Get your free Ricos

I haven't seen any accurate polls of what brand of reeds are used most often, but I would have to guess that by a gigantic margin, Vandoren is the number one brand. Apparently Rico (aka D'ddario) trying to do something to change that by giving away a free box for some of your old reeds. They say that they will take "new or used" reeds, but really... who in their right mind is going to send brand new reeds? I've tried different brands of reeds over the years and nothing comes close to a Vandoren in my opinion. There is just something about the cane that isn't matched by others. That being said I've already headed over to maketheswitch.com and printed out the form to get my free Box! You have to print out your code before April 6, and mail it in before April 16th so get movin!

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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.

Photo - www.bootmanmusic.com

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