[Saxmusiclover]

Has anyone tried using bass clarinet reeds on tenor sax and vice-versa? Does it work?
Thanks!

 

[tictactux]

FWIW I'm using Alto Sax reeds on Alto Clarinet, and I heard that BC and TS reeds are roughly interchangeable. Check out http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/read.html?f=1&i=233494&t=233377...

 

[Saxmusiclover]

That's very helpful. Thanks!

 

[Roger Aldridge]

The tenor and bass clarinet reeds I use are not the same. That is, they have a different profile. I tried tenor reeds on my bass clarinet and did not like the results. As I recall, they were stuffy and had poor response. In a similar way, when I tried bass clarinet reeds on tenor I found them to not have as strong of a tonal core and as big of a sound as tenor reeds.

It's possible that this may vary by the brand of reed.

Roger

 

[stevesklar]

on a separate note, I sold a bunch of alto clarinet reeds to someone that was told from their teacher to use them for alto sax.
Personally I don't like the results such as Roger said, but I guess some people like it

 

[Swampcabbage]

I have some old brown box alto and bass clarinet reeds that work real well. But, it's mostly because of the cane. Some teahcers will tell you to go for the clarinet reeds if there is nothing else available. They can work okay, but I like the sax reeds better with (when it comes to modern cane).

 

[BobbyC]

I just got done using a Bass Clarinet Reed on my Tenor Sax.

I showed up at a rehearsal and forgot the bag with my reed guard.
It worked but had a tendancy to want to squeak on my Berg Larson 100/2 M.

The Bass Clarinet reed is a LaVoz Med. Soft and I normally use Rico Royal #3 tenor reeds.

So it can be done in an emergency.

 

[dirty]

I've tried various tenor reeds on bass clarinet and didn't find a huge difference. There was a time when I played blue box #3 on both tenor and bass clarinet. I ended up using them interchangeably just because I couldn't tell them apart!

I've tried jazz cut tenor reeds on bass clarinet, however, and I found that to be terrible. Buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.


I now use Vandoren #3.5 bass clarinet reeds and LaVoz Medium tenor reeds. I've tried slapping the bass reeds onto my Link 8 occaisionally, but I've never been able to get much sound/control out of it. Way too hard.

 

[Roger Aldridge]

Dirty,

I find this to be really interesting.

It's my understanding -- based on conversations with Guy Legere -- that Legere regular-cut reeds are based on Vandoren Traditional. I see a noticable difference between Legere tenor and bass clarinet reeds. The tenor reed has a significantly greater amount of "wood" in the heart than the bass clarinet reed. It's easy to see this difference as well as by touch.

I'm curious if this difference can be seen as easily between Vandoren Traditional tenor and bass clarinet reeds.

Roger

 

[Bootman]

I use both and never really had any problems with them other than the usual dodgy reed problems. Try drilling your Bass clarinet reed and see what happens. A plasticover tenor reed works well on my monster Bass clarinet mpcs of Selmer G and 105 Pillinger. This allows me to project over the band when needed and works well when the Bass is used as a solo instrument.

 

[dirty]

Dirty,

I find this to be really interesting.

It's my understanding -- based on conversations with Guy Legere -- that Legere regular-cut reeds are based on Vandoren Traditional. I see a noticable difference between Legere tenor and bass clarinet reeds. The tenor reed has a significantly greater amount of "wood" in the heart than the bass clarinet reed. It's easy to see this difference as well as by touch.

I'm curious if this difference can be seen as easily between Vandoren Traditional tenor and bass clarinet reeds.

Roger

I think we need to keep in mind that when I did that, I was a junior in high school. I'm recounting the experience as I remember it. I am definitely a much better player now than I was then, and I suspect the difference would be more apparent to me now. There probably is a fairly visible difference between the tenor and bass reeds, but I just didn't really care enough about it. It worked, I guess.

 

[Bootman]

I am not a fan of the Vandoren traditional reeds, they are never finished particularly well. The shoulders are almost always unbalanced and they generally don't respond well at all for me. The V-12 reeds work very nicely and I have gone to using Plasticovers on tenor due to longevity of reed issues. Basically my reeds last longer and I save money by not blowing a reed out every set of a gig.

 

[super20dan]

gotta love those plasticovers! i use them on every insterment -even eb clarinet