You'll get two camps on this one.... Comes into the same area as does a lig make a difference. Some people say it must lie flat and be clamped hard, others say the lig should be just about as loose as it can be without the reed moving out of alignment. These 'loose' school also say over clamping affects the sound adversely. The tight school (generally) say that ligs don't affect the sound.
I'm staying out of this one. But I do prefer a cloth/leather lig that doesn't scratch the mouthpiece.
Or there is the Third Way........................! I have just been experimenting with my Tenor set-up and a Selmer 2 Screw ligature.
1. I set it at its tightest on both screws. The sound was very good. It was slightly harder to blow and the lower notes were not as resonant, but the sound was clear.
2. I loosened the front screw a little - this was an easier blow, and had more renonance to the sound. When I loosened it as far as was practical this just increased the resonance, and the sound had mored depth to it. (of course this is an individual preference, and would partly depend on the type of music being played IMHO).
3. When both screws were loosened as far as was practical The sound was more resonant, and the lower notes - below E1 - were of better quality, and easier playability.
I don't think that the sound was ever choked, but the tighter setting was harder work - felt like I had gone from a 2.5 reed to a 2.75 reed - and also produced a slighly clearer, more focussed sound.
In light of this I probably liked the looser settings, but could also see the potential for influencing tone by tightening the ligature according to which type of music to focus on - tighter for rock, funk etc., looser for blues, jazz etc. The other benefit is that it could respectively adjust the relative reed strength in terms of playability if a reed is too hard or too soft.
Kind regards
Tom
Anyway, back to trumpet............................................;}
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