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Reeds Légère Signature

Ivan

Ivan

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I'm impressed

For a long while I wasn't impressed by a Légère Studio 2.5 that made my tenor sound like a duck. I went back to it recently after concerted efforts to improve my emouchure and it still made me sound like a duck

But.... @MandyH posted a thread recenty about a bari Légère and it got me thinking; and buying. Like most of us I'm fed up with inconsistency between cane reeds, I can't be bothered to use a reed filing tool and anyway it's quite an outlay. I like the noise I can make with a Plasticover but they're as inconsistent as cane reeds, they can't be fettled and I've gone off the idea of putting that particular mix of hydrocarbons into my gob

I tried two strengths of tenor Légère Signature on Ponzol and PPT... 2.0 suits the Ponzol and 2.25 the PPT. They sound good and the big advantage is a consistent response to my attempts at altissimo. I can be sure that when I miss it's because of technique not because the reed is getting tired

I've now got a bari Légère Signature which has done some good things.... I'd say the main benefit is stabilising notes. I was having a fairly dreadful time with a Lawton B, no matter what the reed. Every so often I would optimistically assemble amd play the Lawton and quickly remove it, but with the Légère, notes are stable and the tone gooooood. Likewise on a Pillinger I seem to have minimised the fluffed notes

Tonewise I reckon the Lawton bari is spot on. I think the tenor lacks the woody timbre you can get with that elusive great reed but if I stick to Légère I think can expect quality control and few disappointments. If I eliminate the random variation between reeds I can concentrate on improving my technique. I've been filling a reed drawer with dodgy reeds to rival that of @Nick Wyver and I hope I won't need to keep it up

The Légère website says they will replace a newly purchased reed if you want a different strength. If they're as good as their word it seems like a good safety net for anyone taking the plunge
 
Similarly just got into Legere, very impressed, hard to get the right strength and at 28 odd euros a go its been an expensive guessing game. Fairyly sorted now, very pleased and find I am not playing with a weaker reed than previous, but I have been working at that.

Top tip
Do not put your 28 euro Leger sig. reed into a reed case, push it in a little tiny bit too far and close the case nipping the end and ruining the thing. Would have thought a top brand of reed case would have thought of that, appears not. Why is everything such a pile of c%&p these days?
 
I have been using signatures for a few years. Work for me. I use a 2 3/4 on my 11* Tenor PPT Hooligan and will use the same on my 8* Alto Hooligan. Using a 2 3/4 Gonzales at the moment as I had a box to hand and I find their strength rating is pretty much the same as Signatures.

I have t4ried the other Legere reeds and they don't work for my soundscape.
 
I'm well sold on plastic reeds. For about 6 months I've been using a Bari hard that I filed to soften. A couple of weeks ago I started to use a Fibracell, also hard and filed to make it playable. At present I prefer the Fibracell but now I have two plastic reeds, which means one in reserve if the other goes down. I bought hard reeds because both were old stock, available cheaply. Filing them doesn't require special tools. I used the whetstone on which I sharpen knives. It probably does take knowing what you're doing, which I don't. I guess I got lucky.
 
Just add my experience of synthetic reeds. (Novice player of 1 and a half years)
I play alto, and I initially tried Fibracell which are so reliable compared to cane. I always know they will sound the same, whereas with cane I would only find the odd one that played totally reliably. I do think the Fibracell can sound a tad harsh, however my friends say they can't hear the difference.
Recently I bought a Legere Signature, thought I may as well try it, and also have a spare when the Fibracell eventually dies. So far it is just as reliable as the Fibracell but with a better tone (to my ear, again friends can't tell any difference)
In both brands I went for a 2 strength.
 
I too have moved to Legere reeds. They don't last as long as Bari or Fibracell, and I don't think I am spending much less than I would on cane reeds, but I think they sound better. I have used the more expensive Legere Signature reeds but when I last bought I saw that their prices had risen so my last buy was a cheaper Original which seems just as good. Buying the right strength, I don't need to file Legere reeds. Incidentally, there a huge jump in strength from Legere 2.5 to 3, and that must be why they offer 2.75, the strength I now use.
 
richardr said:
... Incidentally, there a huge jump in strength from Legere 2.5 to 3, and that must be why they offer 2.75, the strength I now use.
Click to expand...
Not tried Legere yet, but I first thought this about Fibracel, the jump between the 2.5 and the 3 was huge...but then I tried some more and I found that actually, there's just a wide variation in the reeds. Some 2.5s are very soft, and some 3s are very hard. At least as big a variety, if not more than cane reeds.

The first 2.5 I tried was a soft one, and the first 3 I had was a hard one. Reading up I noticed that Mark Maxwell says pretty much the same thing, he has a 'number' and he says that one of them is usually right for the current atmospheric conditions :)

Sadly they're not cheap, but I don't think there's any shortcut to having a 'number'.
 
Tiberius said:
Not tried Legere yet, but I first thought this about Fibracel, the jump between the 2.5 and the 3 was huge...but then I tried some more and I found that actually, there's just a wide variation in the reeds. Some 2.5s are very soft, and some 3s are very hard. At least as big a variety, if not more than cane reeds.

The first 2.5 I tried was a soft one, and the first 3 I had was a hard one. Reading up I noticed that Mark Maxwell says pretty much the same thing, he has a 'number' and he says that one of them is usually right for the current atmospheric conditions :)

Sadly they're not cheap, but I don't think there's any shortcut to having a 'number'.
Click to expand...
In my limited experience, Legere reeds are consistent in strength.
 

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