Legere American Cut | Synthetic Sax Reed vs. Cane

space-age polymers meet the music of [Music] today [Music] i've seen the future and it's swinging [Music] hi and welcome to the saxophone academy i'm dr wally wallace and if you're interested in saxophone master classes and product reviews please do subscribe and be sure to hit the like button to show appreciation for all the magic polymers that make up your everyday life now today we're talking about the legere synthetic reed now before we dive into my thoughts and impressions full disclosure the nice people at legere sent me a big box of tenor and alto reeds signature and american cut and a variety of strengths so can that affect a person's evaluation of a product getting a nice free goodie box it certainly can i've done my best to be objective but i think it's important for you to know what's going on behind the scenes now my policy is if someone sends me a product and i like it i will do a review there's no cost they don't have to give me money they don't pay for production value if i don't like it then i send them very detailed feedback and ways to improve but i don't post a review video i'm not going to do negative review videos i just want to talk about things i am excited and i think you should try now when i do give the feedback to the products i don't like i never hear back but this is a product i do like so let's talk about what this is so if you've followed my channel for any amount of time you know i love cane reads i actually have two videos on conditioning breaking in cane rotating your cane reads and getting the most out of your cane reads i've always loved cane reads well in one of those review videos i left a comment basically to finally shut some of you up that kept saying try legere try legere why are you dealing with cane reads get some legere reads and i was a little annoyed if i'm honest so i said all right i'll check out legere reads and i'll review them well i got an email from chris over at legere the marketing manager saying hey i noticed you haven't reviewed legere yet and so i decided it was time to step up and make good on my word thanks a lot youtube comments so they sent me some reads the american and signature cut the american is the newer cut i'll give you a sound sample of those and the signature now all the sound samples we're dealing with today are just a quick first impression i'm going to be going into the recording studio later in the summer i'll talk about that in a minute to give you much more in-depth dry nerdy comparison samples but this is just a first impression of how they sound now being a lover of kane reads i wasn't expecting very much so when i opened the box i normally play on a 3.5 cane read for classical and jazz generally different cuts we can talk about that later so i pulled out a 3.5 and i felt very smug thinking that like yeah these don't work very well they're not that great well to humor legere i tried the quarter strength now the 3.25 and both the signature and the american cut and then my mind was kind of blown because it played very very similarly to my cane read and it sounded and felt annoyingly close and it was kind of a revelation it was like being told you were adopted in your 40s it was something that you believed for a long time and then you realized oh i was really wrong and i've been telling people the wrong thing and i've been ignoring my students who have been yammering on about legere for a long time so let me say for the record i'm sorry i was wrong so how do they play well those of you that already use legere i'm not telling you anything you don't know i'm kind of making this more as just me eating crow and maybe encouraging some of my music educator friends and teachers there's a significant number of people that watch this channel that are woodwind players or brass players that watch and interact with me to learn how to teach their saxophone students better there is some stigma out there some music educators that say don't use legere or they don't allow synthetic reads in their classroom some synthetic reads i agree i think you should reconsider legere i certainly am so let's do a little listening to a cane read the signature cut and the american cut and again this is not a dry sterile recording to tell of the tiny little miniature nuances and sound we're going to actually go into a professional recording studio with a professional recording engineer to do those differences in a couple of weeks because i'm not telling you anything you don't know i'm not a sound engineer i do okay recordings to get impressions but the nerdy little minute recordings with the good headphones and hearing the slight that's going to become a little bit later in the summer but let's take a listen and see how they broadly compare to kane and then we'll check out the signature and then the american cut [Music] oh [Music] hey [Music] huh [Music] ah [Music] a [Music] and all those samples were recorded on my signature mouthpiece the 56 made by windy city woodwinds it is an fdm or 3d printed mouthpiece they worked really well on that i tried them on several other than my jazz mouthpieces in the collection of d'addario a meyer they sounded equally good on those and generally worked on every mouthpiece i tried except one and i will do a demonstration in the recording studio but the vandoren al-3 they worked great on my classical larry teal and my c-star on the vandoran al-3 a classical mouthpiece it just didn't work i don't know why but when we go into the recording studio i will give you a very clear comparison of how they sound that way my buddy ben can actually tell me when i'm off and on access on the microphone to make sure everything is on the up and up when comparison sound samples now after trying them and liking them i reached out to chris over at legere who had a nice long conversation about the research and development that has gone into these how they addressed the thickness the density the stiffness not only latitudinally but longitudinally homogeneously you know what i mean balancing all the different axises of vibration and stiffness to make it resonate like a cane read on your mouthpiece and they've done a really knockout job i also asked because i'm a nervous fellow about what it's made out of it's polypropylene and that is a bpa safe material it's the same kind of stuff that your yogurt comes in and it is non-toxic and is food grade so if you trust your yogurt to sit in polypropylene this is probably going to be safe on your mouth which is important to me so obviously at this point you can tell i'm a fan i've been surprised i've apologized to my students so let's talk pros and cons and more importantly who this might be a good product for the biggest pro in the game changer for me as an educator not as a player but as an educator is they just work so it removes a variable when teaching all my music teacher friends out there know exactly what i'm talking about you have a student that the low note's not responding they have a squeak or a chirp and the palm keys and immediately you start diagnosing and your little music educator brain like mine starts rattling through the different possibilities this removes a big variable obviously it's quite often the embouchure a leak in the instrument or any number of things but very often it's the read that's the issue if the student has a legere a good working synthetic read it can just take away that question off the table as a matter of fact i was dealing with a private student that was having an issue and i said diva legere you can pop on they said yes it worked the problem's gone we eliminated that problem by taking out a variable for a music educator that is a very powerful tool to have on hand another big pro they last longer than kane reads now you will want to rotate these so you don't run one into the ground it becomes softer and softer but i speak to my professional friends that play legere and some legere artists and they told me quite honestly off the record that yes they do last a long time they do rotate them so they don't get softer but they get softer way slower than a cane reed would and they're guessing that their beginning students could play on these for six months some even longer without issue longevity big plus another big pro that is big for me where i live is they don't change with weather humidity astrological sign barometric pressure they stay very stable regardless of what's going on the weather and right now it's just become blazing hot where i live and the humidity has gone through the roof normally when i play cane reads that may mean my reads change drastically maybe time to scooch them out and get some new cane reads going in these have not changed with the weather it's a big deal where i live well who are these for and who would i recommend these for well if you're an adult student i think you should very seriously look at these chances are you have a job you have kids many of you have grandkids and other activities you enjoy other than just playing the saxophone if you've got 20 minutes to practice like a lot of us do some days just grabbing one of these and practicing not fighting and fussing with reeds is powerful when i was in school or grad school i had all the time in the world to adjust maintain condition reads now i understand as an adult and a parent of two time is tough to come by so being able to make your practice session more convenient i totally get it for adult and busy students definitely something to look at now as a professional saxophonist whatever that means i will have these in my case at all times honestly the reason being outdoor festivals and gigs and i recently played a well not recently i guess it was 14 months ago a chamber series where we play in a variety of settings sometimes outside a chamber music crawl like a pub crawl the change from going indoors and outdoors indoors and outdoors wreaked havoc on my read throughout the afternoon this would be something i would use without hesitation also recording studio now i'm not saying at this point i would definitely use this in a recording session over a cane read what i am saying is i will have these on hand as a backup no question i might use these full time i don't know yet but as a backup it's a no-brainer i've been in recording sessions when my reads change or i can't find a good read it's really stressful when you're paying an hourly rate to a recording engineer and you've got your whole band waiting on you having this as an option that's 95 to 99 the sound of a cane read that would relieve a lot of stress so i'm always going to have these in my case if i'm doing a big band rehearsal which i don't we're sitting in a concert band which i don't i would definitely be using these as well as to not wear out my good cane reads even if i were still doing cane reads primarily a really powerful tool to have in your arsenal so at this point you're probably thinking this sounds like an infomercial what's dr wally selling why is he so upbeat about these what's he get out of it well those of you that know me know that i get excited about cool products that's excitement not salesmanship there's no affiliate link i don't have a promo code they've already sent me a bunch of reads free no strings attached and anything else i want from legere they've already generously offered me i'm just excited what this means for me as an educator and as a performer but we will explore more in detail in the coming weeks now there are a few cons let's be honest about there's not many but you should be aware now the first big con you should be aware of other people other people will have a bias against this there are some educators and some performers that have a no synthetic policy not my band class not in my band that's not going to be easily overcome i think that's going to change over time and the problem is legere sometimes gets lumped in with some other not so great synthetic reads i hope that changes but there are a number of people that when you tell them you play legere they will immediately listen and start to hear oh yeah there's that plasticky sound could they tell in a blind test i'm not so sure but expectancy theory and bias confirmation will let them hear what they want to hear there's no way you're going to overcome that anytime real soon i don't care but you may care and that's something to be aware of there are people that will definitely turn their nose up at these so be aware of that if you choose to play them or just play them and don't tell anyone another con is the price per read notice i said not the overall cost but the price per read and here's why you may save money in the long run but if you've got a younger student playing these one wrong move taking a selfie and you're out a not insignificant amount of money if you break a cane read that stinks break one of these it's going to sting more given the cost per read so i don't have the answer yet as to whether or not how young of a student we should be using these with let me think about it for a while and i'll get back to you on that but i'd also really like to know your thoughts in the comments below and if you're a music educator or a band director please let me know i'm honestly asking not to foster engagement i generally want to know what you're doing with these reads but the price per read if you break them that is a con now one more con not so much a column but an area for improvement for legere are the cases and it's probably not what you think now i've seen online some people complaining about the amount of plastic in each case i'm not worried about that i love the environment but if you open up your refrigerator and look at that little you know drawer on the inside of the door where you keep all your condiments your ketchup your mayonnaise your mustard your hot sauce look at the amount of plastic in there and think how long that lasts this is not a big deal it is a clever design that holds the reed where you pop it in without ever endangering the tip i like the case so what's my issue well if i'm doing classical and jazz tenor and alto i have a lot of these lying around the studio and in a quick glance i can't tell what's what i have to open them up and look at the read and it's not the easiest to read marketing marking the signature verse american cut and the strength when you've got old people eyes like me so i would like to see the outside of the case marked or have a multi-case that works in these ways hopefully that will be on the horizon to make it easier now if you're thinking dr wally if you were a smarter man which i'm not you would simply just take a piece of tape or a marker and mark the outside of the box you can absolutely do that but given how well thought out the product is i think having some marking on the outside so you can quickly see what's in your case would be nice so at this point in the video i would say let me know your thoughts in the comments below but being that it's a legere i don't have to you're going to let me know i have no doubts now music educator friends or people that have used these in band class i really do want to know your opinion so i can help formulate my ideas and recommendations of how and when i showed or should not be recommending these especially to younger students so i genuinely want to hear your thoughts below i will see you next week with some more educational goodness we also have some more product reviews coming up i got backlogged some nice people have sent me some nice things that i do like that i want to talk about in the meantime i hope you have a really wonderful week but go practice

Channel: Saxophone Academy

Views: 7,016

Rating: 4.9670782 out of 5

Keywords: saxophone reed, legere, legere american cut, synthetic reed, legere reeds, sax reeds, sax lesson, beginner sax lesson, best sax reed, synthetic vs cane, better sax, dr. wally, saxophone academy, jazz, jazz reed, vandoren, vandoren reeds

Id: U-cLirHzHaE

Length: 17min 10sec (1030 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 14 2021