 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: A Brady
Date: 2015-11-08 10:59
The manager at the studio where I teach just gave me 4 boxes of V12s that they had had for quite some time, 2 boxes of 4.5 and 2 of 5. These are not popular strengths with the students there, so they had been on the shelf for literally over 10 years. I normally play Vandoren traditional 4s on my Wodkowski-refaced Chicago Kaspar so I wasn't expecting good results from these older reeds in a strength above what I usually play, but I've been very happy with the 4.5s so far. They're about 4 days into the break in process, and they have all the characteristics of very good cane, excellent sound, response, and pitch, and very well balanced. Haven't tried the 5s yet, but I'm curious about those now as well.
These boxes date from before the foil wrapper currently found on Vandoren reeds, and carry an ad inside for the "new" Optimum ligature, so that gives an idea of the vintage.
I'm wondering if the aging process of the cane or the lack of modern packaging accounts for the high quality of these reeds; of course, it also could just be exceptionally good luck as is true with any cane reed, but this is some extremely vibrant cane indeed. I'll have to scout around for some more vintage stock!
(I'm currently beginning the run of a Sondheim show for the next 6 weeks here in NJ with a great orchestra, and these reeds are going to be working great for this.)
AB
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Author: donald
Date: 2015-11-08 13:16
Strange, just today I went to buy some music, and got given an opened box (9 reeds) of V12 4.5 for free. I explained that I use 3.75, but they were basically thrown at me with the instruction to "give them away if I couldn't use them". Odd coincidence eh?
dn
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Author: Caroline Smale
Date: 2015-11-08 22:41
Working a 4.5 down to 3.75 should not be a problem, I prefer to have my reeds about 1/2 strength above" normal" to give some leeway on adjusting them during break in. Have much more success going that way than trying to firm up a slightly soft reed.
p.s. still have some boxes from the 80s and 90s waiting to be opened. The last box from 1999 turned out 5 good reeds and 3 suitable for practice, much better rate than I expected.
Post Edited (2015-11-08 22:44)
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