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Measuring Reeds

Author: kdk ★2017
Date: 2017-07-01 19:08

I have not found a really reliable way to measure reed thicknesses in enough detail to map the profile of a specific reed or, using a large enough sample, of a typical (average?) reed of a given brand or model. I have a Perfecta-reed, but I'm not sure it's sensitive or reliable enough. And there is the inconvenience of having to move the gauge in or out each time I want to measure along a different set of points between the reed's edge and its midpoint. Having to manually reset the distance makes measuring any number of reeds cumbersome.

When I was very young, music stores had light tables we could use to screen reeds from open boxes to see which had well-shaped profiles and which had random dark areas that presumably wouldn't vibrate evenly. This process wasn't really reliably predictive, but it did cull out the worst pieces of cane in a box. I've seen people do this even recently by holding a reed up against a window. And everyone (except, from his videos, Tom Ridenour [wink]

) holds a balky reed up to a lamp to see if there's an obvious imbalance in the thickness.

It seems to me that with today's digital scanning technology it ought to be possible to completely eliminate physical thickness gauges and visual guessing and profile a reed all at once by having a scanner above the reed and a light source below it, like those old light boards, but with a scanner and computer interface to produce reliable measurements. I find myself wondering if this has already been done by for reed designers and manufacturers but the equipment is too expensive to be marketed at a consumer level.

Has anyone heard of anything like this?

Karl

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2017-07-01 19:08