Theo Wanne Earth Alto Sax Mouthpiece: Professional Review

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One of the saxophone mouthpieces that I’ve had the pleasure of trying was the Theo Wanne Earth mouthpiece. I can tell you from experience that it is one of the best metal mouthpieces I’ve played. It produces a medium-bright sound, which makes it extremely versatile. 

Before I go into the features of this mouthpiece, I wanted to mention that you can check out a clip of me playing the mouthpiece at Rick Braun’s Rick’s Cafe Live with bass superstar, Darryl Williams (I start playing at about 21 minutes in).

Introducing the Theo Wanne Earth Alto Sax Mouthpiece–New Possibilities for All Saxophonists 

Earth Alto Sax Mouthpiece delivers a rich, warm sound that is both powerful and expressive.  The interior of the mouthpiece has a long roll over baffle and small chamber, with flat sidewalls, that creates a powerful projection and a focused sound that’s not too bright.

The Earth Mouthpiece–An Improvement on the Mantra Mouthpiece?

If you look closely at some pictures of the Earth mouthpiece, you will notice that some of the mouthpieces say: “Mantra 2:” 

I asked Theo Wanne about this and came to learn that the Earth mouthpiece is the new-and-improved version of Theo Wanne’s Mantra mouthpiece. 

I’ve owned the Mantra mouthpiece since 2018 and it has been my go-to mouthpiece ever since. In fact, I recorded my first album and my first Billboard-charting single with it. It produces a big sound that is not overly bright. 

The Mantra is described as being a truly versatile mouthpiece–just like the Earth. The only main differences is that Theo smoothed out the baffle shape on the Earth and removed the shark gills from the chamber.  

Having played both Mantra and Earth models mouthpieces, I can tell you that they sound pretty similar. 

Main Features of the Earth Alto Mouthpiece

Material

The mouthpiece is made out of brass with reticulated 24k gold plating. 

Baffle

The Theo Wanne Earth alto saxophone mouthpiece features a long roll over baffle and a small chamber that produces a modern sound that isn’t too bright, unlike high-baffle mouthpieces. The Earth Mouthpiece is the perfect blend of warmth and brightness, making it extremely versatile. Players can use it to play straight-ahead jazz or screaming rock and roll.  

Chamber

The mouthpiece features a small chamber with flat side walls, which results in a focused and projecting sound.

However, it’s important to note that small chamber mouthpieces can create some resistance or back pressure, which may take some getting used to. 

In my experience, this mouthpiece works best with thin-tipped reeds like D’addario Jazz Selects, Hemkes or Vandoren Blue Box Reeds. These reeds tend to vibrate very freely which helps offset the added resistance from the small chamber. 

It’s important to remember that resistance isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Some of the most popular alto mouthpieces, like the Beechler, have a great deal of resistance to them, but the tradeoff is that it helps you produce a beautiful full sound once you get used to them. 

However, I will say that in terms of resistance, the Earth metal alto piece has much less than the Mantra or the Beechler. 

Ligature

The mouthpiece includes a rail single screw ligature. You can pay extra for liberty ligature. However, I tried this mouthpiece with the stock ligature and I thought it worked great. 

Price

At only $275, the Theo Wanne earth is much more affordable than other saxophone mouthpieces in Theo’s line. But don’t think that the lower price point means a downgrade in quality. 

Theo mouthpiece has all the quality and all the sound you would expect from a Theo Wanne mouthpiece, but at more than half the price of his other (more expensive) mouthpieces.

The mouthpiece is part of Theo Wanne’s “elements series” which is supposedly the fundamental building blocks of one’s sound. In addition to the Earth, Theo also created the Fire and Water mouthpieces. All of the mouthpieces in Theo’s elements series are less than half the price of his other models. 

Conclusion

So if your looking for an alto saxophone mouthpiece that can play in any style, you ought to check out the Theo Wanne Earth mouthpiece.