound which is not over-bright or shrill. In addition to that, boosters help the pitch sit where it’s exactly needed, making your sound more accurate.

The way they work makes them ideal solutions for musicians playing in big bands or orchestras, especially for those who do this for the first time.

Conclusion

Choosing the right trumpet mouthpiece booster is a huge step towards the improvement of your playing technique. When selecting the booster, it’s important to understand how it works, choose the model that fits your genre, do the research and study the reviews, and finally try different boosters to see how weights and materials affect the feeling. With the right mouthpiece booster, you will produce better full-body sounds with accurate pitch. This will help you achieve your musical goals and make the whole process of playing and creating music more enjoyable.

Would you like to learn more tips on how to improve your sound? Then check out our article on how to improve your brass instrument technique.