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Ligatures does a lig make a difference or is it in my head...

Some ligatures compensate or adapt to irregularities or defects in a mouthpiece more successfully than others.
In a perfect world, a well and accurately finished mouthpiece will accept any lig that fits.
In the real world some mouthpieces are less than perfect and although a ligature plays no part in tone production, if it can't do its job efficiently, a player may perceive quite a difference in playability from one lig to another.
Some players like the reed to be almost crushed onto the table. Some like it held with a light pressure.
A lig won't make you a better player.
Spending a fortune on gear and then not putting in the hours will not yield results. ;)
 
Ivdo put ad many hours in ad i can tbf love playing or trying to...i started the thread because i had finally found a set up that i liked the sound of. Then it went when i tried tanother ( exactly the same make and model) reed.. not just slightly different but vastly really stuffy and hard to play tried anothet reed exactly the same thing. Anyhow i tried with a plane blade and some wet and dry and a you tube vid and treated the reed both sre much better still not as good as the one i have on but playable. So 78 squod ligjter on a reed geek...felt so miserable i bougjt a zephyr to cheer myself up...
 
eb424 said:
Ivdo put ad many hours in ad i can tbf love playing or trying to...i started the thread because i had finally found a set up that i liked the sound of. Then it went when i tried tanother ( exactly the same make and model) reed.. not just slightly different but vastly really stuffy and hard to play tried anothet reed exactly the same thing. Anyhow i tried with a plane blade and some wet and dry and a you tube vid and treated the reed both sre much better still not as good as the one i have on but playable. So 78 squod ligjter on a reed geek...felt so miserable i bougjt a zephyr to cheer myself up...
Click to expand...
You did the wrong thing, you could have saved a lot of money for the same thing but you did the right thing to get a Zephyr. Anyhow, with the reedgeek tool, the main thing is to get the contact area of the reed with the table smooth. everything else is incremental improvement. More important is to make sure that the reed is completely centered and parallel with the axis of the MPC, not just at the tip but even more so at the back. Many ligatures will shift the reed when you tighten the screws, so watch out for that.

For finessing the "wings" of the reed, try to get a symmetric transparancy when you hold the reed to the light. It is not always 100% accurate but until you develop a feeling, it is the easiest way to get close.

And the rest is just as always: "Patience Grashopper"
 
I only understood why ligs don't matter that much .... when I started treating my reeds....
I was so pissed that a good reed in the morning would not play well after a day or two just because it was swallen....

also i was throwing many many reeds just because I didn't know how to prep them...

Please spend some time into learning how to adjust your reeds and THEN see what goes on with the ligature, otherwise you try to see how capable is a ligature to keep in place a highly possible swollen reed.

A good read is the "Art of the saxophone" book ... and for lazy ones is the Reed Geek videos -no matter if you use the original product or anything else-

Just be careful because when you trim a lot a reed you make it play but you make it ... softer... earlier....

Having a correct mouthpiece and a flat reed is 90% off the work a ligature has to do...
 
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