Weasel Reeds now available

My reeds are made from Argentinian cane, processed on the “Ultimate Reed Finishing Machine” for extremely consistent results.  I leave them a bit resistant so that players can take out just what they need.  They have great intonation in all registers of the bassoon and respond very well as “high note” reeds “out of the box”.  Remove a little bit out of the heart (yes, you read that right!) until the reeds free up to your liking.

$19 per reed.  $5 shipping for orders under 4 reeds, free shipping for 5 reeds or more.  I can accept paypal, but I prefer personal checks.  Send me a message to check availability and make an order.

I also make contrabassoon reeds on special order.

You can also order them from Midwest Musical Imports.

Forming the tube without cracking

Originally posted at the IDRS forum.

1.) I score 7 times on each side of the future-tube, so 14 total scores on a reed. My scores only go from the second wire to the butt. I score first two passes with a metal scribe and then a single light pass with a razor blade. This gives each scoring a pronounced “V” shaped crater.
2.) I make sure the cane is saturated before any work prior to the finishing process. Saturated means that the cane sinks in water. If it sinks it’s not going to get any wetter and if it floats that means there are dry pockets that not only lead to cracks but also to unevenness of the cane fibers as you’re working on it. There is no set time limit this takes, as some cane takes water slower than other cane, and some methods of soaking don’t force water into the fibers as fast (vertical in a tall glass tends to help the cane sink faster than laying it horizontally).
3.) Just prior to forming I soak the cane in the hottest water my tap produces. You don’t want to cook the cane, so not boiling, but steaming is OK. I leave the cane in this warm/hot water for about 10 minutes to make sure it gets up to temperature. This further relaxes the cane so it’s more pliable and less likely to crack.
4. I don’t put on the first wire until after I’ve let my formed tube dry. I find that if I do the rest of these steps right and do as Adam recommends with centering the forming mandrel I don’t get cracks that require the first wire to stop from getting worse. Putting the first wire on is another security measure you can take though. I find that tightly wrapping my twine around the ENTIRE tube, just past the collar area, is enough.

If you do it right, your scoring will continue a slight crack in the top layer of bark just a few millimeters beyond where your scoring stopped, but it won’t go as far as where you place the first wire. This will mean you won’t have any peaks in your tube and your reed will have an even curvature from side to side.

Forming the tube consistently without major cracks (and the peaks and angles associated with them) is one of the most important parts of reed making, and too many people just blow by it to get to the scraping-the-blades part.

Magnetrons studio progress update

Lots of live drumming and a great deal of mixing (which I had no part of) and here’s what we have so far.

Introducing…

Coming January 2010.  For sale directly or through Midwest Musical Imports

Another day another Dollar

Just sent out another Chopped Liver, this time to a guy in New York.

Magnetrons have been doing some recording studio stuff that sounds really cool. Take a listen to a rough cut:

(link removed, since I wrote a new post with a newer version of the same song, read my next post to hear it)

Lots of bassoon scattered through the piece and a pretty lengthy solo.  The middle section contains a lot of bassoon through a Frequency Analyzer, so you can’t really tell at all that it’s a bassoon, it just blends into the synthy backing track.  Next weekend our drummer is laying down the real drum tracks.

And I guess I got sorta promoted at my job.  I’m now the school bid coordinator.  Hopefully this means full time soon.  Would be a good raise and more hours to boot.

The Little-Jake on Clarinet!

Dan playing his clarinet through a POG2 and a DOD440 clone and my Fender Power Chorus.  I drilled a hole in a spare plastic clarinet barrel and just tried it.  Sounds pretty good!

When I Do make reeds…

… this is what it looks like.

 

Well, I wasn’t making them here, I was just adjusting a half dozen or so. Moving the collar back on a bunch and clipping them shorter. Trying to get my pitch up and improve some response.  Still figuring out the ideal length/shape/dimensions for this reed finisher.  I’m very close.  I think I’ve got the length right, but I’m maybe a hair wide yet.  We’ll see how these break in.

L.R. Baggs Gigpro

The Little Jake requires a preamp, which can be a wide number of things.  To make things easy on most bassoonists I work with someone from Chicago that makes a very simple preamp housed in an Altoids tin with a belt clip that provides the necessary impedance buffer and signal boost in a compact package.  There are some EQ problems with it depending on your rig though – as it’s a very bass heavy signal.  I temper that preamp with an EQ pedal or just at my amp.

Most of the time I prefer to use a slightly more expensive belt clip preamp made by L.R. Baggs called the GigPro.  For about $100USD it provides a similar impedance buffer and drive that the Little Jake needs, but also provides gain and volume controls and a two band EQ along with a “trim” that can help avoid any extra boomy-ness.  Here are my settings that I use with this and my rig.  It changes slightly sometimes, but basically this is it:

Click to view the image a little larger.  I’ve added red lines to clarify where the Trim, Bass, and Treble knobs are pointing, since it doesn’t photograph well.  If anyone is using the Little Jake and wants to try it out, this can be purchased at many music stores both locally and online.

My bassoon bookmarks

I keep my bookmarks/favorites synced up with a service called Xmarks.  I try to keep my bookmarks very organized, so my “bassoon” folder contains most all of the bassoon related things I come across that are useful online.  One of the features of Xmarks is that you can share some or all of your bookmarks and I have my “bassoon” folder shared for public viewing.  There are especially a lot of teaching references there that can be of benefit to teachers and students.  Please check them out and be a better musician!  There are also links to some things that I do with my effects there, which is not useful for most bassoonists, but maybe are useful to someone interested in effects for a wind instrument or DIY instrument effects.

Here’s the link

If anyone sees this and has suggestions for other things to add to my bookmarks please comment below!

C2 Goldbrass

My favorite bocal at MMI was a Heckel C with the goldbrass alloy. When Shawn Mouser, principal of the L.A. Phil wanted bocals on a trial I recommended it. He took 3 CC2 bocals and this one C2. I told him he’d like it. That week he played Mahler 1 on Dudamel’s debut concert on that C2 bocal and is buying it. How neat is that?