 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: jonnyswife
Date: 2018-04-15 14:51
Hi everyone. I hope it's okay to share this (fairly nerdy!) post here. I was recently given a variety of 'old' Vandoren reeds including an opened box from the 1980s. I decided them with the currently Vandoren 'traditional' reeds.
I found this all very interesting, but I'd love some feedback on your thoughts and professional opinions. Perhaps this is all just TOO nerdy (and some might say irrelevant), but if I can't share these musings with you lot, then where CAN I share them, right?
Best wishes,
Anne
http://www.anneharperclarinet.info/blog/ch-ch-ch-ch-changes
Post Edited (2018-04-15 14:52)
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Author: Philip Caron
Date: 2018-04-15 18:34
Around 1973 I bought a number of boxes of Vandoren 5's in the purple boxes. Around 1974 I took a little break from playing. When I came back in 2007 those boxes of reeds were still there, and I've been using them ever since.
I've tried a number of new, modern Vandoren reeds, and they are significantly stiffer than the old purple box ones. From trying 2-4 reeds each of strengths from 3 to 5, it appears that the old #5 reeds would rate about 3.5 or 3.5+ on the scale of the modern reeds. I could barely play a modern #5 on my setup.
Probably Vandoren's measurement scale has shifted, though "why?" is a question. Another possibility is that the old reeds decreased in stiffness while just sitting in the boxes for 30 years; that process would also be unexplained, but ageing of wood *is* a thing.
I also get the feeling the modern reeds play differently too, as though the profile may have changed, but that is yet more subjective.
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Author: jonnyswife
Date: 2018-04-15 19:03
Dear Philip,
Thanks for your reply and comments. Funnily enough I've had a rather lovely email from someone saying basically the same thing - that the older ones seem softer. I just read (in Clarinet Virtuosi of Today pub 1989) that Stanley Drucker played on a Vandoren 5 at the time of his interview. It would be interesting to know if there are any clarinettists who have dropped a strength or two over the years.
I chose the words 'brighter' and 'more flexible' to describe the older reeds deliberately, however you could also say softer...
One of my biggest bugbears isn't so much that the reeds are different - I doubt any of us are used to much consistency from reeds anyway - but more that there is a whole big load of waste with the newer reeds (each individually sealed, bigger boxes, plastic cases etc)! Yet when you find reeds from 30+ years ago (and i have some from the 1960s too) which play well and haven't generated all the extra waste, you've got to ask yourself if the extra plastic etc is really worth it? But that's a whole other blog....
I agree with you - I think the older reeds generally seem to be cut from a slightly thinner blank, and they're not scraped the same.
I'd also love to see a larger comparison of the amount of brown discolouration on the cane in 2018 compared to the seventies or eighties. Based on a very quick look, my older reeds have fewer brown spots on the uncut cane. It could be co-incidence...
Best wishes,
Anne
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Author: ClarinetRobt
Date: 2018-04-15 19:59
Anne:
Thoughts on the aging of the cane effecting the strength. Would cured cane be more flexible (softer) than greener stock?
~Robt L Schwebel
Mthpc: Behn Vintage
Lig: Ishimori, Behn Delrin
Reed: Legere French Cut 3.75/4, Behn Brio 4
Horns: Uebel Superior (Bb,A), Ridenour Lyrique, Buffet R13 (Eb)
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Author: Caroline Smale
Date: 2018-04-15 20:32
I had a few boxes of VD reeds from the 1970s, which certainly seemed somewhat softer than the later ones. However comparison more difficult as they were labeled S M MH H etc and not by numeric strength.
They were also "un-filed" at that time so clearly the manufacture process was different then.
I have quite a few boxes of VD reeds from the 1980s and these seem more close to present day strengths, and my success rates per box were much better than with today's boxes.
I certainly believe that letting the reeds cure in the box for some years does improve the success rate.
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Author: jonnyswife
Date: 2018-04-15 20:38
That's a good point Caroline. These reeds do have a strength marked on them (its three). I also have an even older box which I was told came from the 1960s which is marked 'medium' with also the numbers 2 1/2 and 3 on it - which I presume was an approximate strength. I wonder when the numbers were standardised. I'll try to get a picture of the labels.
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Author: kdk ★2017
Date: 2018-04-15 23:42
Caroline Smale wrote:
> I had a few boxes of VD reeds from the 1970s,
>
> They were also "un-filed" at that time so clearly the
> manufacture process was different then.
>
Were they? I thought I remembered that the old pre-V.12 Vandorens were filed. When for a couple of years we (in the U.S.) were having trouble getting Vandorens, my teacher at the time (Anthony Gigliotti) switched to Lurie reeds. I remember that he didn't like the round bark line and made a point of hand filing (he actually used a knife) the bark of those reeds.
Karl
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Author: kdk ★2017
Date: 2018-04-15 23:48
jonnyswife wrote:
> I wonder when the numbers were
> standardised. I'll try to get a picture of the labels.
How standardized are they even now? I guess the machines are digital now and probably more precise - quarter strengths weren't even available for the V.12 when they first became available - but I still get reeds in boxes of adjacent strengths (whatever the intervals of their strength scale) that overlap in resistance. I think "Medium - 3-1/2 - 4" may have been more honest.
Karl
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Author: jonnyswife
Date: 2018-04-16 00:01
Sorry Robert I somehow missed your comment. re. wood curing - I have no idea! Of course wood changes over time - HOW is what I'm not an expert on! I wonder if a drier wood would be more lively/ vibrate more easily than one with a higher moisture content? The trick would be to avoid warping I guess, and these reeds aren't at all warped which is great.
I know that when some folk make violins they're rubbed with ash to help prevent the varnish from seeping into the wood and changing the resonance. Perhaps drier reeds are also more resonant?
Post Edited (2018-04-16 00:02)
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Author: gwlively
Date: 2018-04-16 00:06
D'Addario reeds grade harder than when they were Rico. The Reserve Classic from Rico was my favorite; I used the 3.5+. Eight out of 10 were perfectly balanced and the other two needed very little work. I just hate "trying" different brands and strengths; it gets rather expensive.
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Author: David Spiegelthal ★2017
Date: 2018-04-16 05:18
I believe all reeds benefit from "curing" over a decade or more. Even old orange-box Ricos (I need strength #5) have turned out to be decent reeds after sitting for 10-20 years, and as I recall they were lousy when new.
'
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Author: Caroline Smale
Date: 2018-04-17 01:57
Just located a strash of my older reeds and will modify my statement on 70s reeds.
The older box (purple cardboard) I bought in April 1968, (Actually in Paris on my very first visit there) and it is these reeds that are unfiled i.e. the curved cut straight into the bark exists where the vamp starts.
Another box I bought in April 1971 are in the purple plastic box and these reeds have the bark cut across in a shallow straight line just before the vamp starts.
Both boxes are marked Medium / Moyennes 2 1/2 - 3
There are no strengths marked on the actual reeds
Looks like a manufacturing change occured sometime between 1968 and 1971
For the record the 1971 box has 10 new reeds in it but the 1968 has 6 and I remember now that I opened this box on 6 April 2008 the exact 40 th anniversary of their purchase and broke those 4 reeds in to use. From memory they were a little on the soft side so I used them with my VD Crystal A2 mouthpiece. My more regular choice is my Crystal A1.
Just realised as I typed this that I have just passed the 50th aniversary of purchasing the earlier box.
Doesn't time fly !
Must give them a 50th Birthday blow.
Post Edited (2018-04-17 01:58)
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Author: kdk ★2017
Date: 2018-04-17 02:24
Caroline Smale wrote:
> The older box (purple cardboard) I bought in April 1968,
> (Actually in Paris on my very first visit there) and it is
> these reeds that are unfiled.
>
> Another box I bought in April 1971 are in the purple plastic
> box and these reeds have the bark cut across in a shallow
> straight line just before the vamp starts.
>
That's the style I remember.
> Both boxes are marked Medium / Moyennes 2 1/2 - 3
> There are no strengths marked on the actual reeds
>
And it's maddening now when I come across older reeds that they aren't marked. When the V.12s first came out (and I think for awhile after) they weren't marked as V.12, either, so when I go through my old reeds from time to time, I have to measure them with a caliper to find which are thick blanks and which are traditional (I'm not very good at eyeballing them). I've arbitrarily set the line at 3.0 mm - V.12 (thick blanks) are > 3.0, thin blanks (traditional) are < 3.0. I have to judge the strength of each reed by feel.
> Looks like a manufacturing change occured sometime between 1968
> and 1971
Interesting. I played Vandorens as a high school student (graduated 1965), but I really didn't pay much attention to the design. And it was sometime during my undergrad years ('65-'69) that the supply stopped and Gigliotti and his students all moved to Luries. Might be that the change happened while the supply problem was being solved.
>
> For the record the 1971 box has 10 new reeds in it but the 1968
> has 6
I don't remember the boxes of 6 - only 10s. I wonder when those were actually packaged?
> Just realised as I typed this that I have just passed the 50th
> aniversary of purchasing the earlier box.
> Doesn't time fly !
Doesn't it?
Thanks for the details!
Karl
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Author: donald
Date: 2018-04-17 03:06
The best concert review I ever got was for a recital in about 1999/2000 that I performed playing an old Vandoren reed from a purple box (the lighter purple, before it went to dark purple). I'd found these reeds in a shop in Hamburg- obviously left unsold for years as they were french style...
Apparently I played with "a beautiful silky tone of rare distinction", a quality which I attribute entirely to this reed ;-)
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Author: Bob Bernardo
Date: 2018-04-17 05:58
A lot of pro's liked the Mitchell Lurie reeds. They were consistent and cut twice. Rico used the best cane from the Var region of France. I was the one that made them.
I also took a reed knife and cut the bark off.
Designer of - Vintage 1940 Cicero Mouthpieces and the La Vecchia mouthpieces
Yamaha Artist 2015
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Author: kdk ★2017
Date: 2018-04-17 07:11
Bob Bernardo wrote:
> A lot of pro's liked the Mitchell Lurie reeds. They were
> consistent and cut twice. Rico used the best cane from the Var
> region of France. I was the one that made them.
>
> I also took a reed knife and cut the bark off.
>
Bob, am I remembering correctly that the Lurie Premium reeds were always file-cut? Aren't they still made that way (pesticides notwithstanding)? Why were the regular Luries not made that way?
Karl
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Author: jonnyswife
Date: 2018-04-17 13:07
This is very interesting thank you! Yes, my reeds don't have a 'number' stamped on them, just the vandoren name. The boxes are as you described, 'medium 2 1/5 - 3'. My dates are approximate btw - I don't know the exact date of manufacture of the box I opened for this blog - it might be earlier.
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Author: John Peacock
Date: 2018-04-17 13:57
I changed from Vandoren to Mitchell Lurie in the late 1970s: it was a time when Vandoren quality seemed to have slumped, and I was told that quite a few UK professionals had switched. I found the Mitchell Luries a huge improvement: the cane seemed to be better quality overall, and they were much more consistent. But after 5 or 6 years, I started to notice that I was getting fewer good reeds per box, and by 1990 the success rate was probably worse than it had been with Vandoren previously. Then I discovered V12's. It was the same feeling I got on first finding Mitchell Luries - they were just so much better made, with a smooth, almost glossy underside to the reed. They don't now seem to be quite as high quality as in the early days, but that could be memory playing tricks - and despite many experiments, I haven't been able to find any other reeds that give me as good results.
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Author: John Peacock
Date: 2018-04-18 13:18
Hi David. I didn't mean to imply that the V12 first appeared in 1990 - it just took me until that year to realise that the answer to my reed prayers was out there.
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Author: Cappuccino
Date: 2018-04-19 05:59
Jonathan Cohler mentioned today in our lesson that Vandoren reeds have gotten slightly harder recently...
Interesting this thread pops up.
Alexander May
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFZta2RG4iM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rh8O5DC4Tqs
"Looking at art, you're looking at the result of a philosophy." - John Emmett
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