 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Mike
Date: 2001-10-28 18:04
What reeds do you use for contra alto and contra bass? I play on a 3.5 reed for my Bb soprano, what number reed should I use for these instruments?
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Author: Ken Shaw
Date: 2001-10-28 18:30
Mike -
For the Selmer Eb contra-alto mouthpiece, I use Vandoren bass sax reeds. The Selmer BBb contrabass mouthpiece also uses these reeds, as do the current Leblanc Eb and BBb mouthpieces. The older Leblanc BBb mouthpieces (from about 1975 and earlier) use the wider Vandoren contrabass reeds.
Rico makes orange-box contra-alto and contrabass reeds, but they use the same awful cane as the soprano reeds.
Contra reeds need to be a soft as possible and still avoid a "flapping" quality on the low notes. However, almost all of them warp down the middle of the bottom and have to be sanded flat, so I buy the hardest strength I can get and take them down.
I have put up several postings about contra playing and reeds over the past couple of years. See, for example, http://www.sneezy.org/Databases/Logs/2001/06/000500.txt and http://www.sneezy.org/Databases/Logs/2001/02/000801.txt
Best regards.
Ken Shaw
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Author: Mike
Date: 2001-10-29 01:01
Thanks for the advice. What strength bass clarinet reeds do you recommend?
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Author: David Spiegelthal
Date: 2001-10-29 01:26
I can't speak for contrabass clarinet reeds, but for contra-alto, I've been using Marca #4s and some Hemke #4-1/2 baritone sax reeds (fit my refaced Bundy 3 mouthpiece perfectly size-wise), as well as the old standby Vandorens (#4).
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