Hey Trumpet Friends – If you like Bacon – well, the Upmute from Stomvi saved my Bacon �� – Recently I had to head up to Dallas for a road trip to visit family and I was stuck in a hotel due to the rainy weather and the Upmute really came to the rescue to allow me to keep my chops up while on the road. – I needed to be able to have “horn on face” time and didn’t want to piss off the folks in the adjoining rooms with my practice and the Upmute was awesome in cutting down the volume of my practice sessions without compromise to the way I was blowing the horn. I did not feel like the resistance of the Upmute was causing me to overblow in an un-natural way. I was able to play in a normal way and the resistance was very close to playing the trumpet without anything in the bell, so I didn’t feel like I was overblowing. Not only was the volume reduced without excessive resistance, the other thing that stood out was it was consistent through-out the registers from low to high. I’ve played other mutes in the past that made you feel like you were trying to play through a pillow to keep the volume down but causing you to overblow because the resistance was too much – but the folks at Stomvi have the real answer here and they created the best fit to deal with both the volume and keeping the resistance close to natural playing. Hats off to you guys at Stomvi for a great product and thanks again for saving my bacon!! Best, Jerrold