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Re: New Synthetic Reed Reviews?

Author: MarkS
Date: 2020-02-02 23:55

I was hoping Walter would comment on the Silverstein Ambipoly reeds, since I am using them on his Virtuoso mouthpiece (medium open). I was very happy using cane on the mouthpiece, but then tried Legere European cut (3.5 and 3.75). The harder reed worked pretty well but I was not happy with the tone for certain notes.

About 6 months ago, I tried the ambipoly in strength 4. For me, I was happy with the tone across the full range. Also, it allowed me more flexibility to adjust the resistance by moving the reed up or down on the mpc than for the Legere. The only real negative I experienced was that after about 45 minutes of playing, the sound became kind of buzzy on the notes below C4. It made me wonder if the reeds were getting water logged. (They are advertised as absorbing water.)

A month ago I decided to reduce the reed strength by 0.25, so now I am playing 3.5+. I like these even better than the 4's. I can get good tone with less effort. Surprisingly, I have been able to play straight for 1.5 hours without noticing the buzziness. Intonation is fine up to altissimo B-flat on my Buffet Festival. Only recently have I tried to extend my range beyond this point. I am able to reach C7 with the 3.5+, but not yet as confidently as I would like.

I am curious about the new cuts (Primo and Vivace) for the ambipoly reeds, but might wait until they are available on Amazon. As far as I can tell, they are only at Silverstein Works right now.

--Mark

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New Synthetic Reed Reviews? new

EricBlack

2020-01-31 04:48