Here’s another Theo Wanne tenor saxophone mouthpiece for you to check out. This is a hard rubber version of the Gaia tenor saxophone mouthpiece. The Gaia is said to be a run at the florida link type concept. It has a medium baffle that does indeed remind me of my florida links. The difference hear is in the chamber. The Gaia looks to have a much larger chamber than the florida links I have owned. It looks closer in size to my NY links. This mouthpiece is a .110 tip opening (8). I found this to be one of the nicest darker mouthpieces I have tried. It had a nice fat dark sound that was lush sounding. The edges of the tone seemed to have a rounded quality to them. I noticed this with the metal Gaia I tried also.
Theo Wanne Hard Rubber Gaia Tenor Saxophone Mouthpiece
This Gaia tenor mouthpiece had some nice volume to it without getting brighter. Many mouthpieces that can play really loud get increasingly brighter as you blow. That can be a good thing if you like that or a bad thing if you don’t. To me, this mouthpiece could get quite loud and full sounding but still retained that dark robust sound. I really loved that. The low notes were full and round sounding and sounded amazing when I sub-toned. Nice and lush sounding like I like them. The high notes were fat and full sounding. I could imagine playing classical music with this piece because it sounded so pretty to me.
The other thing that struck me about this mouthpiece, as well as the other Gaia’s I have tried, is how smooth the transition between notes are. Playing scales and fast runs is as smooth as butter and the notes are amazingly even through out the range of the horn. That type of response just makes me want to play faster and faster.
Like all of Theo Wanne’s mouthpieces, this one looked great and was a joy to play. Thank you so much to Theo and his co-workers over there at Theo Wanne mouthpieces for letting me review all of these great mouthpieces. For more information on the Gaia tenor sax mouthpiece visit www.theowanne.com .
Listen to the sound clip below and let me know what you think. Enjoy!
About Steve
compare this mpc with mouthpiece cafe bergonzi supreme,which one you prefer more?(despite the price)
They are about the same for me. I didn’t feel one was better than the other. I didn’t buy either one although they are very good pieces.
Hello, Neff! What can you say about the difference between HR Gaia and Drake Son of Slant tenor? Which is closer to Slant Signature Otto Link?
Man, I’m not sure how much i can help without having them both together to play. I wrote everything down I could think of in the review. I try so many mouthpieces that the specifics are hard to remember. All I can say is that I really dug both. I think I dug the Drake SOS more but that was just because the Gaia was an 8 (.110 tip) and was bigger than I liked. I would have to play a 7* to really be able to pick and judge the differences between the two. Either one is a great mouthpiece in my opinion. Try them and choose for yourself if you can. Steve
Thank you Steve (sorry, I confused your name)! You did a great job! Nikolay