Customized Mouthpiece Cup

Optimized to your needs and your horn; please select from the options below & don't hesitate to reach out if you have questions.

After you select from the drop-downs, please fill out the order comments with what you're looking for and we'll be in touch to make sure you're getting exactly what you want.

Since these are made-to-order we cannot offer refunds.  We do however include up to 3 PLA plastic prototypes with any order and can offer any subsequent builds at a 30% discount if for whatever reason the first try isn't everything you hoped it would be.

(If your order one or more PLA prototypes as stand-alones we'll deduct that from the price of the metal cup if you decide to order one)

Expect 4-6 weeks lead time.  Nylon ships in a week after the design is finalized.

Material:
Brass; a timeless classic.  Great balance of tone & response.

Titanium; half the weight, stronger, more corrosion resistant and very resonant, somewhat darker sound.

All other cups use the standard Giardinelli (American) thread junction and are compatible with your favorite rim from Houghton, Houser, Osmun, Marcinkiewicz, Moosewood, Atkinson, Stork, Alpine and probably others.  Our rims are perfectly taper matched to our cups and should offer, but if you have something you love your familiarity and comfort is going to out-weigh it.

Shank

American; if you don't know, this is probably the right one.

Alexander (aka "European"); optimized for the larger size and different taper of Alexander Mainz horns.

Seraphinoff & French are for historic instruments; if you're unsure just specify in the order details what horn & what mouthpieces (if any) are known to work with it).

Or anything else?  We know we can make Mellophone & Alto horn mouthpieces, and really nothing would stop us from making a giardinelli threaded trumpet cup for doublers - go wild and we'll let you know if it's possible.

Bore

Available 20 - 8; Smaller bores are more responsive and offer more resistance but may feel constricted or inflexible.  Large bores are less efficient but offer more flexibility.

Unlike traditional makers who just run a larger bore drill through an existing design we optimize both cup and back-bore tapers for each cup size.  This gives significantly better results for bores 22-18 and 10-8 than you may have had in the past.

Depth

Extra shallow to extra deep.  High horn players may want "Shallow" where low horn players or Kruspe players aiming for that "studio sound" may prefer "Deep".  Standard though offers a great balance in all ranges.  Use "Shallow" or "Extra Shallow" with a descant horn and "Extra Deep" to replicate the internal shape of historic hand horn and Viennese mouthpieces.

Blank:

Standard; 61mm long and the most common size for modern American mouthpieces.

Long: 63mm & short: 59mm can help fix intonation problems; if your horn and you disagree how wide an octave is we might be able to help.  Long blanks will have narrower octaves taming a sharp high register. Short blanks push the lows lower and the highs up a little.  And this of course is where the plastic prototypes come in handy.

Back-bore

Taper Match; the largest, most open backbore we offer aligns the shank tapers to those of the leadpipe for the most optimal transition from mouthpiece to horn.

Open; similar to historic designs this back-bore is more free blowing.

Standard; similar to most common mouthpieces.

Narrow; Similar to mouthpieces with an extended bore or constricted back-bore.

Note; we may not be able to match some of these options depending on the chosen depth and bore; generally deep cups on standard blanks can pose challenges for very open back-bore designs; there just isn't enough room for the tapers to grow naturally.  We'll work with you though to make sure your new mouthpiece is efficient and works with your horn and play style.