[BluesmanLeFever]

I've got a Cannonball gold plated Knight Curved Soprano and I get by far the best sound out of it using Vandoren Green Box Java 3 reeds. Also using the Stock Mouthpiece, I've got a C* and a Bari 66 , but the stock Cannonball works the best.

I mainly play blues/rock Tenor but I like to bring out my Soprano every once in a while.

Anyone else here use Alto reeds on their soprano?

 

[sschafi1]

In the past I have used Bari reeds on my tenor, just for kicks. It worked pretty well, but only because I was out of tenor reeds, haha.

rule of thumb: use the reeds that go with their respective instrument. Thought it can be fun to experiment. Who knows, you might get a sound that you love!

 

[electricfigue]

Mike Ward told me about Ron Aspery from the UK band "Back Door" and his wonderful tone using alto reeds on a curved Buescher soprano, here you have four examples of that powerful tone. I love his playing.

 

[saxmaam]

Don't the alto reeds hang over the sides of the soprano mouthpiece?

 

[BluesmanLeFever]

Nope. They hang over the end , but not the sides.

 

[Jazz Is All]

I don't play soprano very often but yesterday morning on the spur of the moment I took mine with me because I had to drive my wife to her job in a beach town near here and I've always thought it would be fun to practice along the beachside promenade looking out at the early morning Mediterranean. Early in the morning it's very quiet there with the only people being a small number of joggers, bikers and skaters. So after finding a good place to practice I pulled out the reed holder and discovered to my chagrin that I had grabbed an alto one by mistake. Not having any soprano reeds the choice was either not play or try playing with an alto reed instead. Since I had heard of people playing tenor reeds on alto, I figured it might work and anyway what did I have to lose?

I play a Yamaha 4C and surprisingly, even though the reed (a Java 2.5) hung down much lower on the shank and overlapped the rails, and the tip curve of the reed was not the same as the tip of the mpc, it played pretty decently. Maybe almost as good as the Vandoren sop reeds I have played. I play tenor most all the time so have never developed an embouchere or chops on sop that are worth mentioning, but nonetheless I was able to play from low Bb up to D3 quite easily with a decent tone and intonation that was only slightly off. I have a Conn Chu Berry straight sop and the intonation is pretty good for a vintage sax, and even with the bigger reed it was pretty decent and controllable.


Not that I think making a practice of it is a great idea, but next time I'm going to play both the alto reed and a soprano one to see how they compare.

Anyone else ever had a similar experience?

 

[Dave Dolson]

I've experimented with all sorts of combinations in my time, but always return to the accepted practices - sop reeds with sop mouthpieces, etc. I have used clarinet reeds on sop pieces (especially Runyon soprano sax pieces because the ones I have are unusually narrow and a clarinet reed fits perfectly) but with the exception of the Runyons, always find that proper reeds matched to the size of horn works best. DAVE

 

[Jazz Is All]

Yeah, it was just a chance occurance, and I know that sop reeds are the only good choice. Nice to know that if you got in a jam you could get away with altos though.

 

[EZ]

I have not tried alto reeds on soprano, but I have played tenor reeds on alto - even set up alto mouthpieces specifically to be played with tenor reeds. It's particularly effective for playing loud with huge tip openings and still a warm tone. Killer on my JK straight alto. Makes the low end of the horn sound just HUGE. Top end can be a little tougher to pop.