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After 50 years of experience and more than one million bassoon reeds made, "MY REEDS" has finally come to a conclusion: every bassoon player needs his own reed and this is our aim for his personalized reeds.
For this reason we have thought about creating "MY REED" my one and only reed.

To make "MY REED" we take in consideration the first three columns in Table 1.

Table 1
A Ø Tube Canes	B Ø Hardess of the Gouged Cane
A1 23-24 mm A2 24-25 mm A3 25-26 mm A4 26-27 mm	B1 1.00-1.10 B2 1.10-1.20 B3 1.20-1.30 B4 1.30-1.40

C Scraped Cane Tip	D Kind of Scraped Tip
	D1 D2 D3 D4

For example: There are people that prefer using can A1 di Ø 24/25 mm, thickness of the gouged B3 1.2/1.3, with the width C2.
Like it was shown in this example you can personalize the choice you have made with different options, as described in Table 1.

Now, let’s go to scraped tip (D), multiplied for four different strengths. We can decide the length of the reed scrape from 26 to 30 mm. And like this we have chosen our first part.

Table 2
D1 European D11 Soft D12 Med. Soft D13 Medium D14 Med. Hard D15 Hard	D2 Studio Eur. D21 Soft D22 Med. Soft D23 Medium D24 Med. Hard D25 Hard	D3 American D31 Soft D32 Med. Soft D33 Medium D34 Med. Hard D35 Hard	D4 Studio Amer. D41 Soft D42 Med. Soft D43 Medium D44 Med. Hard D45 Hard

pdf productitalian

Now that the most difficult part has been done, let’s follow on by choosing the final length of "MY REED" We must sum up the length of the reed with that of the tube T less 1-2 mm, given by the cutting of the tip, for this reason you can look at the Table 3.

Table 3
E Length (PALETTA) E1 26 mm E2 27 mm E3 28 mm E4 29 mm E5 30 mm	T Tube Length T1 26 mm T2 27 mm T3 28 mm T4 29 mm T5 30 mm	F Final Length F1 53 mm F2 54 mm F3 55 mm F4 56 mm F557 mm

The length affects the intonation and therefore it is very important that you put in consideration our choice we made beforehand.
One long reed can be very narrow and surely the pitch is higher while a large reed not as long as the first would drop in pitch (or the sound would be lower.)

As you’ve seen it is not easy. I will give you an example, try to put together the letters/numbers that you can see in the chart: see what happens:
1° Example La paletta.
(Tube canes Ø) A2 (Thickness of gouged) B1 (Scraped cane) C2 (Kind of scrape) D3
2° Example – Length scrape + tube = Length of reed:
Length scrape E12 - T (tube length) T2 - F (Reed length) F3

The result of my "MY REED" made this:
A2 – B1 – C2 – D3 - E5 – T2 – F3

The final part is just like decoding a message to read. A long reed 55 mm. with scrape C2 that’s long 28 mm., medium soft, using cane Ø 25/26, gouged to 1.10/1.20 and a modelled tube of 28 mm. The form is an average size narrow.
This kind of reed is medium soft and it is adapted to children and beginners.
For professional players we would like to suggest to try our models of cane, partly finished so it can give you a possibility to choose in accordance to your personal needs.
You can get your reed that went well and measure the various parts (final length, scrape length the width of the tip, etc.) check and see which column suits your kind of reed and you can form your own personal code:

ABCDEF-T

The cane is supplied in a box of six pieces.
The reed is supplied in a case of four pieces.

PS. All unfinished cane tubes come from the South of France dried and then seasoned for at least two years.


©2004-2010 - My Reeds	nissos-design	email: info@myreeds.com