Chiff and Fipple Forums

The one bugbear with the clarinet is its dependence on a good reed. You can get a box of 3 and only one might be useable. And if you're not a highly qualified player its hard to know what is a good reed and what's bad!
Anyway I currently favour Rico Royals grade 2.5 - I tried Vandoren blue packet in grade 2, but I found them really difficult to get a consistent tone without my ears blowing out!
So I was thinking of getting a synthetic reed, a Ligere or similar. Many pro players use them, even oboists, and they have the advantage of not needing to be wetted beforehand. The drawback is the price - about £30 for one (european cut, regular cut is cheaper but not as good I'm told)
But you buy one and it lasts much longer than conventional reeds.
Any members on here use them?

My daughter uses on with her alto sax, partly because it's ready to go right away and se we can leave it on the sax for spontaneous practice. her teacher, a local pro who Ive; done gigs with (on bass) says he frequently uses a plastic reed when he has to double on sax and clarinet, because he can leave the instrument sitting and it's ready to go when he needs to play it, rather than having to go through the whole moistening the reed bit.

Try these first.
http://www.fibracelldirect.com/index.htm

oleorezinator wrote:Try these first.
http://www.fibracelldirect.com/index.htm

Yea I've seen fibracell elsewhere. Unfortunately thats a US site and I'm in the UK, but there are sellers over here. (Online of course...)