Reeds Yamaha Synthetic Reeds

[lydian]

Yeah, good to know. But I'd have to win the lottery before trying them since they're double the price of Legere.

 

[jazzdoh]

Yeah, good to know. But I'd have to win the lottery before trying them since they're double the price of Legere.

They are a similar price to Legere Signature and AC over here, but I am happy with Legere's so I am less likely to change at the moment

 

[greenstripe]

First play on the Yamaha reed - it's a smidge harder than the 2.00 Legere - I was thinking of moving on to the 2.25 Legere which I'd guess would probably be comparable.

The reed did seem to have about 10 minutes to break in - I don't feel that I've noticeably had his with the Legere reeds

I think I sound very similar on both reeds - perhaps I'm just not a good enough player to pull out the differences (I still consider myself a relative beginner).

It's early days - will see how I get on with it

 

[lydian]

@greenstripe, if you're brave enough to post some comparison clips, I'd love to hear them. No judgement, I promise. Just curious about the difference, no matter what level player you are.

 

[greenstripe]

@greenstripe, if you're brave enough to post some comparison clips, I'd love to hear them. No judgement, I promise. Just curious about the difference, no matter what level player you are.

I will give it a go - need a couple more days with the reed until I've given it a proper play test (*lots of practicing and trying to summon enough courage to post)

 

[Tamiflu]

Making a good synthetic reed must be extremely difficult. In 50 years of trying, only one maker has even come close, and that's Legere. Hartmann and Fibercane get honorable mention for trying, but they're still a big miss as far as I'm concerned. Bari brand didn't even try, and have not improved one bit in 40 years. I'm not holding out much hope for these Yamaha reeds or the Venn Mk 2.

My expectation is that the Yamaha (and Venn) will be adequate for beginners to make sax-like (or clarinet-like) noises without worrying about inconsistency, warping, longevity, etc. But advanced players will be disappointed. I hope I'm wrong of course. I really would love to ditch cane for good, but so far, that hasn't been in the cards.

You forgot to mention Forestone reeds, which I rather like. Particularly the "Black Bamboo"

 

[jonf]

Making a good synthetic reed must be extremely difficult. In 50 years of trying, only one maker has even come close, and that's Legere. Hartmann and Fibercane get honorable mention for trying, but they're still a big miss as far as I'm concerned. Bari brand didn't even try, and have not improved one bit in 40 years. I'm not holding out much hope for these Yamaha reeds or the Venn Mk 2.

My expectation is that the Yamaha (and Venn) will be adequate for beginners to make sax-like (or clarinet-like) noises without worrying about inconsistency, warping, longevity, etc. But advanced players will be disappointed. I hope I'm wrong of course. I really would love to ditch cane for good, but so far, that hasn't been in the cards.

I have been playing for over forty years, and have tried various synthetics over the years, with generally mediocre results. However, since the beginning of 2022 I have been playing a Legere American Cut on baritone, playing almost every day. I have to say, it's at least as good as the D'Addario Select Jazz I had been using, so for baritone at least, I am sticking with it.

 

[jazzdoh]

First play on the Yamaha reed - it's a smidge harder than the 2.00 Legere - I was thinking of moving on to the 2.25 Legere which I'd guess would probably be comparable.

The reed did seem to have about 10 minutes to break in - I don't feel that I've noticeably had his with the Legere reeds

I think I sound very similar on both reeds - perhaps I'm just not a good enough player to pull out the differences (I still consider myself a relative beginner).

It's early days - will see how I get on with it

Its interesting that you say that there was a small break in period, I find this with Legere AC's that they don't play their best straight away, I don't know whether others have the same experience.

 

[lydian]

I have been playing for over forty years, and have tried various synthetics over the years, with generally mediocre results. However, since the beginning of 2022 I have been playing a Legere American Cut on baritone, playing almost every day. I have to say, it's at least as good as the D'Addario Select Jazz I had been using, so for baritone at least, I am sticking with it.

That's my experience also in my 40+ years of messing with synthetics. Legere on bari (and bass sax) works really well for me too, in my case Signature and Classic respectively (bass only comes in Classic). (I haven't yet tried AC). But they're still lacking on the higher horns for me. They may sound great on the low end, but go off the rails on the high end, in my experience.

I think the fact that Legere lets you swap reeds to find the right cut/strength is a huge advantage over the competition as well. If I spend $20-$40 on a single reed and it doesn't work or I can't exchange it, I'm done with that brand pretty much forever. Too much money wasted already. Long live Legere!

Now back to our regular Yamaha Synthetic topic...

 

[greenstripe]

I've tried my best here - first stab at recording and mixing - I've recorded both using the same settings and added the backing track post recording and synced it by (educated) guesswork - there is no EQ used on my saxophone only a tiny bit of reverb to fill out the sound a little as my music room is very small and dead. There's distortion in the backing track (that's how it came) and I have not touched this at all, just dropped the level of my own saxophone recording to make it sit better in the mix.

The track is called A song For Sophie - taken from The Jazz Method For Saxophone by John O'Neill

I used Audacity - Microphone is Audio Technica AT2020USB+


Yamaha ASR 25

https://soundcloud.com/user-401173142%2Fa-song-for-sophie-mixed%2Fs-bJYjN2SUyDS

View: https://soundcloud.com/user-401173142/a-song-for-sophie-mixed/s-bJYjN2SUyDS?utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing



Legere American Cut 2.00

https://soundcloud.com/user-401173142%2Fa-song-for-sophie-1%2Fs-w673ECqDVXy

View: https://soundcloud.com/user-401173142/a-song-for-sophie-1/s-w673ECqDVXy?utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing

 

[greenstripe]

Going slightly off topic the recording process has been a good learning experience for me and has made it clear that the Legere is slightly too soft for me - I've held off buying another Legere just yet as I'v decided to give the D'adddario Venn at try, only ordered today so will arrive at some point after the Easter break I should imagine

 

[nigeld]

Sounds to me that the Legere sound has a bit more body to it, but not a huge difference.

I’ve been trying out various synthetic reeds over the last year or two (an expensive process) and haven’t found anything I prefer to Legere Signature.

 

[lydian]

Thanks for that. Very helpful. Legere has the clarity and fullness of cane. Yamaha is duller, but the difference is small. I’ll have to try an AC on alto.

Nice job on the recording by the way.

 

[David Roach]

I ordered some of the Yamaha synthetic reeds a few days ago on a whim; since I've been experimenting with Legere (mainly good) and Venn (very good) I thought I would try Yamaha's offering too.

Sadly I am very disappointed and consider that I have wasted my money. So be warned: they maybe cheap(er), but in my opinion the are useless.

Firstly, the Yamaha reeds are like planks: even on the closest facing alto piece I have (Vandoren AL3) the softest 2.5 felt very hard.
Secondly, the sound is exorable, probably worse than any synthetic I have played (and that's saying something).

The construction is weird. The part of the reed that would on a cane reed be under the bark is slightly raised, giving a small step into the part beneath the vamp (as you can see from the pictures in other posts here). This means that the reed cannot possible sit flat on the table of the mouthpiece at the point where it blends into the facing.

I cannot understand Yamaha's logic with these reeds and I can only surmise that this is a desperate attempt to get in on the synthetic 'act' along with Legere and Venn. It's very disappointing because I am a fan of Yamaha's instruments.

Call me 'Bewildered of East Finchley'

 

[Pete Thomas]

the Yamaha reed has a substantially longer vamp meaning that I may have to experiment with ligature placement

I don't think ligature placement should affect that.

I have heard that the Yamaha are more geared to beginners.

Yamaha describes them as aimed at beginners whatever that implies.

My expectation is that the Yamaha (and Venn) will be adequate for beginners to make sax-like (or clarinet-like) noises without worrying about inconsistency,

Sounds like they didn't like their own reeds and thought "OK let's market them to beginners." Good enough for beginners didn't used to be part of their philosophy. They used to give endorser the so-called entry level instrument for demonstration purposes to prove that they were good enough for professionals.

If a reed is deemed to not sound great, hence only be useable by beginners, then how are the beginners supposed to evaluate their tone in order to progress?

 

[greenstripe]

@Pete Thomas not sure I've explained very well: what I meant regarding ligature placement is that I usually have the ligature pretty close to the end of the file on the reed and because the vamp is longer on the Yamaha it means that I need to put the ligature slightly further back on the mouthpiece towards the neck of the saxophone than I would do with other reeds

 

[Pete Thomas]

@Pete Thomas not sure I've explained very well: what I meant regarding ligature placement is that I usually have the ligature pretty close to the end of the file on the reed and because the vamp is longer on the Yamaha it means that I need to put the ligature slightly further back on the mouthpiece towards the neck of the saxophone than I would do with other reeds

I don't quite understand that. The position of the ligature relative to the vamp can surely still be the same, or are you saying the vamp is too long so it overlaps onto the table so the ligature would have to hang off the back. This would be very odd.

 

[Yansalis]

@Pete Thomas you're going in the right direction, only too far. @greenstripe is saying something between your two options: vamp is too long so his normal lig position is pushed a bit further down the table. Ligs are often not as wide as the table is long.

 

[Pete Thomas]

@greenstripe is saying something between your two options: vamp is too long so his normal lig position is pushed a bit further down the table.

Yes, this is what I don't get. Think of the point along the mouthpiece where the window stops and the table starts. The reed vamp end should be on the window side of that point and the ligature on the other side.

So if the vamp is so long, the ligature has to be moved back away from it a bit, it implies the vamp has crossed that line, ie is beyond the end of the window.

Another way to look at this is that if the ligature is right up to the the vamp end , then it's probably too far up to begin with.

That's what is concerning me about understanding this

 

[greenstripe]

@Yansalis is getting my point

Here's some photos for clarity:

2.0mm graph paper for scaling purposes

From Left to right:

Legere American Cut, Rico Royal, D'addario Venn, Yamaha ASR

As you can see the Yamaha Reed is nearly 2.0mm longer than any of the others and all of this extra length is in the vamp section meaning the ligature needs to be 2.0 mm further on the mouthpiece. All reeds have a similar length stock (I know this is largely irrelevant).

Below is a photo of how I position the (Venn) reed and ligature on my mouthpiece - I do like the line on the Legere above the strength rating as this provides a good point of reference: