The DYNA-FLOW® trumpet mouthpieces are designed by trumpet player and teacher Mark Van Cleave. Mark studied instrument and mouthpiece design while studying trumpet with his teacher and mentor Jerry Franks starting in the late '70's. Jerry was a clinician for the C.G. Conn company in their glory years and was instrumental in many of their most successful trumpet designs. Jerry eventually became a clinician for Bach where he continued to influence many design aspects.
Jerry was very knowledgeable about not only the physical aspects of trumpet and mouthpiece design, but also the acoustic aspects. The final designs always have to have a balance of fit and performance.
Mark got his first hands on training while working at the Vincent Bach factory in the early 1980's. One of his first duties was to recapture the original Vincent Bach mouthpiece designs. Over the years, the original shaped cutting tools used (at that time) to create the Bach trumpet mouthpieces would become dull and then would be sent for sharpening. This was repeated over and over until a new cutting tool was needed. They would then copy the OLD tool that had been re-sharpened over and over to create the new tool. As you can guess, this resulted in the loss of the original Vincent Bach designs. The 7C models were actually BIGGER than the 3C when Mark arrived.
Throughout this process, Mark learned much about what made a mouthpiece play well and what aspects of the design had little or no real effect upon the playability of the mouthpiece. Once these critical aspects of mouthpiece design were learned, a few prototypes were made and passed around for testing. Nobody would give the prototypes back!
Mark then started working with Bill Ratzenberger. Bill designed the original Jet-Tone mouthpieces that were made famous by players such as Maynard Ferguson, Bill Chase, Doc Severinsen, Al Hirt, Bobby Hackett, and many more. While working with Bill, Mark came up with some very cutting edge designs that were eventually prototyped.
One of Mark's original hand cut prototypes from the early 1990's.
The first CNC produced model 2006.
The first (2008) DYNA-FLOW® 3 piece with Black Chrome on Throat.
After leaving Bach, Mark continued to work with famous mouthpiece maker Bill Ratzenberger and hit the road playing lead trumpet with many shows using the original prototype mouthpieces. During this time, Bill passed away and his business and equipment were eventually sold ...INCUDING MARK'S ORIGNAL DESIGNS. Mark played these original prototypes for many years until they wore out.
Now with the aid of 3D reverse engineering scanners and CNC lathes, it has been possible to recreate Mark's original designs once again.
With the almost infinite amount of design and manufacturing accuracy that is available with modern CAD designing programs and CNC lathes, Mark has been able to take the original design concepts and tweak/improve them from the originals. This new DYNA-FLOW® series has finally come full circle where FORM finally meets FUNCTION for trumpet players.
Over the years, almost every player that had the opportunity to try one of Mark's prototypes asked to be put on "the list" as soon as they were available...
...Now the long wait is over.
