Reed Knives are for Sissies

I've always been taught that shaving down the back end of the Vamp of a reed will increase the response of low notes. Is it possible to have too much of a good thing? Richard Booth has experimented with drilling a hole in the back of a reed and says it's great. I actually saw a commercial reed that had a hole like this drilled in it, unfortunately the name escapes me, it was very old and of questionable quality. To be honest I really don't have any problems with the low end popping out so I think any benefit would be outweighed by a loss of tone on the high end. Even so it always interesting to see what people do to mod their set ups.

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