Yes...I found your video to be very helpful. I have been experimenting with customizing my reeds using a blade...many times a razor. I have made aggressive and drastic cuts onto the reeds to explore the various tonal results. Overall.. I have increased the life span of a basic box of 8 Fred Hemke reeds to about a month and 1/2, playing just about everyday. Thanks for your informative guidance.
Thanks again Paul, very informative especially the reed in contact with the mouthpiece and scraping the reed with the knife.. Hope you are well in all this corona chaos, your videos are a very welcome distraction at this time!
Hi Kraken Lover, i'm really glad this was interesting for you. Yes the flattening the reed bed to have a more perfect fit with the mouthpiece "table" has really made a huge difference. I'm well thank you, there'll be plenty more vids coming now we are in lockdown in the UK. I hope you're well too.
Hello Paul thanks for sharing. I have a few reeds like this. Most of my reeds play well out of the box. I have found that some others eventually play well after being put through the process I shared with you. The remainder are hard to play. I will defiantly give your method a try.
Hi again Jason, you're welcome. It's great to be sharing all these ideas isnt it. I really struggled for years, it's so great to have lost all that stress about reeds now. :) Hope you're well and safe!
They really are arent they. I'm happier now with my combination of measures that I can usually get 5 or more good reeds from a box. Usually more. It's enough that I dont worry so much about the duff ones. When it was 7 or 8 out of a box that were no good it was pretty upsetting to throw the money away, but also be messing around with reeds when you just want to be playing.
XD XD HAHA! amazing comment, thanks man, so sorry if my youtube notification woke you up?? I'm actually trying different posting times to find the best one. I guess 8am UK time might not be the best. Where are you living?
Ridenour ATG. Against The Grain system. Not super complicated. Balance reeds side to side is what it mainly concerns. Tilting your head to isolate each side.
paul, your stating that the bottom part of the reed could be ruff and to shave it a little , but you have your finger holding the end and only doing about 3/4 of the reed ,won't that make a ridge between your finger and the part where you start shaving from your holding finger towards the reed tip ?
Hi Gerald. I know what you mean, I tend to only hold about a 6th of the Reed length and scrape along the rest. Although yes this would still create the difference you mention. But I've found that the main thing is to have the part where the mouthpiece table ends and the cavity begins, in perfect contact with the reed. Therefor getting 5 6ths of the Reed smooth seems to manage this in practice. If I have a Reed where I'm having to take off a fair bit to get the Reed bed flat the I will actually hold the whole "face" of the Reed and run the knife the other direction to cover the back end of the Reed bed too. I don't usually need to do this unless a Reed is really out of shape. However it is surprising how many of these one comes across. As long as you can hold the Reed without damaging it then I've found you can run the knife either direction and it's fine. (Obviously still angle the knife so the top is angled towatd the direction of travel . You will hear people say to never scrape backwards on a Reed, however that seems to only apply to the Reed face (part your lip touches when playing). Thats because of the angle of the cut. On the base it seems far more forgiving. I've also heard of people using a piece of fine grit wet and dry paper on a sheet of glass and rubbing the whole bed of the reed flat on that. I prefer to not take much if any depth off the actual vibrating part of the Reed and just get the Reed bed and mouthpiece table sitting really flush. Have an experiment and let me know how you get on. 🎷👍
Hi Miguel, you're right, it won't fix all bad reeds. I still do other bits of reed doctoring if really needed. But this technique is something that i was never told about and was the issue with the majority of the reeds that didnt play well for me. Before i would pay £30 for a box of 10, regularly get an average of 3 decent reeds and they also wouldn't last very long. Now using this base scraping method along with keeping my reeds wet i get far more reeds from a box, without having to spend any time doing fine reed resurfacing work, and they last soooo much longer. My £30 purchase can last me up to a year now. :D
Yes...I found your video to be very helpful. I have been experimenting with customizing my reeds using a blade...many times a razor. I have made aggressive and drastic cuts onto the reeds to explore the various tonal results. Overall.. I have increased the life span of a basic box of 8 Fred Hemke reeds to about a month and 1/2, playing just about everyday. Thanks for your informative guidance.
TOTALLY helped. I used a Boston Sax reed care tool. Perfect. Thank you!!
Hey, you've got a great vibe! Thanks for the sax lore!
Thanks paul I'm actually waiting for the video about synthetic reeds
Great stuff, I'll have it coming up in the next couple of weeks for sure. :)
Thanks again Paul, very informative especially the reed in contact with the mouthpiece and scraping the reed with the knife.. Hope you are well in all this corona chaos, your videos are a very welcome distraction at this time!
Hi Kraken Lover, i'm really glad this was interesting for you. Yes the flattening the reed bed to have a more perfect fit with the mouthpiece "table" has really made a huge difference. I'm well thank you, there'll be plenty more vids coming now we are in lockdown in the UK. I hope you're well too.
Hello Paul thanks for sharing. I have a few reeds like this. Most of my reeds play well out of the box. I have found that some others eventually play well after being put through the process I shared with you. The remainder are hard to play. I will defiantly give your method a try.
Hi again Jason, you're welcome. It's great to be sharing all these ideas isnt it. I really struggled for years, it's so great to have lost all that stress about reeds now. :) Hope you're well and safe!
@@PaulHaywood Yes Paul so far we are well and trying to be as safe as we can with Covid now in our midst. I hope you are well also.
Reed is most painful thing in sax playing :) good reed today, but maybe not after few days.
thanks good advice, i use reed geek fir flattening will try your method.frustrating reeds
They really are arent they. I'm happier now with my combination of measures that I can usually get 5 or more good reeds from a box. Usually more. It's enough that I dont worry so much about the duff ones. When it was 7 or 8 out of a box that were no good it was pretty upsetting to throw the money away, but also be messing around with reeds when you just want to be playing.
@@PaulHaywood thanks for replying and your vids
Awesome, I tried this and now I can play low notes!
*Paul uploads a vid a **3:32** on my country*
Me: I need no sleep. I seek knowledge *clicks on video*
XD XD HAHA! amazing comment, thanks man, so sorry if my youtube notification woke you up?? I'm actually trying different posting times to find the best one. I guess 8am UK time might not be the best.
Where are you living?
Ridenour ATG. Against The Grain system. Not super complicated. Balance reeds side to side is what it mainly concerns. Tilting your head to isolate each side.
paul, your stating that the bottom part of the reed could be ruff and to shave it a little , but you have your finger holding the end and only doing about 3/4 of the reed ,won't that make a ridge between your finger and the part where you start shaving from your holding finger towards the reed tip ?
Hi Gerald. I know what you mean, I tend to only hold about a 6th of the Reed length and scrape along the rest. Although yes this would still create the difference you mention. But I've found that the main thing is to have the part where the mouthpiece table ends and the cavity begins, in perfect contact with the reed. Therefor getting 5 6ths of the Reed smooth seems to manage this in practice.
If I have a Reed where I'm having to take off a fair bit to get the Reed bed flat the I will actually hold the whole "face" of the Reed and run the knife the other direction to cover the back end of the Reed bed too. I don't usually need to do this unless a Reed is really out of shape. However it is surprising how many of these one comes across.
As long as you can hold the Reed without damaging it then I've found you can run the knife either direction and it's fine. (Obviously still angle the knife so the top is angled towatd the direction of travel .
You will hear people say to never scrape backwards on a Reed, however that seems to only apply to the Reed face (part your lip touches when playing). Thats because of the angle of the cut.
On the base it seems far more forgiving.
I've also heard of people using a piece of fine grit wet and dry paper on a sheet of glass and rubbing the whole bed of the reed flat on that.
I prefer to not take much if any depth off the actual vibrating part of the Reed and just get the Reed bed and mouthpiece table sitting really flush.
Have an experiment and let me know how you get on. 🎷👍
Ok is a good way to fix bad reeds but not for all bad reeds, firt is needed a test of Suction of Sax Reed & Mouthpiece.
Hi Miguel, you're right, it won't fix all bad reeds. I still do other bits of reed doctoring if really needed. But this technique is something that i was never told about and was the issue with the majority of the reeds that didnt play well for me. Before i would pay £30 for a box of 10, regularly get an average of 3 decent reeds and they also wouldn't last very long. Now using this base scraping method along with keeping my reeds wet i get far more reeds from a box, without having to spend any time doing fine reed resurfacing work, and they last soooo much longer. My £30 purchase can last me up to a year now. :D