 The Oboe BBoard
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Author: LongCat
Date: 2015-01-20 04:56
I've been experiencing so much frustration with reeds lately. I used to have a smooth, silky, dark sound that I absolutely loved, but I don't feel that's quite the case any more. My tone has just been really really, uncontrollably bright and buzzy lately and it's getting kind of depressing to be honest. I find myself gripping onto the reed with my embouchure trying to dampen some of the vibrations and it's just leading to stamina and pitch issues. I usually scrape out of the back quite a bit, but it doesn't help very much. The reeds I buy are handmade, medium strength reeds. Should I try a harder reed, or could something else be the issue here?
Thanks!
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Author: mjfoboe
Date: 2015-01-20 07:21
Are these machine profile made reeds?
Or fully hand made reeds?
Bright buzzy reeds many times are a tip issue.
You might need to know how to adjust the tip and blend and balance the rest of the reed.
Mark
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Author: jhoyla
Date: 2015-01-20 15:17
I agree with Mark that buzzy, bright sounds generally come from the tip.
When was the last time you sharpened your knife? :-)
With a really sharp knife, dust the tip from blend to corners. Straighten up and go straight off the reed with the grain at the extreme edge. Use a wet flat plaque, raked lighting, and backlighting, to make sure the tip grades evenly from the blend to the extreme tip.
This should smooth out the tone (get rid of buzziness), but it may still be brighter than you like and (more importantly) the pitch may drop and it may get a bit too soft ..
Then clip it a hair to get back up to pitch, and re-examine the extreme tip for areas of thickness (which must be evened out).
[post-edited]
J.
Post Edited (2015-01-20 16:12)
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