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Guide for Cane, Staples, Shapers would be useful

Author: oboi
Date: 2012-12-20 04:14

Since I began making reeds, I've always been on the hunt for guides that give me the differences between the ginormous varities of double reed supplies. There isn't much to go on out there. Sure, you can ask your teacher, but it's not something codified and not necessarily something that your teacher knows every single thing about. Why aren't there more of these guides somewhere?

Midwest just posted this about tube cane. Was useful because I recently and randomly bought some Glotin cane to try out. So now know if I like it or hate it I can potentially attribute it to these properties.
http://www.mmimports.com/2012/12/tube-cane-guide/

So why isn't there a very extensive list out there for (or is there and I am not aware?):
- characteristics of cane from different fields (brands)
- characteristics of staple brands
- bore characteristics of different oboes
- staple bore/diameter and oboes with bores most resembling it
- properties of shaped cane - not just numbers, but descriptors in qualitative terms
- quantitative/qualitative info of cane that already comes shaped from the cane growers
- qualitative info on shaper tips

Acoustics and General Play Characteristics due to:
- gouges and thickness tendencies wrt climate, altitude
- staple material/thickness, shape
- bocal lengths/brand/material
- general shaped cane shape and its acoustics
- oboe model general characteristics

Now I know that some of that is out there, and some of it is extensively discussed on these boards, and some of this is a matter of opinion, but something like that tube cane list above I think makes a whole lot of sense. Each cane field has its own unique characteristics. Each staple has its own unique tapers/openings. Some of that might not be useful when I first learned (teacher's advice probably best), but now, at my stage, I am starting to experiment, but I don't have 30 years of experimentation and know-how so experimenting is just a crapshoot..... because there is not much codified info out there. I have a decent idea of what works and doesn't work in terms of *brands* for my oboe/reed, but I don't really know WHY in most cases. I suppose if I had a very accurate caliper and lots of time to stare at my cane/staple/oboe that I could measure out the exact numbers, but I'm trying to play music here, not become a draftsman.