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Re: Rico Reserve Classics

Author: Bob Bernardo
Date: 2011-09-04 10:30

I don't really believe there is a right or wrong answer here.

You sort of have to look at the whole situation here. Rico produces around 15 to 20 million reeds a year, perhaps a lot more. When I arrived at Rico the Mitchell Lurie line sold about 750,000 reeds a year, also known more as "Units." I spent a lot of time redesigning his reeds, with of course his blessings, and when leaving Rico the Lurie reeds hit 1.5 million units per year. Pretty much doubled. Even a lot of pros were using his reeds when the Vandoren reeds didn't play well, due to poor cane, and the top of the line Rico's weren't being made yet. The Lurie reeds were considered top of the line during my early years at Rico.

So with 15 million units being sold you will get all sorts of variations in the quality of cane. Reeds are simply assorted types of weeds/grass. There's around 150 different species of cane; such as sugar cane and bamboo. Knowing this and Rico selling something around 15 to 20 million units a year there is no possible way that every reed will play well or even play at all. The cane comes from all over the place, not just France. Vandoren and Rico often share the same land and Rico and Vandoren crop specialist are often friends.

As I've said in the past I will put up a website about my days at rico and the process of making a reed. I will also get into the lawsuit, regardless if I win or not.

Vandoren sells a mess of reeds, but Rico outsells Vandoren because mainly the school line of reeds. Rico, Rico Royal, and La Voz. Also the black coated jazz reeds.

I have to say that Rico has really cool electronic strength gauges, but they aren't really set up correctly; this is totally my opinion from many many years at Rico. The reeds you buy can vary a lot. If you play a 3 strength reed you may get a high end 2 1/2 to slightly less than a 3 1/2. Depending on your knowledge of fixing up reeds will result with how many keepers you get per box. I can't get every reed to play in a box, from Vandoren or Rico due to the cane quality such as the grain. Remember reeds are weeds. Cane is classified as a weed or grass depending on the dictionary you use. So right there you probably have to discard around 3 or 4 reeds per box. If you are really and I mean really good at adjusting reeds you will most likely get about 4 to play at a symphony level. Again, for me, both Vandoren and Rico pretty much have the same average. I favor Vandoren 12's, perhaps by 1 or 2 reeds per box. Added to this mess your mouthpiece also plays a huge part with how many reeds play per box.

Mitchell was great at keeping reeds working. He really didn't do any adjusting to his reeds. A lot of his recordings were played on 5 or 6 month old reeds. At first I really didn't believe it so I coded the reeds and after his concerts or recordings he'd give me the reed to check. I would play them after I measured them and they did play great. So here comes another subject, is there something in our mouth or body that breaks down reeds at an early life or a very late life?

Perhaps no one or everyone believes in my theories and thats actually a good thing. Getting back to which reeds play best totally depends on a mess of mainly physical factories and it's up to us players to figure out which brands of reeds are best suited, conformable to our playing.

I didn't really want to get this deep into reeds, but I felt some musicians may be a shade more open minded based on actual facts and understanding of cane/weed/grass!

If you really think about this in depth, it's kind of amazing. A weed is still mostly what we pick out to play on since the late 1800's, the development of the clarinet. I think it was the 1800's, it's 3:30 am and I'm not gonna look it up!With all of our knowledge no one has ever been able to use plastic, or any other material to duplicate the sound of great cane. I look forward to the day that someone can, because 100 percent of the reeds in a box will play just like a great reed.

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