Author: sfalexi
Date: 2007-04-24 19:54
Just putting it up. I was curious so I ordered some Grand Concert Select Evolution size 3.5. I'm switching between a Richard Hawkins B mouthpiece and a Fred Rast crystal mouthpiece to test them out.
When looking at them, I realized it's the first time I ever saw a thick blank reed that was NOT file cut (I've only ever played thin reeds not file cut, or thick reeds file cut). Also, when putting them against the mouthpiece, they're pretty long. The butt of the reed goes pretty far down the table of the mouthpiece.
Of the reeds, most were very consistent with their resistance and balance. Granted, these two mouthpieces are very 'reed-friendly', but most of them were playable (and probably performable) out of the box. A few need some tweaking, but it shouldn't be too hard to balance them out properly. It holds the sound very well from pp to ff and seems pretty easy to control the level of volume on the notes (one thing I always play is this intro to a song our quartet has where we have to play an eighth note on each beat at piano. It's usually hard to keep a consistent level of volume between the eighth notes as they are different pitches all over the range of clarinet, but it was slightly easier with these reeds. I guess they were more 'consistent' as to how it they were going to respond.)
I have yet to see how long they last, but if they last a respectable amount of time, they may end up as my reed of choice (for the record, I do change reeds MUCH less frequently than mouthpieces, so reed of choice actually means for a good duration of time when I say it)
Alexi gives them a tentative two thumbs up for initial impression and is waiting to see how long they last.
Alexi
US Army Japan Band
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The Clarinet BBoard
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