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I'm sure this has been brought up somewhere, but for those who are familiar with BOTH pieces, could you clue me in on the differences between the Stofer and Kanstul Geib pieces. I own a Kanstul Geib. Thanks.

Oh, and I'm not at all familiar with the Conn Geib, which I understand the Stofer one is close to.

Barry Guerrero

I have owned both, plus a Conn Geib.

Short answer is -- I'm not too sure what the difference are, but they are minor.

My understanding is this: they are both copies of different Conn Geib mouthpieces. There are VERY few Conn Geib's, and those that were made were likely one-offs, and not exactly identical to each other like modern computer-designed mouthpieces are. The Stofer Geib is a copy of the Conn Geib I used to own. As I understand it, the only difference is that Stofer's has a chisel edge to the end of the shank, and the Conn does not. Having owned both and played them side-by-side, I think the Conn had a warmth and sweetness to the sound that was very special. I used to know, but have forgotten, who owns the Conn Geib that Kanstul copied.

Out of the 3, I seem to recall liking the Kanstul the best. I sold it because I changed tubas and it was the wrong shank size for my new tuba. I never got around to replacing it.

The Conn Geib was a great mouthpiece, but made for another era. The small bore doesn't work as well with modern-sized tubas and playing styles. I think someone posted here about it before, that Arnold Jacobs had used an original Helleberg (same sort of small bore), and then he and the rest of the CSO section experimented with drilling out the bores to be larger... which paved the way for modern mouthpiece shapes and designs. I loved the sound of the Conn while sitting at home and playing. In a large ensemble though, it just fell short for me. Yes, it *could* work, but it took a LOT of work to make it work. But I'm lazy, and if I can get 95% of that sound with a lot less effort, then it's a no-brainer. The Conn sat in a shoebox for many months, so I decided to sell it.

Side note: there are many mouthpieces called "Geib" out there. Some are more true to form and match the shape of the Conn, and others are much more subtle and being called "Geib" is a bit questionable.

I still think it would be fun to accumulate every mouthpiece called "Geib", have them laser-measured (or whatever the process is for digitizing them for copying them), and comparing all of the various models to each other. Just think it would be interesting to see how much they deviate from the original Conn.

hmmmm, someone mentioned that the throat (bore) of the Stofer Geib was on the small side, which I assume corresponds more to the Conn Geib. To me, the Kanstul Geib plays like a BIG mouthpiece. On the rotary Neptune, it has a fat low register, but also a somewhat 'bright' sound. I'm mostly using the G&W Baer MMVI on that horn (whatever the stupid designation of that model is). These are all Euroshank.

When I owned the Besson 983 Eb, it came with a smaller Geib piece with the disignation "Dillon/Sheridan". I think it was a "3", but I'm not positive of that now. Anyway, it achieved the sort of 'sweet' sound that you described of your old Conn Geib. I'm wondering if that piece wasn't actually closer to your original Conn Geib (?). It was very much a small bowl m.p. that had a rounded rim that was comfortable, yet lent a great amount of agility - like a rounded rim that was less wide than normal. Something like that.

I'm mentioning all this because I'm wondering if I shouldn't try a smaller "Geib" on the Neptune.

Mouthpieces are weird animals because EVERYTHING about them affects the outcome. I tried a Laskey 28 G(eib) in Euro. In theory, it should have been a perfect match. In reality, I hated that piece.