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Breaking in reed - new approach?

Author: Niclas.e.gustafsson
Date: 2020-10-21 16:02

Okay, so this is kind of an out of the box experiment explained here. Hehe. Both the blue and gray boxes.

But please try this out and see what happens. Maybe i’ve gone mad?!

I have been adjusting reed for a long time. Bought a LOT of equipement. And then i got interested in how they were made, and then how the reed material was built up. Tried making some of my own etc. You know this rabbit hole some of you, eh?

I quickly realized trough videos on youtube and such that all strenghts are the same thickness. Measured with many hundred points in a laser measuring machine of some kind. THEN the strenght of the reed is determined, by some kind of flexing device. So the FIBERS is determining what strenght it is.

Then i started thinking about adjusting the reed. Filing, sanding, scraping, what ever never worked for me. I ended up with a playable reed from a not playable reed. But i wasnt able to adjust them to be those amazing perfect reeds that was maybe one out of every 10 reeds, you know?

So i searched the internet and found that (some) jazz saxophonists takes a too strong reed and put it on the mpc table at 90 degrees, pushing it firmly with their thumb and tap it gently with their index finger to soften some of the fibers to make the reed vibrate more. Worked for me too. Cool new approach i think. And...

And THEN i thought to myself, when a reed is unbalanced, couln’t i just do the same but with the corner of the reed. So i put the reed at a 45 degree angle and tapped it very softly. And voila! It actually worked. The hard corner softened up to match the soft one. Balanced reed!!! In 3 seconds flat.

I have experimented with this technique a couple of weeks now, and it works EVERY TIME! Im amazed, and a bit confused i have never heard about it before. Its so simple!

I can get every reed to play almost identical without nothing more than my mouthpiece and index finger.

(Some reeds ARE bad. No questions there. But those are manufacturing defects like loose wood still on the reed etc. and for a few weeks and maybe 3-4 boxes of different brands i have found 2-3 that this didnt work on.)

Please try this out for yourself and tell me what you think. I will attempt to make a video showing it when my cold wears off.

Post Edited (2020-10-21 16:02)

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Breaking in reed - new approach? new

Niclas.e.gustafsson

2020-10-21 16:02