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Re: Legere French cut Tenor sax reed on bass clarinet

Author: kilo
Date: 2023-12-28 00:14

I've used Légère reeds for a long time. On tenor sax, when I was primarily playing jazz, I settled on #3 Studio Cut which gave me the sound I was looking for. #3.5 Quebec Cut was my choice on soprano clarinet. (The Quebecs were discontinued and I use #3.75 EC now.) I began playing bass in 2011 and started out with Classic Cuts, settling on a #3.5 strength.

I pretty much stopped playing tenor sax to concentrate on becoming a better bass player and I now primarily play concert band and chamber music. When I learned that tenor reeds could be used on bass I tried the Studio Cut tenor reeds that I had on hand. They were a little soft for the Fobes CF but worked very well on a more open piece that I got from Keith Bradbury. When Légère introduced the European Cut (for bass) I began using those on the Fobes, and American Cut (for sax) on the Grabner White Velvet, both in #3.25 strength.

When I heard that Légère was offering this new cut I ordered a #3.25 to try out. As Hurstfarm has pointed out, the FC's run soft, but I could tell that these were good reeds. I wrote to Légère and was told that they'd send me a free replacement and I wouldn't even have to return the #3.25. The #3.5 replacement reed arrived yesterday and I used it at a rehearsal this morning. I haven't used it on the Grabner piece yet but it played beautifully on the Fobes. The chalumeau register always sounds good but the sound of the clarion was a real treat, sounding very "clarinet like", clean and surprisingly "woody" for a polypropylene reed on a composite instrument. And the altissimo was also very good. The notes popped into life and retained a clean, strong, stable sound even when held for a long time. I'll definitely be buying more of these but I may try a #3.75 at some point, just to be certain that I'm dialed in to the optimal strength for my setup. And if/when Légère comes out with a bass clarinet version I'll definitely try those as well.

I remember using Rico soprano sax reeds on my clarinet in the '60s. For people who have played bass for a long time, has using tenor sax reeds always been an effective alternative? Since the chambers of the mouthpieces are so different I always assumed that there were subtle differences between the profiles of the reeds but I've never had the precision gauges to make an accurate comparison.

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