Klarinet Archive - Posting 000013.txt from 2009/07

From: "Karl Krelove" <karlkrelove@-----.net>
Subj: RE: [kl] sabbatical leave - reed making
Date: Sun, 05 Jul 2009 19:25:11 -0400

Roger asked me to post this response to Mike Wilson's question:

Mike - I do quite a bit of work on them after they are made on the machine -
and yes, there is some variation regarding strength - although some of that
can be attributed to the way the reed was cut - perhaps the density of a
particular piece of cane. I do not, however, do much more to them then I
did to commercially produced reeds. I found that the latter had so much
material removed from them by the time they got to me that
clipping/resetting didn't work as well as it does on handmade.

By the way, with a handmade reed from tubes, because of the preparation
period, even softer reeds play and respond up high in the altissimo much
better than their commercial counterparts. For example, I usually play on a
Vandoren V12 size 4 on my mouthpiece (1.20 tip with a long, asymmetrical
curve). The handmade equivalent of a Vandoren 3.5 V12 is still able to
speak and play better for me in the altissimo than the size 4 Vandoren -
primarily because of the curing process and cane selection.

Hope this helps.

Best,
Roger

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Mike Wilson [mailto:fanosax@-----.com]
> Sent: Sunday, July 05, 2009 2:10 PM
> To: klarinet@-----.org
> Subject: Re: [kl] sabbatical leave - reed making
>
> This is interesting. I read once that (most?) reed manufacturers cut
> all
> their reeds a particular way and then test them to determine the
> strength. Is this correct? I'm curious because if this is the case,
> then
> one would expect a rather wide range of strengths of reeds coming off
> the machine, even using a template reed that plays perfectly. How much
> hand-finishing is involved, relative to store-bought reeds?
>
> Thanks,
> Mike
>

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