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RE: How are your L�g�re reeds?

Author: Mario
Date: 1999-08-24 12:28

Hello:

I am also a keen user of Legere reeds. I have been for about one year now. In general, I am very happy with those reeds.
I use 6 reeds in rotation out of a pack of 10 that I bought then. I change reed every hour or so (because they soften a bit after about one hour of playing). But I also noticed that my reeds seem to be getting a little bit weaker over time. I will be ordering another batch of 10 to keep my supply of reed fresh.

These reeds are made of and advanced synthetic material. They work hard and vibrate constantly. Any material (including synthetic ones) will eventually loose their structural integrity when subjected to the kind of motions (in the form of fast vibrations) reeds are.

As well, we had a very hot humid Summer in my area. On hotter days, I experienced a definite loss of tone quality with everything becoming too bright and too thin. It is probably another side effect of the behavior of this synthetic material under extreme conditions. I talking about playing at 85F with 75% relative humidity...

But these issues (which have to be understood and managed) are relatively minor compared to the lack of reliability and predictability that I have experienced all my life before discovering the Legere. The response, tone quality and intonation that I get out of those reeds is amazing. I simply will not switch. I am perfectly happy to buy, once a year, a fresh batch of these excellent reeds if it is what it takes to keep them lively.

As well, I understand that Legere just started producing his reeds with a new high-precision piece of machinery yielding measurable improvement in the cut of the reeds. I cannot wait to see if these mechanical improvements in the cutting (in particular, the enhanced symetry of the resulting product) will also generate improvements in reed performance.

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