 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: kdk
Date: 2014-10-03 05:50
A mouthpiece change over the summer led me once again to a process of auditioning reeds to play on it.
I don't have any doubt in my mind that V12s play differently from D'Addario Reserve Classics, or that V12, 56 Rue le pic, Gonzalez GD, Gonzalez FOF, and Grand Concert, to stay only with the standard thick blank reeds popular in the U.S., offer different characteristics of tone and response tendencies. Yet, when I measure examples of each I find typically that the variability among reeds of the same brand and model is greater than the variability among the different models. I haven't gotten around to measuring all of them this time, but I did a couple of years ago and couldn't, given the accuracy of the tools I have available (a Perfect-a-Reed and a digital vernier caliper), find any consistent explanation among the measurements for the differences that we all feel when we go from one kind of reed to another.
Does anyone here know - by really knowing, not conjecturing or guessing or intuiting from the feel - what the design differences are among these reeds or even between any two? I can start with the fact that some are file-cut and some aren't. Am I simply not measuring large enough samples of each? Would the differences arise more clearly if I measured a couple of hundred of each and averaged the dimensions? Some of the differences may result from the cane each company uses. But it's all the same variety, each maker's cane only differing from others AFAIK in its climatic environment.
Karl
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Author: sonicbang
Date: 2014-10-03 14:56
Maybe it's difficult to measure, but there is a difference among the designs you mentioned regarding how the mass is distributed in the heart area. For eg. the Rue Lepic 56 and the Rico Reserve is very close to each other. The shoulders are deeply cut, they are both thick blank, but the reserve has a longer heart and the thinner end is more gradual. Or the V12's vamp contour is a bit thinner than the Reserve.
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Author: bmcgar ★2017
Date: 2014-10-03 18:56
I think that you may be barking up only one of the two trees you need to bark up. (How's that for a metaphor!)
Much variability also comes from the characteristics of the cane in the reed, hence your observation "variability among reeds of the same brand and model is greater than the variability among the different models," which I also find true for reeds from models of the same basic design.
See "Reeds: Good or Bad? It's in the Cane" in the December 2012 issue of The Clarinet for a discussion of cane structure. Playing characteristics are influenced by many things in addition to the reed's physical dimensions: the tube the reed is cut from, the section of the split the blank is cut from, and the characteristics of the vascular bundles in local areas within the finished reed.
B.
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Author: fskelley
Date: 2014-10-04 19:09
So here's my question- are the major reed mfg pre-sorting the cane or parts of plants and using the best for their high grades... think White Master or Black Master... then using the rest for their cheaper products? If so that means you don't even have a fair shot at getting ANY great reeds from the other stuff, not even the proverbial 1 out of a box of 10.
Up to now I'd been thinking the higher grade reeds were just made "better", but using the same stock. But that would be silly.
Anybody who ever bought 2x4's at a lumberyard for a home project knows that the quality of anything made from a plant varies a LOT. I used to go with my Dad on Saturday mornings (a long time ago!) to help him pick out lumber, and some days you just knew all the good boards had already been taken, so it was a question of which bad ones might be sort of usable. Another analogy would be when you hear something is made from "select cuts of meat" and you wonder where all the rest goes. Think about that next time you open a box of reeds, LOL. Unless you always pay for top grade.
Stan in Orlando
EWI 4000S with modifications
Post Edited (2014-10-04 19:33)
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Author: Bill G
Date: 2014-10-06 05:30
Here's an interesting article:
http://reedhelp.wordpress.com/research/profiles
Bill G.
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Author: derf5585
Date: 2014-10-06 05:46
"Unless you always pay for top grade"
What is the most expensive reed?
fsbsde@yahoo.com
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Author: kdk
Date: 2014-10-06 06:09
It's too bad the link to the page describing curve shape seems to be broken. Do you have any idea whose site this is?
Karl
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