[Dan Verma]

This kind of jumped out at me. I've been playing sax since high school and I graduated high school in '69, so it's been a lot longer time that I care to think about. In all that time, I can't say I've ever dwelled much on parts 1 & 3 of your 3-part breakdown of saxophone playing.

Part 1 involves soaking the reed for a minute or two, then puting it on the mpc, & pushing the mpc on the neck of the horn (a total of maybe 3 minutes). And yes, on whatever day (possibly weeks ago) I pulled out 4 new reeds & played each a bit, I might have spent a few minutes adjusting a reed if it seemed to need it. Part 3 involves rinsing the reed, wiping it off on my shirt and placing it in the reed guard. Part 2 is another story: Practice sessions, band rehearsals, gigs, recording sessions, learning tunes, and so on.

So, parts 1 & 3 of your 3-part plan is somewhat less that 1% of the total time involved and part 2 is the other 99%+.

Dealing with cane reeds just isn't that big a deal, once you settle on a brand/size that suits you. What was it Dexter said? "Happiness is a wet Rico reed." I agree, except mine would be Rigotti.

Hi JL,

Happy New Year!

You are right, part 1 is very easy in terms of getting the reeds prepared by dipping them in water etc. What I have struggled with is not doing this very easy to follow process but getting the reeds to actually play.

I follow the ritual every night despite still playing on synthetic reeds.

Being a day off today, I have been able to experiment a bit more today and decided to use the Yamaha 4CM with a Vandoren blue box 1.5 reed on my Soprano. I flattened / levelled the table of the reed gently using the reed geek and dipped it in water for 5mins.

I now have a set up that is playing well with the cane reed.

I find it really surprising that my Yanagisawa metal 6 mouthpiece plays smoother with a Legere Signature 2.0 reed than the Yamaha 4CM with Vandoren 1.5!

Regardless, I am pleased that it is working and because I don’t play to emulate someone else’s sound but to get a sound out across majority of usable notes, I don’t really care about the finer aspects of the sound quality yet. Having said that, neither of the 2 set ups sound horrible, far from it, they are pleasing to the ear, at least my ear😂.

So, I will continue with the Yamaha set up on my soprano for a few days and see what results I get.

 

[Dan Verma]

Happy New Year, everyone!

 

[piggyjiggy984]

So for my opinion the Legere doesn’t give me the tone I want it gives a different sound. To me the reed makes me sound more like I’m playing a tin can. It can be easier but the trade off for me is sound.

Yeah I feel the same about synthetic reeds. They're easier in that I don't have to wet them and the moment I get it out it's ready to go. But something feels off about the color. It sounds gray to me. It just doesn't feel right playing on it. I keep it in case my cane reeds fail me or if I'm marching but I don't really touch it that much.

 

[Hoosier Ken]

Yeah I feel the same about synthetic reeds. They're easier in that I don't have to wet them and the moment I get it out it's ready to go. But something feels off about the color. It sounds gray to me. It just doesn't feel right playing on it. I keep it in case my cane reeds fail me or if I'm marching but I don't really touch it that much.

I wonder, you know how your voice sounds so much different when you hear it on a recording than what you think that it sounds like? Well at least mine does to me. If the reed being different makes it sound different in your head but it still sounds the same to everyone else? That might make for an interesting experiment.

 

[piggyjiggy984]

I wonder, you know how your voice sounds so much different when you hear it on a recording than what you think that it sounds like? Well at least mine does to me. If the reed being different makes it sound different in your head but it still sounds the same to everyone else? That might make for an interesting experiment.

That's interesting! I definitely want to test this out with my professor and see what he thinks. I wonder if certain sounds are like an acquired taste. I know I liked synthetic at one point or I wouldn't have used it as long as I did. Maybe me quitting it was enough to make me lose taste in the sound?

 

[Luigi82]

good morning, update if it may be of interest to anyone. I liked the natural reeds and continued to use them. I also got a legere american cut 2.25 ( I play with java 2.50 ), but I found it too soft and so I sent it back and I got a 2.50 that should arrive today. I think I will alternate them with natural reeds if the size is right. unfortunately I'm not capable of working with reeds and being at the beginning it's very frustrating to throw away a reed that sounded great and take another one from the same package that doesn't vibrate or has a closed sound and vibrates little.