[RREXX]

Recently I bought what at first I thought to be the holy grail of reeds...

It was a box of (5) Vandoren Java Red 2.5s, and first thing I did was test the box to see which ones were good and which ones were not etc...

To my shock it seemed the entire box played good...like not one reed did I think wasn’t good enough for me to play on comfortably.

Now here’s the issue that I have, and have had with almost every reed ever.

I managed to blow through 2 reeds in the span of about 3 hours, and another reed in about 4 hours of play....

Am I just that hard in my reeds? Do I need to go up in strengths? Is it just the reeds I choose? Do I just have the worst luck with reeds?

Let me know what you guys think because reeds are too expensive to go through a box of 5 in less than a week.

 

[blaine hoopes]

I'm an old guy and have been dealing with reeds for 50 years. In my experience, a reed that plays easily right out of the box will be too soft after an hour of playing. I always buy reeds that feel too stiff out to the box. I wet them, play on them for 15 minutes max and put them in a reed holder to dry out. (I know there are lots of methods - this is what works for me). Then I finish my playing for that day on one of my old reeds.

Next day I play the reed a bit longer but still put it away after a bit. If it still feels really stiff or unbalanced, I will do a little balancing on it but usually I wait for day three.

Day three is when I play it a bit more and balance it out and maybe thin it a bit if it's still too stiff.

My reeds will last me weeks of hard play before they get soft --- and I clip them back a little when they start to feel too soft. I can usually clip them back two or three times. (I'm talking a tiny sliver clipped off the tip).

I've had a lot of years of experimenting on reeds so I can pretty much carve a reed by eye with a pocket knife and get it to play well. I also have an old Reed Wizard which is really useful for making sure both sides of the reed are the same (I still do a lot of work by hand with a knife though).

Here's a 50 year old Brown Box Rico that was chipped/cracked and clipped very far back (next to a newer reed for reference) and I re-carved it - it plays as well or better than any new reed I have. NOTE: the new(er) reed also shows the marks from my balancing it as it was a bit too stiff but plays very well now:

 

[hnthere]

I'm an old guy too, but have only been dealing with reeds for 4 years. I just started with a box of 2-1/2 Java Red reeds for my new tenor and followed a system sort of like Blaine's - soaking them in water and playing each only 5 minutes the first day, 10 on the second, 15 the 3rd and now play each for at least 20 minutes at a time. But I have my limits and don't play all on the same day anymore.

I had noticed that the two that were clearly the best on Day 1 no longer stand out from the pack after being played 4-5 times. Even those seemed too hard, but the others might have played even harder.

A complicating factor is that this is my first week playing a tenor and it isn't just the reeds that are changing with use. I think I was as awful the first day on tenor as I had been when I started on alto four years ago. I'm guessing that I've made at least as much progress in a week with the tenor as I had made in a year or more with the alto.

 

[1saxman]

Recently I bought what at first I thought to be the holy grail of reeds...

It was a box of (5) Vandoren Java Red 2.5s, and first thing I did was test the box to see which ones were good and which ones were not etc...

To my shock it seemed the entire box played good...like not one reed did I think wasn't good enough for me to play on comfortably.

Now here's the issue that I have, and have had with almost every reed ever.

I managed to blow through 2 reeds in the span of about 3 hours, and another reed in about 4 hours of play....

Am I just that hard in my reeds? Do I need to go up in strengths? Is it just the reeds I choose? Do I just have the worst luck with reeds?

Let me know what you guys think because reeds are too expensive to go through a box of 5 in less than a week.

You are playing reeds that you have already surpassed in embouchure strength. Get the next step harder. Five good reeds will last five months of practice and a gig here and there.

 

[Reedscraper]

Go up a strength to Java 3. There should be some resistance in the low notes. Play 5-10 minutes (all 5 reeds), day 3 sand the flat side on fine sandpaper (not the tip!)and play them, 4th day do reed balance/resistance work with a reed knife, Reed Geek or whatever. You will find that after 4 days the reeds have changed-some worse, some better. Most important though, rotate your reeds every day and continue to sand the back flat and adjust them.

 

[skeller047]

I agree with what everyone is saying - go up in strength to a 3, and adjust to your liking. However, there is an exception - I have found that breaking reeds in by playing 5 minutes a day for 3-4 days is a waste of time and might ruin the reed.

I think that what is happening to you is that the reeds are somewhat unbalanced - that means harder on one side than the other. All reeds are a little bit off, side to side, it's just the nature of nature - cane develops in response to its environment, and one side of the cane stalk will have stiffer fibers than the other. So the reeds will mirror that.

By playing them that way, you put a small twisting force on the reed and it breaks the fibers down a little, and the reed gets softer and doesn't sound as good. So I recommend adjusting the reed right away as soon as you take it out of the box, paying attention to the side to side balance. Then the reed will last a good long time and keep playing well.

 

[JL]

To my shock it seemed the entire box played good...like not one reed did I think wasn't good enough for me to play on comfortably.

Now here's the issue that I have, and have had with almost every reed ever.

I managed to blow through 2 reeds in the span of about 3 hours, and another reed in about 4 hours of play....

This is something of a mystery to me. I have to say that in close to 50 years of playing, I've never had a reed die out in only 3 hours. I've had plenty of reeds that didn't play well, even with some adjustment, and then I might toss it. But all the reeds that I kept playing lasted a lot longer than 3 hours. Those who are advising you to move up from the 2.5 to 3 reeds might be right, but there really is no reason why the 2.5 reeds should die so quickly. It seems something strange is going on, but I have no idea what it could be.

Maybe Steve is on to something regarding balancing the reed from side to side. But I'm sure I've played reeds that were out of balance, yet they didn't die so quickly. I guess if this happened to me, I'd be looking for a different brand of reed.

p.s. Now that I've said all of that, just watch, probably next week a reed fresh from the box will die during its first practice session... Reeds are mysterious.

 

[Mando]

Go up a strength to Java 3. There should be some resistance in the low notes. Play 5-10 minutes (all 5 reeds), day 3 sand the flat side on fine sandpaper (not the tip!)and play them, 4th day do reed balance/resistance work with a reed knife, Reed Geek or whatever. You will find that after 4 days the reeds have changed-some worse, some better. Most important though, rotate your reeds every day and continue to sand the back flat and adjust them.

Wonder how you define "fine sandpaper"? I'd like to try your idea, but I have "fine" sandpaper ranging from 220 to 2000 in my workroom.

 

[blaine hoopes]

What I've never liked about sandpaper is it almost always makes a surface that is NOT flat due to the paper bunching up on the leading edge (I suppose if you use spray glue to stick it to the glass - but even then ...) If you slide something along a piece of sandpaper on glass, I can pretty much guarantee you that it will be a little convex rather than flat with the edges getting sanded more than the center.

You can buy a set of glass nail files (not a glued on abrasive, the surface has been chemically etched) for less than $10 and the wide ones make a nice surface if you want to flatten the bottom of a reed.

 

[skeller047]

Wonder how you define "fine sandpaper"? I'd like to try your idea, but I have "fine" sandpaper ranging from 220 to 2000 in my workroom.

For reed work, either 320 or 400 is perfect. That's for the vamp.

I don't recommend sanding the back of the reed; instead, use a scraping tool. A lathe tool bit (3/8" or 1/4") is great, about $5 on Amazon (or $70+ for a Reed Geek). Another option is a 3 sided scraper, Music Medic sells one for around $15. Or a straight edged knife if it's sharp, but that is harder to use.

Only scrape the back if needed to remove stray fibers, or remove warping.

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