I had to work to put enough weight behind the push to get the cane to go beneath the pre-gouger blade. A crank-style pre-gouger would have been really helpful here. The cane did not want to gouge easily or evenly either.
I found my pieces to not be as straight as "average" tubes for whatever that really means , so they did not want to stay nicely in the gouger bed. When it was time to profile, I removed wood until no more came off, but the center fold score did not go deep enough. Perhaps a sharper blade would have fixed this problem, also. The result was not really discovered until after I began shaping and building the blank. The cane did not fold evenly.
The fold had a prominent smile when looking at it, and the blade areas had a slope that was not even and thickness issues. When I score, I actually cut from the butt end of the tube straight into the cane.
The tube of the reed did not want to form into round easily. Even as it sits on my drying rack, it looks like my profiler did not remove cane material evenly, and it seems I will do extra work trying to make playable reeds out of this cane. Everything about this tube cane requires extra effort, and it has not been pleasant to work with it.
But perhaps the resulting reeds will be worth it. I had the chance to also profile two pieces of Alliaud cane on a Reeds 'n Stuff profiling machine.
They profiled much easier and smoother than those on my Rieger profiler. But only making reeds out of it will tell me if the machines used had an impact on how easy it is to use Alliaud cane. After making reeds from the Alliaud cane, I can tell you that the cane fibers are more dense than many brands I've tried. Though not exactly the same thing, this made reeds that were hard, much harder than I prefer.
After getting my knife sharpened, working with this cane went much faster and smoother. With a dull knife this cane is likely to prove a challenge. But after thinning the tip for response, I can say this cane makes reeds with a powerful sound! The fibers are still stiff, but with some careful and controlled flexing, I was able to comfortably articulate and bend the pitch on reeds that had good sounds. The reeds were able to play a scale well in tune. Reeds had a big, vibrant sound.
I look forward to continued work with these reeds. Danzi cane, from tube to processed GSP, has long been well-regarded as producing good reeds with desirable dynamic control and enviable tonal colors. This reputation led me to easily recommend the tube cane for availability at Hodge Products. We were already selling their finished reeds and processed cane, so this was a natural choice.
However we have decided to discontinue carrying the Danzi tube cane. As best we can determine Danzi sources their tubes from a very large farm in the Var region of France and simply processes them. We do, and will continue to, carry their processed cane. I made reeds from Danzi tubes and from Danzi-processed cane. At that time we only had one piece of Danzi GSP cane to try. I found the cane to be a bit on the hard side for my liking, so I thinned the blades a bit. After that, I found the response and sound to be surprisingly good, but pitch was just a bit on the low side.
This reed I shaped on my Rieger 1A shape, which I had since determined is too wide overall for my current set up and playing needs. All of my recent reeds on this shape have been too low, and I end up narrowing the shape. This is why I moved to the Rieger 1 shape. The reed was easy to manipulate to do what I needed. Allowing it to age and now coming back to it, the cane seems like the fibers are dense enough to have a nice long playing life, and yet it's still responsive.
With the reeds I made from tube cane, everything I noticed from the GSP cane seems to hold true but to also be better for me. Thoughts on processing the cane are in the next paragraph. The cane smooths out with sandpaper to a very nice level.
The reeds adapt well to my adjustments. I am able to get a good sound and fast response even as I thin the blades to my liking. All the Danzi cane processes went as expected. For me, the Danzi cane was harder than others, more medium hard than medium.
This simply means that I put more energy into gouging and profiling it, but the cane did as I wanted. I gouged nice ribbons. Profiling went smoothly. The fibers seemed straight, they cut evenly, and the blades of my reeds sanded to my desired smoothness without feeling like I was fighting it. All in all, I have no problem with Danzi cane, and I enjoyed working with it. Glotin cane is another well-known brand of bassoon cane. It has long been loved and made great reeds.
So far it has also been easy to work with, and blanks show great promise. I have heard grumblings that Glotin cane is softer than it used to be. It has proven to be fibrous, and difficult to get the blades really smooth though smooth enough , but it was easy to work with at all stages.
For me it still has a big sound with a good spectrum of overtones. From a processing perspective, the Glotin cane split into pieces that were quite straight. Too much side to side curvature means that the cane will not lie in the pre-gouger bed or the gouger bed. This would make it extra difficult to process. It will also come back again when profiling as it will not line up with the guide marks on the barrel. A piece of cane with too much curvature will simply not work well to process, so it will not produce a reliable reed.
Again, my Glotin split nice and straight. After soaking, it pre-gouged and gouged easily. The gouger did not consistently produce nice ribbons over the entire length of the piece, but did for most of the length. Profiling and shaping went as expected. With reeds made from both tube cane and GSP processed by Glotin, all of the reeds have great crows. The reeds have all been easy to achieve the results intended. Part of this processing included producing blades that have a very prominent spine, which I filed down.
I prefer a subtle spine in my reeds. All of these reeds need to be really broken in, but all of them continue to show great potential. Gonzalez cane is one of the more unique brands of cane available. Most of our cane comes from the Var region of France, which is along the Mediterranean Sea, and a bit comes from other countries with Mediterranean coastline. Gonzalez, however, is grown on a private farm in Argentina.
And their reputation is growing. One of the Gonzalez claims to fame is that it is grown organically, meaning no pesticides and chemicals are used in the farming of the cane. For those players who are extra concerned about such things, or who have noticeable sensitivities, this can be an important consideration. You must be logged in to reply to this topic. I will change the water every couple of days at the beginning, but have sometimes used cane soaked for weeks and always have good results.
I put quartered and cut to length cane from tubes to soak and then gouge. I usually will soak this for a week or so, but the time got away from me a bit been overly busy and soaked the cane for 6 months! I did change the water on occasion and put some Sea Salt in. My initial thought was to throw it all out, but I decided to gouge several pieces.
On my hardness tester it is a little on the soft side, but I just made a couple reeds and the color of the cane is good, sound is good, response is good low to high — nothing weird about it! Another test will be to see how long the reed lasts, but I was surprised about how good the reeds play. Gerald Corey was the one that you mentioned that would soak in distilled water for several periods.
Personally, I soak completely and dry completely multiple times over two weeks before the shaping and profiling process I buy gouged cane. This accomplishes the task that GC set out in terms of leeching out the minerals the water gets progressively clearer after several soaking sessions but more importantly for me, it causes the cane to shrink slightly, and it gets to the final dimensions. Before forming, the last soaking process takes several days for the cane to sink.
Soak your reed in a small container that is deep enough for the reed. We offer a soaker cup insert link that attaches to either a wire or a traditional music stand.
When soaked, turn the reed onto the end of the bocal. When finished playing, rinse the reed with fresh water and blow out any excess water you can. This will help keep saliva from breaking down the cane fibers. Set the rinsed reed in a safe place and let it dry while cleaning out your bassoon.
Finally, place the reed in your reed case of choice.
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