 The Oboe BBoard
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Author: mikeW
Date: 2006-11-01 18:15
Hi folks,
I was reading a sax list, and someone mentioned that oboe players liked to use ultrasonic cleaners on their reeds, and provided links to a couple of articles in the double-reed journal from 1985. I was just wondering if anyone here uses ultrasonic cleaners, or if opinions have changed over the past 20 years on the best way to get the most from your reeds.
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Author: d-oboe
Date: 2006-11-01 19:56
To be honest, it's better to just make or get a new reed. Also, get in the habit of rotating reeds, so that the fibers have a chance to relax.
The reed is at its best for about the first week or two of playing, and then it starts to decline. The reason for this decline is due to some extent that it gets dirty, but the main reason in that the fibers get crushed from regular playing. The fibers tire, and are less happy to hold their shape, and thus are not conducive to vibration. And there's nothing we can do about this.
Personally, for the amount that I play, the reed tires out before it actually gets very dirty - by this time (for me) cleaning the reed does little good.
However, if you play as an amateur, and your demands aren't as heavy, I would suggest looking into anything that keeps reeds their best.
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Author: vboboe
Date: 2006-11-02 06:07
haven't tried ulta-sonic, what's the big attraction, what can they do that nothing else can do?
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Author: mosh
Date: 2006-11-02 06:21
The idea of Ultra Sonics is that they have a greater ability to dislodge small particles from the fibres, therefore making a "cleaner" reed. NO washing or other method of cleaning can do this.
But, In the end though playing a reed always damages the celular structure, with the vibrations.
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Author: HautboisJJ
Date: 2006-11-02 12:09
Ultra sonic cleaner doesnt give me obvious results it seems, have tried it out at a teacher's place before. I was taught by an English teacher once (WARNING: only do this on your oldest reeds which you plan to use for just probably, MAYBE, one more good practise.) to insert the corner of a bank note in the reed, just like how you would insert a plaque, but much further in. Once the note is in, using your index finger and thumb, press lightly the surface of the reed, and with light pressure on the reed pull the bank note out. This will revive the vibration of the reed by a noticeable amount but at the same time, it lightens the reed and it's probably going to be dead the next day or even much longer before.
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Author: Bobo
Date: 2006-11-02 15:53
I've had a good experience with ReedLife, which is a mysterious concoction sold by many dealers for about $10 a bottle. It purports to clean the read after a short soaking and to rehumify and revitalize the cellular structure, thereby extending the life of the reed. Has anybody else out there tried it?
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Author: Dutchy
Date: 2006-11-02 18:12
My understanding is that ReedLife is basically just hydrogen peroxide, which you can obtain at the grocery store for about a dollar a bottle. From this Clarinet board thread. He's got other proprietary ingredients in there, but mostly it's just peroxide.
I use peroxide occasionally on favorite but "losing it" old reeds, and it does perk them up for a day or so. Peroxide has the effect of dissolving dead organic matter, so it stands to reason that removing the gunk from the reed would make it sound a little better temporarily. But like D-oboe mentioned, after a while the reed's fibers are just compressed and broken, and it won't "sound" properly, and no amount of de-gunking is going to help it.
I just set the reed in it for a 5 minute soak and then rinse it off under running water.
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Author: ohsuzan
Date: 2006-11-02 18:55
Dutchy --
Do you use the hydrogen peroxide "straight", or do you dilute it with water?
Susan
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Author: vboboe
Date: 2006-11-03 01:47
... and Dutchy, do you use 10% or 5% solution to begin with?
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Author: Dutchy
Date: 2006-11-03 16:51
Neither--it's the common 3% household peroxide that you can buy over-the-counter at any drugstore or grocery store here in the U.S. They sell it for gargling and pouring onto infected wounds, things like that. It costs about a dollar for a 16 oz. bottle. I just put a half-inch of it into a film canister soaking container, same as I would for water, and soak the reed for a few minutes, then rinse it out under running water, letting a thin stream of water go through the reed to rinse out the gunk inside there, too, not just around the outside. And as I said, it's not a miracle worker, but it does seem to perk up for a day or so those marginal "oh, no, this reed is losing it" reeds, the ones that are losing it because they're full of gunk.
Two other things I've discovered I can do to prolong my reeds is rinse my mouth out before I play, to get rid of food residue, because your saliva is full of enzymes anyway that are slowly breaking down the reed fibers, but food particles in addition are full of fats and sugars and stuff, which can't be good for the wood.
Then I discovered that I need to stop banging the reed tip on the bottom of the water soaker canister every time I dip it. I used to tap the reed on the bottom every time I reached over to dip it, and I finally realized that that's not good for the measured-in-micrometers-carefully-adjusted reed's tip either. So now I just slowly and very-very carefully dip the reed in the water without touching the bottom, which seems to help.
And I left out that I also realized that if you leave the same water in your film canister for soaking, it gets contaminated with saliva which then adds even more digestive enzymes to your soaking water--and thus to your reed- every time you dip your reed. Which is a Bad Thing. It's the same way that you don't feed a baby directly from the baby food jar, because if you do, the saliva from the spoon will contaminate the food in the jar, and if you put the half-finished jar of baby food back into the fridge, and come back to it the next day, it will be a disgusting liquid mess, the salivary enzymes having done their job there in the fridge.
So I use fresh water in my little film canister every time, which is a nuisance trekking back and forth to the bathroom for a half-inch of water, but hey, anything to avoid having to pay another 12 bucks for another reed any time soon.
Post Edited (2006-11-03 16:56)
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