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PI##ed Off, My Guardala locked up on a gig

10K views 54 replies 24 participants last post by  Woody Reed 
#1 ·
I went to a casual jam here in town and thought I'd take my Guardala. It locked up, I was switching reeds all first set and finally got it to play with a Rico Plasticover reed. Lesson is always take your "used to" piece when you go new. Bummer,i like that tone alot. K
 
#2 ·
A mouthpiece locked up?

Me thinks you need a bit harder reed.
 
#3 ·
...i really have *** moments sometimes with the guardala....i cant figure it out..... i do however make sure i have a soak jar for reeds when i take out the DG...and it always gets fixed with the first reed swap.... ive also found putting the lig pretty far down on the reed help it to open up....
 
#5 ·
You really should consider going up a reed strength or two if you're closing it up. Yeah, a fresh reed (or one just out of the case) tends to play a little stiffer at first, but won't stay that way long and it could be why you're freezing on the Guardala and swapping reeds seems to help for a short time.
 
#6 ·
I didn't mean closing it off. I meant that you'd put whatever reed on it and get NOTHING. I always have a reed case with 10 reeds and I tryed most of them as I was waiting to solo after the singer. Guardalas are the only pieces I've had this prob with. Same thing happened years ago with a Super King. Plays and warms up great and then around 5 or 6 oclock when the fog breeze starts up you can put on a reed and blow your brains out. You don't get a normal tone. You have to really work to get the read to ever sound stuffy. Only thing that works is to either go to a plastic kind of reed or take a reed that barely plays and then back it off the tip. whatever, I can send it back to WW and BWs. Just like the tone. I think its the thin rails. I have a Van T 75 or a John thomas HR that would have worked fine but I expected a loud blues jam so I went "loud". Live and learn. K
 
#8 ·
Hmmm.... Maybe needs to have one of the mouthpiece guru's look at it. Perhaps the rails aren't quite right. You're also making me wonder if the reeds aren't too hard for it or the facing isn't flat.

Same tip opening as your others?
 
#10 ·
I would suspect the table---either of the Guardala or the other mouthpiece the reeds have been played on. Some mouthpiece makers make the table slightly concave from left to right, others make the table perfectly flat. Reeds that have been played on the concave table mouthpiece for any length of time will not work on the flat table mouthpiece because the back of the reed has conformed to that shape.
 
#11 ·
...now that makes sense!!! i know ive asked this before..as this is a new concept for me.....which known mouthpieces have a concave table???
 
#12 ·
This is so weird. This happened recently to me as well on my "Studio". I finally broke out a brand new reed and bingo played like a dream the last two sets.

I am finding the DG mpcs. are extremely unyielding when it comes to reed placement, ligature placement, softness of a used reed etc...but once its set up it plays incredibly well.

I think sending it out to have the table flattened might make a huge difference because my Peter Ponzol works each and every time and I know they are flat.

Unfortunately the Ponzols do not give me the "grit" I like to hear.

B
 
#13 ·
...are we saying that the Guardalas have a concave table???
 
#14 ·
That I am not sure of but there seems to be some consensus that the tables are not completely flat. Now the question is whether this is something that should be "corrected" or is it part and partial the design which gives it grittiness? B
 
#17 ·
I've had this kind of problem with other mpcs, but never on my Guardala Crescent. Sounds like reed warpage, which can be more problematic when the mpc table isn't flat. I know the "pop test" isn't universally accepted as useful on this forum, but did you try it to see if your reed and mpc were sealing?

If the reed started off fine and later failed the test, I'd ditch the reed. If this keeps happening on nearly every reed, ditch the mpc.
 
#19 ·
Keith, these symptoms really sound exactly like a convexed table. I thought these WWBW Guardalas were CNC machined, though. Every table I have seen with this problem has been hand finished (or refaced), worn out, or a Berg. Don't know what degree of hand work these go through, TBH. Are there milling marks on the table and facing, or is it smooth? Is there pitting? JTB's notion about the cork is something worth looking at as well.

If the reed started off fine and later failed the test, I'd ditch the reed. If this keeps happening on nearly every reed, ditch the mpc.
Sound advice.
 
#24 ·
A few thoughts
1. Could be your reed
2. Slight chance it also could be your reed.
3. It could also probably have something to do with the reed
4. Might be a reed issue.
5. Lastly, sounds like the reed.

check this thing out. Got it an NAMM this year and it's amazing. Best table flattening tool I've ever used. And I hate working on reeds. The tables have to be flat.

http://reedgeek.com/
 
#25 ·
I got it from WW and BWs on friday and went to the jam on saturday. I don't think it was a reed issue since I had 11 reeds there all broken in and ready to go in my reed case and the only one that worked was a plasticover. I'm not going to reface a piece I just got ?? Its going back. I don't think it is a cork issue since my metal V 16 and HR John Thomas work fine on the cork. I like the tone, I've owned 2 superkings, two kings and two mbIIs and I alway seem to have a "facing " problem if not intially , then later on. My favorite piece of all of mine was a Superking years ago on my The Martin. Played it at lots of gigs. Great tone. Then reeds got harder and harder to play? So, I gave up. I did go the refacing route but the pieces didn't play anybetter when I got them back? Anyway, its going back. It was a "used" one from WW and BWs for 202.00 so maybe I should have ponied up the 290 or so for a new one? K
 
#26 ·
I got it from WW and BWs on friday and went to the jam on saturday...............I had 11 reeds there all broken in and ready to go in my reed case and the only one that worked was a plasticover.
So, 11 reeds that were broken in on a different mouthpiece - there's your problem. And all of the other DG's that you had the same 'facing problem' with, did you also use reeds broken in on other mouthpieces on those?

It's not very likely that you've now had 7 Guardala's with facing problems, far more likely to be reed related problems.
 
#29 ·
An interesting experiment would be to find 3 reeds that play well and respond on two different mouthpieces right out of the box playing no more than a scale up and down the range of the sax . Then play one reed exclusively on mouthpiece A for two weeks, another reed exclusively on mouthpiece B for two weeks, and leave the the "control" reed unplayed. After the two weeks are up, then play each mouthpiece with all 3 reeds again to compare.
 
#30 ·
...im convinced...

getting another DG or flattening the table is not the answer

i think the reed geek will be a constant companion to my guardala.....
 
#37 ·
.....:toothy7::toothy7::eek:ccasion::eek:ccasion::confused::confused::blob::blob::blankmea::blankmea::blankmea::blankmea:
 
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