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Re: Reed Shape prevalence

Author: mberkowski
Date: 2017-11-23 16:23

I'm a reed novice in every way, so my perspective on this is not of "what parameters achieve the best possible sound for a situation" but rather of "what do I succeed with more often than fail."

I fail often with wide or more flared shapes. At my reedmaking level, I have too much trouble producing an American scrape that stays up to pitch when I've worked with cane that flares into the tip. With English horn reeds, if they flare too much I don't have intonation problems so much as difficulty getting projection and rich timbre. That's probably down to the wider but smaller tip opening. Wide shapes just don't work for me at my experience level.

I sometimes order preshaped oboe cane shaped on the RDG -1N. I find it easy to make consistent reeds on that narrow and not very flared shape, but they tend to sit a little high in pitch and not to last long.

I own a Joshua +2 (my teacher's favorite tip) and RDG 1 tip and they are very similar to each other. I can't produce as rich a timbre as with wider shapes, but I can consistently make reeds that work and last a long time if I start from a 10.0 - 10.5mm radius gouge. They seem like user-friendly shapes, and that's what I need as a novice.

Michael

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