Author: Max S-D
Date: 2019-10-04 10:36
I've been on the Concepts for a little while now and am quite happy with them. I picked one up on a whim when I ordered a Concept bass mouthpiece from Thomann (cheaper to have it shipped from Germany to California than to pay what US retailers seem to have to sell them for). I ended up not liking the bass mouthpiece, but the soprano mouthpiece had a nice, clear tone that really spoke to me.
The one I got was very resistant and I played it with a Blue Box 2.5. Once I paired it with the softer reed, I really started to hear and feel the potential there. It had a tone that was a bit "broader" than I might have wanted, but there was fantastic definition in the sound. I find some mouthpieces tend to be too dark for me and end up feeling a bit "woolly" around the edges for the way I like to play and sound. The concept kept a nice clarity throughout the range of the instrument that really appealed to me while inhabiting a nice middle-of-the-road position on the dark/bright continuum.
I saw Bob talking on this BBoard about the adjustments he makes to these and was interested, so I ordered another Concept with intention of sending it to him. That one was pretty different from the first one. I don't have tools to measure, but I would speculate that it had a smaller tip opening, since it played nicely with a V12 3 or a Legere Euro Sig 3.25, which gave the sound a bit more focus. I felt like that one had a better resistance for me than the first, so I sent the first to Bob to adjust.
According to the little note Bob included when he sent it back to me, he closed the tip of that one down to 1.10 mm (which is what it was supposed to be out of the box), thinned the rails, adjusted the baffle, cleaned up the facing and made some other little tweaks (can't find the note right now). Apparently the more resistant one was much too open.
Playing that one against the second Concept I bought, the Bob-improved mouthpiece has a bit more focus to the sound without losing the clarity or getting harsh or overly bright or swinging too far the other way and getting soft and overly dark. I'm pretty impressed and I might send my backup Concept to Bob soon.
I have no intention of putting any other mouthpiece manufacturer down, but I think I can buy two of these Concepts, have both refaced by Bob Bernardo and still have spent less or about the same on a mouthpiece and a good backup as I would have spent on some of the nicer boutique mouthpieces on the market, including some that I've purchased and enjoyed.
But if you're buying one, I'd advise trying a few. The two I got were drastically different from one another, though neither played badly, to be fair.
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The Clarinet BBoard
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