Tom Tapscott
Sonus Instrument Repair
Clarksville, TN 37043

Took the alto sample for a little test drive this morning. I like them!

Didn’t get to spend a lot of time with them, but the resistance is pretty much on spot for both the 2.5 & the 3.0.

 Tried them on a rather standard ” mouthpiece. Less projection than with what I’ve been using...until I switched to the 3.0!

 I like them far better than the Rico PlastiCovers I’ve been recommending for marching band.

 Will jump on the clarinet ones tomorrow.

Had some time yesterday to try the 2 clarinet reeds.

The 2.5 played a little softer than I like & the 3 was a little stiffer than what I use now. (I play Gonzalez on clarinet.) But the timbre in all registers was pretty even.

I wouldn’t hesitate to have my middle school students playing on them at all.

One of my numerous objections to various other synthetics has been “feel” on my lower lip. Except for Fibracell, they all feel like a piece of plastic!

For some reason the BRAVOs don’t. I’ll playing around (no pun intended) with them, but so far, I like them! They’re forcing me into a little extra practice time, which isn’t a bad thing.

Now if they could just make oboe & bassoon reeds that are as good....... 

I think you have a winner here!!!

John Patrick Douglas

Commercial clarinetist, flutist and saxophonist in the San Francisco Bay Area and elementary school Band Director:

So far I've played the Bravo a couple of times on alto, and once on clarinet. I like them so far - they seem to have done a good job of getting the balance right. On alto the 4 seems to approximate the strength I'm used to best. I'm playing that on a Jody Jazz HR 6. I have an HR 7 too, and I might experiment with a softer strength on that one. The clarinet reeds felt good, generally, but I think the right strength for me is right between 3 and 3 1/2. I'll try them again. I'd like to try the alto reeds in a rehearsal to check the projection - I can probably do that next week. So far I like the tone, and they seem a bit less buzzy than the Légères. Anyway, thanks for thinking of me, and for sending the Bravos to try!

Margaret Thornhill

Clarinet instructor and freelance clarinetist in Los Angeles, founder of Los Angeles Clarinet Choir and Claremont Clarinet Festival

So, here's what happened. Wednesday I first tried everything in three new boxes of my usual Vandoren 3.5 blue box and found a couple of potentially perfect reeds and about six other very good ones. A very lucky day. After that, I opened the Bravo box of ( wow, black!) reeds (containing one each of 2.5,3.3.5,4 and one duplicate). I first tried the 3.5. To make a long story short, I was really surprised! The tone was rounded and sweet, not one-dimensional. The response was just fine. I had to go up a strength to the 4 get some resistance. Now, to be honest, I am not going to switch to this type of reed for any kind of solo concert, but I can really see this as a reed which which any clarinet player might reasonably carry as an emergency backup, and easily rely on as an alternative. That's amazing! Not a plastic sound like Fibercane, Forestone, Legere, etc.

My compliments to this company for doing a good thing! Thank you

Tom Leonard

Freelance saxophonist in Tampa, Florida

I spent about an hour testing the various strength reeds on the 5-6 alto mouthpieces I have/use and tried different ligatures (Lakey Compass, Rovner, Drake, etc. ).

What I discovered: - different mouthpieces responded responded differently to different reeds...I found the 2, 2.5, and 3 reeds worked best on the mouthpieces that I have....but think the 3.5 and 4 would work well. All that being said...my overall impression of your synthetic reeds are that they are THE BEST I've played!

Obviously we always compare synthetic reeds to cane reeds. I have played most of the major brands (Fibercane, Harry Hartmann, Forestone...). And they all worked...but the tone/sound of all those fell short of sounding like my cane reeds. Not the case with your reeds, as the sound/response I experienced was extremely close to cane.

I am sold on your new reeds. One thing you did for me was to provide me a Sample box of all the available strengths. I think this is something you should sell so a new user can sample the different strength reeds of their setup(s) to determine which reed strength works best for them. Then they can order exactly what they need.

When I have purchased other synthetic reeds which are NOT inexpensive I have been disappointed as I didn't find a reed that worked for me and could not justify spending $100+ to order the full set of available reeds.

Maybe some of those would have worked....but I'll never know because of the cost to find out.

Just a suggestion as I was able to try all the strengths and now know that three of the reeds match 4-5 of my mouthpieces.

My only question for you is when will you have soprano, tenor, and bari reeds available? I'd also like to have my clarinet friends try your reeds...

I am really grateful for your generosity in sending these reeds to me....and plan to "spread the word" with my local (Tampa/Orlando area) sax friends as well as posting my experience on Facebook if you're cool with that.