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Re: Reeds, Humidity, and You

Author: Roger Aldridge
Date: 2006-08-18 10:57

GBK,

Please let us know what you discover.

Here are several things that I found with Legere.

1.) The FL ligatures that I had been using for 3-4 years didn't work as well with Legere as with cane. I encountered problems with Legere reeds not sealing properly along the lower tip rail area. It's my thinking that this had to do with the smaller reed plate of the FL lig....that it wasn't providing a large enough of a pressure area. After trying a number of other ligatures I settled on the Vandoren Master's.

2.) I initially started working with the regular Legere clarinet reed. As I mentioned above, it took me a couple of weeks to adjust my chops to Legere as they play differently from my favorite cane reeds. After starting to feel comfortable with Legere I then tried a #3 Quebec (as I normally use a thicker cut reed) and I immediately felt right at home. I definitely prefer it's tonal qualities to the regular Legere clarinet reed.

3.) There are times when Legere clarinet reeds seem a touch stuffy to me. For that, as I mentioned above, making a small adjustment to the tip area with the ATG makes a world of difference. It really opens up the reed's sound and response.

4.) Finding the best placement of the Legere reed on the mouthpiece (aligning the reed tip to the mouthpiece tip rail) is more critical than with a cane reed. This can make a very big difference in the quality of one's sound and level of response.

5.) Some mouthpieces work better with Legere than others. Very subtle thing here! Happily, I didn't have any problems adapting to Legere on my clarinet mouthpieces -- but, I did on saxophone. I spent several months tweeking my set up before I was satisified with the results. While this process was frustrating at times, I ended up being MUCH HAPPIER with my set up on tenor saxophone than before I started experimenting with Legere. I'm especially pleased with how well Legere reeds work on the very large chamber/small baffle "6C" (.090) mouthpiece that Ralph Morgan made for me as a special order. Legere reeds sounded the worst on my 3C mouthpiece. Believe me, I tried different reed strengths...the whole 9 yards. I tried other mouthpiece facings and had improved results; but, I wasn't entirely happy. Finally, I struck gold with a #2.5 regular cut Legere on the 6C. Great sound!

Anyway, these are the main points that come to mind. Frankly, if this was a cane reed I don't think that I would have gone to all of this time and effort to adapt to it. However, since I double so much I figured that it was worth it to see how well Legere reeds could work for me. I now feel very comfortable with them. It's been a doubler's dream of mine for many years to have a synthetic reed with a reasonably comparable sound as cane that allows me to pick up a horn and play it without worrying about finding a dry reed. For me, that dream has finally come true.

Roger

Post Edited (2006-08-18 12:38)

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Reeds, Humidity, and You new

GBK

2006-08-16 20:44