Strachan mouthpieces haven’t been around for very long, but they already seem to be making waves in the horn-playing community.

Initially designed to work well for Geyer (the G-series) and Alexander (the M-series) instruments, his current range of mouthpieces has something for just about every type of French horn, including Kruspe horns, historic instruments, Wagner tubas, and descants!

New Models

Strachan recently released two new cup models, which Alex was kind enough to send me to try them out and offer feedback. Disclaimer: Alex did not ask me for this review, nor did I get paid to review these cups. Alex just makes great stuff and I am enough of a mouthpiece nerd that I am happy to do this to help spread the word about quality products.

CR Cup

The CR cup is part of Strachan’s “C-Series”. According to Alex, the C-Series is designed to “do-it-all” – they are made to work on a wide variety of horns and in a wide variety of musical situations.

There is currently only a single other C-Series cup, the CV, which is a hybrid of Strachan’s original C-cup, his GH cup, with some inspiration from Viennese funnel-shaped mouthpieces. While I haven’t played this cup (yet), I do hope to get my hands on one in the near future.

The CR, by contrast, is more of a “Chicago-inspired” cup. This means (generally) more of a bowl shape and less overall depth than the CV.

I found the CR to be very interesting in my Schmid Eb triple horn. Some of my thoughts about this cup:

• Very full, rich sound. At quiet dynamics with sustained chords it sounds and feels very “thick” and warm. 
• The low notes feel great – very edgy when pushed, and pleasantly resonant and “full” at quieter dynamics.
• Not especially brassy in general, but it can get very intense and “fiery” when pushed. However, it retains a depth and core in the sound even on a horn with a medium yellow-brass bell.
• Works well in a wide variety of ensembles. I played this in a 10-piece chamber ensemble (for an opera), a small orchestra (for a concert of video game music) and a medium-sized wind band and it worked well in all of them. The richness at quiet dynamics was very helpful in the smaller ensembles and the rich brassy sound was great in the bigger ensembles.

GA Cup

The GA cup is part of Strachan’s “G-Series”. These are mouthpieces designed to work primarily with Geyer-style (or similar) horns.

I have been using a G-Series cup (the GM) on my Schmid for several months, and I have been really enjoying it. The GM is a “tone color chameleon”, with a wide palette of sounds available at a given dynamic. It’s a really fun mouthpiece to play, and I have enjoyed it.

According to Strachan’s website, the GA is a kind of “hybrid” of several of the current G-Series cups.
Like the CR (and the GM), it’s impressive to me how flexible it is. Some of my notes about this cup:

• Feels like a slightly more “reined-in” version of the GM cup to me – there are a few more guardrails, but it’s still very flexible.
• A nice balance of resistance and support – easy to “float” the sound for delicate entrances without unwanted air in the sound or a delay in the note onset. This balance also applies to the slots – somehow this cup is both very flexible and nimble and also gives the note slots deep enough to feel confident in technical passages.
• I also used this one in the same large and small ensembles that I tried the CR cup. It was different – but also very usable. The extra resistance made some of the delicate attacks in the chamber ensemble more comfortable, and the little bit of extra color in the loud stuff seemed to help with projection of important lines (but I did love the sound of the CR on ff lines!)

Other Strachan Cups

I’ve been swapping between a couple of other Strachan cups over the past several months – the afore-mentioned GM cup and the Alexander-designed M cup.

Like I mentioned above, the GM is designed to be maximally flexible in tone color, and it has a very wide range of timbre options. For me (and my medium yellow-brass bell) it can get too edgy too quickly sometimes, but it does make for a great small-ensemble mouthpiece. You can control the color independently of the volume, which helps open up a range of sound options in a woodwind quintet or smaller ensemble.

The M cup is primarily designed for Alexander horns. Even though I don’t play an Alexander horn, I do have a couple of tuning bits for my Schmid – one with an American mouthpiece taper and one with the standard Euro taper – and so I was curious if there was any major difference between the GM and M. With the appropriate tuning bit, the M cup played very similarly to the GM cup. Maybe a little bit more thickness in the sound compared to the GM, but it’s very subtle.

Check Out Strachan Cups

If you’re in the market for a new cup, and you haven’t tried a Strachan cup, I think they are one of the most interesting horn cup makers out there now.

Reading his blog gives you some idea of the thought and research that has gone into his cup design (some interesting places to start include his entry about bore sizes (Bore size and it’s effects on the mouthpiece – Strachan Brass) and his post about mouthpiece weight (On the weight of things – Strachan Brass) ), and it seems like he is consistently iterating on his designs and methodology.

Check them out if you have mouthpiece needs!