Royal reeds and Regular reeds
Friday December 28 2007
I received my Royal bell back from Mr. Weber yesterday. I had sent it to him to get an update on the bore adjustment. Recently, I oiled the bore of the oboe with grenadilla wood oil which had some really nice effects. I oiled it on the outside probably a total of 10 coats, taking all of the keys off and letting each coat soak in. Finally, the coats stopped soaking in so I figured it was pretty saturated. I put one coat in the inside of the bore and POOF…! Lots of tuning problems occurred, which probably means the bore was so dry that it soaked up the oil, changed shape, and got messed up. Anyways, I needed it to be re-updated.
I’ve been playing quite a bit with the Royal bell, and I never realized how much better the Royal bell plays with MORE… OPEN… reeds. With my usual smaller openings, it just feels nice up to a Mezzo Forte/Forte. I can’t get much more than that. But when I use the same smaller opening reed with my GV bell, the reed sounds and feels great. The GV bell just has a more resonant feel to it, but it is a bit brighter. Since I’ve been trying to get more cover in the sound, I’ve been going back to the Royal bell.
This is obviously going to effect how I make reeds for clients! I need to make reeds with my Royal bell for my reed clients who play a Royal, which there are quite a few. Meanwhile, there are also quite a few playing on B series and C series instruments.
Jan 15, 2008
that is a lot of oiling. How often do you do that? I oiled my Loree about six months ago, but didn’t even approach 10 coats. Maybe 2 coats.
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