Brass players looking for innovative new accessories for their instruments don’t typically have much to get excited about. However, Facet Mutes (facetmutes.com) is looking to change that with its attractive, handmade wooden mutes. The company started five years ago as a joint venture between teacher and student. Vice President of Sales and Marketing, Bruce Lee, was instructing his future business partner, Don Davis, in the finer points of the trumpet when the idea for Facet Mutes was formed. As Lee tells it, “Don and I discussed using mutes to improve his embouchure by helping him achieve better lip compression.” After trying out a succession of mutes, including some wooden models, the two decided to try their hands at manufacturing their own wooden mutes. “When we got to about the 47th prototype, we had it just about right,” said Lee. The fledgling business later expanded after catching the eye of current Facet Mutes President/CEO Daniel T. Parker. “Dan liked our mutes so much, he bought the company,” explained Lee.
Facet Mutes’ artisanal products offer great sound and road-ready durability. “One of the first questions people ask us is, ‘How durable are these mutes?’”, explained Lee. “One of our artists happens to be the trombonist for Steely Dan. They recently had a four-month tour, for which they did four to six stops a week, and our mutes were more than durable enough for that.” That durability is a feature of the company’s unique design methods. “The construction was originally based on a dodecahedron, which is a very strong structure,” said Lee. And Facet Mutes are made with some of the finest woods available. “The hardwoods we use are woods that are tried and true in the musical world,” said Lee. “We use Sitka spruce, Spanish cedar, lacewood, Limba wood, which is also known as Korina wood, maple, birch, mahogany, zebrawood, padauk, wenge and African rosewood, among others.”
For Lee and Parker, the NAMM show was great for business. “Dan and I have both been in the music industry for 40 years, so it’s not our first rodeo,” said Lee. “But NAMM is the biggest show on earth. There’s nowhere else that you’re going to get this amount of exposure. We’ve added four or five artists just this week!”