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What is a good make of Alto Saxophone Reeds?
I need some new alto sax reeds, but i dont know what make to go for (:
This is a common question people ask both on the sax and many other reed instruments.
The closest of an accurate answer you could give someone on the "best" reeds is the extremes and lows but in each catergory you can only say through personal preference. So here is what i can say abbout reeds....
Price usually tells you something with the reeds. But as the price goes up so does the work to get the best out of the reed and the more you play the more picky you will get with sound and response and such. A good start would be to try a bit of each brand. Get like 2 reeds per brand and get as many different ones as possible and find a strength which you are comfortable with and go by that for every brand but chances are the strength won't be the same with all the different brands. Some brands 2.5 would be 2.0 on a rico. Also be prepared to work down your reeds. This could make all these new reeds you try very terrible and unresponsive. I reccomend that you find out how to work down your reeds first if you haven't already.
Even though the reeds will show alot, mouthpiece's tend to change the quality of a reed. I find since rico reeds are slightly slimmer then vandoren reeds, the rico reeds don't play well on vandoren mouthpieces. So don't completely fix yourself on a reed until you have tried as many combinations as you can.
So as clarinet is my primary instrument is clarinet and i haven't really experimented on sax with reeds, i would suggest these brands but i am not sure how many of them make saxophone reeds as well since i on't know the clarinet ones.
Vandoren (there are plenty of kinds of vandoren and relatively cheap with good moouthpieces)
Rico (go for anything over rico royal, try whatever they have at a higher price)
Zonda(really inconsitant but are lovely if worked correctly with the right mouthpiece. They are mighty expenisve though and hard to find)
there are plenty in those brands alone but look up on music stores and you can find a ton more. Just google or shop!
Hope this helps and good luck in your music!
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