Trumpet Orchestral Cup Concepts

There are a few cup shapes that work well for “Classical”, or “Orchestral” or “Legit” trumpet playing.


More cup volume is desirable for this kind of playing, and bowl shaped cups give the right characteristic to the attack, and ring to the tone. You don’t want your legit cup to sound “smoky”. You want it to project with clarity, with a kind of rounded off brightness. There are a few different ways to get that.

Deep but with with a flatter botton, NOT "V" shaped gives a rich sound and nice ping.

Opening the shoulder of the throat smooths out the sound and makes it darker and works good with cups that are not super deep like a 3Coe 1.5C. Those actually have a more open throat already by the way.

you can try a more closed approach to the throat which might Give better ping and also better upper register support.

For orchetral playing, honestly, I've found that its best to simply alter an existing piece to dial in what someone wants. Its easy, cheap and subtle. You can get cheap pieces on mouthpiece express and and use them for blanks. works great. Yamaha pieces also make great blanks.

they are nice for using as underparts in screw-rim setups, which are way more popular lately as a way to dial in what works for Bb, C etc.