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Re: 2011 IDRS Reflections

Author: Oboe Craig
Date: 2011-06-06 13:49

Jeremy,

I was trying all the Armstrong Ward oboes and chatting with their marketing guy, told him I was trying everything in sight in order to share impressions here on bboard.

He explained the business model, the Aussie goes to China and builds a business, etc. I'd been watching this man make reeds faster than I've ever seen, American long and Euro short, and people were standing around or sitting around playing them.

At that point, I did not know the connection between the companies but when that was explained, they 'insisted' I try the reeds. I tried 3 American-style fresh off the profiler, (and tip clipper) and could play them all with reasonable ease and what I'd call a good but not great tone.

My feeling is, if they could refine the windows a little and go a little thinner on the extreme tip (perhaps a final manual tweak), and perhaps use a clipper that would leave one side a little shorter than the other, I'd be able to perform on them.

Or, I could do those final things in about 30 seconds...

Anyway, they insisted I take a few home for free ( I agreed to take one, the best of the 3 I tried.) And so will test my theory here in Colorado over the next day or two.

My feeling about the American profiler is 2 parts:

1) I do think its a little too expensive (Agree with Bob.... but he might come up with something...eh?)

2) In the hands of a commercial reed maker like Cooper or Jennifer Ownby (and others), since they already have the knife skills, they could become amazingly productive using this machine for all but the final reed making steps.

The American reeds are one of two types, identified by different thread color. The marketing guy suggested it was to account for different cane diameter but their literature states one is wet-gouged and the other dry-gouged.

That is not to say they don't make further distinction and only dry gouge a particular tube diameter, but I don't really know.

I did not see them gouging, only profiling from blanks from one big bag seeming to hold several hundred tied blanks.

I cannot really say they only had one bag, but if so, they are using the same gouge for Euro and American scrapes.

So many exhibiters, so little time!

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2011 IDRS Reflections new

Oboe Craig

2011-06-06 03:39