[pliskin]

i've always fixed my own instruments, since i started practicing one instrument or another at age four. so when i bought myself my first single reed instrument, used; a soprano sax, i expected that it would needs loads of work. but what surprised me was how much embouchure muscles one needs to play a single reed. well, i played oboe and english horn for 25 years, so my first reaction to my lack of embouchure muscles was to take out my reed knife.

there are two basic cuts of an oboe reed, french and american. a french cut reed gets all of its vibration from the tip and it sounds pretty nasal. on an american cut reed, the sides of the bark are thinned, so that a smaller tip can get the spines vibrating. they have a darker, mysterious tone.

so, of course, i started thinning the sides of the bark. and the better i got at carving reeds, the better they played. these days, i grind a concave rabbet down each side of the bark and i get almost 100% of my reeds to play pretty well. and the lower few notes sound easily.

those reeds that still need help, need to have the transition between the tip and my rabbets blended a little, to get notes in the first octave notes to stop gurgling.

does anyone else on the list make major changes to the basic reed shape?

 

[1saxman]

No, but I'd like to see what you do. I have cut a longitudinal slot into the reed at the juncture of the bark and vamp. I got this from a reed that I loved during the mid-'60s, the Boosey & Hawkes 'Oscillator'.

 

[pliskin]

No, but I'd like to see what you do. I have cut a longitudinal slot into the reed at the juncture of the bark and vamp. I got this from a reed that I loved during the mid-'60s, the Boosey & Hawkes 'Oscillator'.

i'm sorry it took so long to respond to you. i recently finished remodeling the apartment and have just started working on the house. and i really haven't figured out how to work this site. but i'll try to add a picture or two of what i do.

i tried contacting a few reed manufacturers, to see if anyone there would be interested in what i do. i got automated responses but nothing more. and from what i know, from a career in product development, is that companies aren't interested in working on a product if they don't own the IP. so, for example, we developed some great products at VA med center R&D but no company wanted to pick up a product they couldn't fully own.

so i decided to make my work public domain and give it to the world, for what that's worth. i truly can't imagine playing either soprano or bari without one of my reground reeds.

now let me see if i can figure out how to include a photo.

 

[SoulMate]

That shape looks a bit like the Légères American Cut profile! You're onto something with cane reeds.
But what's the bit under the reed and the ligature? Is it because your ligature is too big?

 

[pliskin]

lig too big? yes and no.

my lig IS too big, but my reeds are easier to crush with a metal lig. so the piece of cork protects the spine a little.

 

[pliskin]

i just looked at the legere americal and it kinda has a spine, like mine. but i think they missed the boat. when the spine runs down the whole stock, the bell tones come out easily. i cut down the stock until the edges are 0.040" thick, not because i want delicate reeds but because they sound good and play easily. yes, the stock vibrates, especially in the lower frequencies.

but having dados down the stock also helps guide the cylindrical stones i use for blending the transition between the factory tip and the stock. doing that helps bring out the notes around F.

now, i'm not saying that this is the only way to cut a reed. but, because i carved oboe reeds for 25 years, cutting my sax reeds the same way put me in familiar territory. i could get reeds to play well, that i would have otherwise thrown out.

and datoing my reeds turned out to be a simple task, once i built a little jig for my router. by the way, i slow my router way down and feed the reed through with an awl, so my fingers are nowhere near the cutter.

 

[pliskin]

now, my design takes all of the bark off of the stock and it seems to me that that alone may be why i have so little trouble with my reeds. having hard dense stuff directly connected to softer, porous stuff, around water, sounds like a way to guarantee warpage. but since my design eliminates the bark, i haven't done any science, to see if that's true.

i also soak my reeds when i play and let my reeds dry completely, the rest of the time. i'm in santa fe, NM, so when i say dry, i mean dry. my reeds last months. and the chlorine in our tap water seems to be enough to keep my reeds from turning black. but i haven't done the science to know that.

the only issue i seem to have with this cut is that i need to drink water, every once in a while, while practicing, in order to keep the moisture level up in the reeds. and i should probably be drinking more water anyway.

 

[Tenor Mattness]

The reshaping reminds me of a guitar brace! You get really different qualities in a guitar depending on whether the brace is flat and wide versus tall and narrow. Have you tried removing just the bark without reshaping the reed? Would that help to keep the ligature from damaging the spine because the pressure would be spread more evenly across a flatter surface of the reed?

 

[1saxman]

Wow - radical! I automatically like it for that reason! I think you're seriously onto something. I think I would like to modify it so I could still use the regular ligature yet still realize at least some of the improvement. I'll have to do it by hand but I can use a rotary tool (Dremel) with a round stone for a lot of it.

 

[pliskin]

when i was using a dremel, i likes using a 1/2" sanding drum.

but, i generally prefer to use larger tools. i'm thinking of taking the bark off of a few reeds with a belt sander, just to see what that does for me. i can always run them through my router setup to get them back to what i know about.

these days, i use an oval carbide burr, not die grinder stones, in a slowed down router. i build up the router fence with a piece of architectural aluminum angle, which becomes the bed, on which i slide the reed. my first setup used a trim router with variable speed. and i push the reed through using an awl, so as to keep my fingers away from the cutter.

but i bring this up again because once the dados are cut along the edges of the stock, that cut guides the 1/2" sanding drum, so that it's easy to smooth the transition between the factory tip and the dado. the sanding drum just rides in the groove.

but after making the dado cuts, there's so little material left to remove, that it's simple to do that with a little piece of folded sanding cloth (about 330 grit) while holding the reed against a flat surface, like a piece of heavy glass.

 

[Hassles]

hmm, well I'm impressed and or course, curious