Klarinet Archive - Posting 000070.txt from 2009/05

From: Tim Roberts <timr@-----.com>
Subj: [kl] Re: new reed
Date: Tue, 26 May 2009 17:27:16 -0400

On Sun, 24 May 2009 05:12:43 -0400, William Foss
<billfoss47@-----.net> wrote:
> After reading about the FORESTONE reed in the March 2009 "The
> Clarinet" (pages 36-38) I bit the bullet and sent to Japan for one.
> The total cost was about $40.00 (including shipping). I have now been
> playing it for about a month and can report that it actually does what
> the makes say it will !
>
> It is the best reed (real or synthetic) that I have ever
> played. It is made of bamboo and whatever they do to it - it works.
>

Well, saying "it is made of bamboo" is a bit of an exaggeration. These
reeds are plastic, made by injection molding. The plastic happens to
contain cellulose wood fiber (sawdust), more than half of which is
bamboo dust, but I'm dubious as to whether the resulting reed really
inherits anything from the bamboo other than aura.

I'm not intending to disparage the reeds in any way, and I will
certainly be ordering a couple of them, but saying that they are "made
of bamboo" is like saying that the Greenline clarinets are "made of
grenadilla". In both cases, I suspect you could completely eliminate
the wood dust from the recipe and end up with a product that was just as
good. The quality comes mostly from manufacturing care, in both cases.

It's interesting that they discourage adjustments of any kind --
cutting, scraping, or sanding.

--
Tim Roberts, timr@-----.com
Providenza & Boekelheide, Inc.

------------------------------------------------------------------

   
     Copyright © Woodwind.Org, Inc. All Rights Reserved    Privacy Policy    Contact charette@woodwind.org