A Complete History of Rico Reeds - dissertation by Neal Postma

 Every now and then I run across some really interesting information on the "Sax on the Web” forum. A recent thread led me to to a dissertation by Neal Postma, A Complete History of Rico Reeds.

The paper certainly lives up to its title. The story begins in 1928, and the dissertation follows the development of the company up to its purchase by J. D'Addario & Co. in 2004. Chapters cover the inception of the company, leadership and reed designers, reeds, accessories (including Gregory and Gale mouthpieces), cane cultivation, marketing strategies, and the acquisition by D'Addario. 

It's a great read (pun intended). Here are a few nuggets of information that came up:

1) Rico "Orange Box" reeds (formerly brown box, and before that branded as Roy J. Maier) are exactly the same reed as La Voz. There is no quality difference, and no difference in the cut. It's been this way since La Voz was introduced in 1948, and it's still that way:

The La Voz Corporation was set up as a means to appear not to have a complete monopoly on the reed market. They also tried to lure customers that were not happy with Rico reeds. The company produced a reed with the name La Voz, but it was the same exact reed as a Rico Orange Box. Rico color sorted the cane for La Voz reeds, but they did not playtest it. The only other difference between these two reeds was the strength grading. Roy J. Maier (and Rico Orange box) used strengths 1, 1.5, 2, 2.5, 3, 3.5, 4, 4.5, and 5, a total of nine strengths. La Voz strengths are soft, medium-soft, medium, medium-hard, and hard, a total of five. The reed’s design is the same…The company first introduced this reed in 1948 after only ten years of production of reeds under the Roy J. Maier branding. It was not widely known at the time that Rico even made La Voz reeds, much less that they were the same exact reeds as the Roy J. Maier cuts. In addition to wanting a different reed on the market, Rico introduced this reed under a different company name that went as far as to have a separate PO Box so as to avoid the appearance of having a monopoly on the American reed market. Marketing practices led the public to believe that the La Voz Corporation was an entirely different manufacturer. 

Neal Postma got this information from from Jess Gonzales, Materials Manager at D'Addario, in 2017. Although D'Addario may have replaced and upgraded their reedmaking machinery since then, the same information about Rico vs. La Voz reeds was cited in a 2022 podcast by Wally Wallace, quoting Andrea Harrell, the present D'Addario Woodwinds Product Manager, in a recent conversation (Wallace's reed discussion starts at about 15:05).

The Rico Co. presented La Voz as a superior reed to Rico, but that was strictly a marketing ploy - and apparently still is.

2) Rico Royal (now just called "Royal") is just a regular Rico reed that has had the bark partially filed off, in a "French cut." 

3) In past years, the same basic Rico reed has been branded as "Roy J. Maier," "Conn Diamond Cut," and a number of other names. "Plasticover" is the same reed with a partial plastic coating.

However, Mitchell Lurie reeds (another Rico product) are a different design. "Select Jazz" reeds are a different design also, and they are made with better cane. 

4) Although this info did not come from the dissertation, Wally Wallace also quotes Andrea Harrell saying that D'Addario sources its cane in both France and Argentina, but intermingles the stock. Thus, a purchaser would not know which was the source of the cane. Perhaps for most purchasers, it doesn't matter.

5) Strength is measured with a machine that tests for flex ("resistance"). I recalled reading somewhere that some manufacturer supposedly used a machine that assigned strength by putting a light behind the reed to check the density. Apparently this was incorrect. 

Googling this question, I came across this post on the Clarinet BBoard:

About 15 years ago, one of the Van Dorens was in Montreal and gave a reed presentation. He explained that there is no difference in *thickness* between a 2 1/2 strength reed and a 5 strength reed (a fact one can confirm by measuring the reed on a micrometer like a Perfectareed). He explained that the phenomenon that determines a reed's strength is the cane's density. He described the density gauge Vandoren uses. If you look at the butt of a Vandoren or Rico reed you will see a horizontal band of "teeth marks". These are marks left by a spring gauge that presses into the butt of the reed, measuring the cane's density. The resulting density measurement determines the number strength the reed is assigned.

The point about all reeds of a given design having the same thickness is correct, but the last part of this post seems to be incorrect, or at least unclear. The spring gauge may hold the butt end of the reed, leaving a mark, but the reed is checked for flex the same way as Rico/D'Addario has for many decades, as shown in this video from Vandoren (animation shows a flex test at 2:14). “Density” may not be exactly the right word to use here, although density does relate to flex.

This is probably a good place to quote the (maybe apocryphal) story about the time that clarinetist Stanley Drucker visited the Vandoren factory, and asked Bernard Vandoren if he could be introduced to "the guy who puts the one good reed in every box."

6) Beginning on p.80 of the dissertation, Postma describes recent scientific studies of cane playability. One 1998 study in Australia seems to have influenced management at D'Addario:

All of the characteristics correlated to strong performance had something in common: they were all related to the vascular bundles in the inner cortex. In short, the performance of a reed is determined by a high percentage of fiber and a low percentage xylem and phloem. Xylem is a tissue found in plants that water and dissolved minerals will travel through to disperse it throughout the plant. Phloem is a similar tissue found in plants that food and nutrients travel through as they are dispersed throughout the plant.

While Rico did not commission this study, it was reviewed by Bill Carpenter and those who were running the plantations at the time. This is a relatively new study, and cane cultivation practices are still being developed. Rico/D’Addario holds propriety over techniques used on their plantations to increase the fiber percentage and lower xylem and phloem percentages in their reeds, and they do not wish to disclose any trade secrets.

The clear implication here is that D'Addario may be able to improve cane quality as time goes on. 

For a clearer look at reed anatomy, including vascular bundles, xylem, and phloem, check out this previous post.

Here's a discussion on SOTW discussing the Rico Orange Box vs. La Voz question. There's certainly a lot of disbelief and denial!

Here's a video from Rico/D'Addario on how reeds are made, including a shot of the strength grading device.

One more - a video from Marca Reeds showing their manufacturing process. No English subtitles, but you can see that it's a smaller operation, and less automated.

Sax Reed Adjustment - Which Parts of the Reed Affect High Notes and Low Notes?

An important aspect of single-reed adjustment is where to sand or scrape in order to make certain notes speak more clearly. I've read quite a few books and articles on reed adjustment, in the never-ending quest for the elusive secrets of getting a good reed. Most writers seem to agree that lows are controlled by the lower end of the vamp closer to the shoulder, highs by the area closer to the tip. That is, if your low Bb is stuffy, then sanding or scraping towards the bottom of the vamp might help; if your high notes are not clear, try thinning towards the tip (but not too much). In my own experience, this is a valid concept.

A while ago, I was given a nearly complete set of Saxophone Journal magazines, dated from 1981 to 2001. I had (foolishly) never been a subscriber, but this was a great magazine, and now I have a second chance to read hundreds of informative articles. It will probably take me a year or two to check out every issue. Anyway, I just ran across an article (Nov./Dec. 1988) by mouthpiece expert Ralph Morgan, with a very interesting assertion - that if we divide a reed's blade into 33 equal segments and "each segment is weighed to compute its mass," each segment will be found to have a "resonance frequency" corresponding to a "quite accurate chromatic scale."

Morgan brings this idea up in a discussion of reed/mouthpiece compatibility, but obviously it would apply to reed adjustment as well. In his article, Morgan references research by Ignatius Gennusa, who was principal clarinetist with the Baltimore, Chicago, National, and NBC symphony orchestras, though it's not completely clear whether this idea comes from Gennusa. I admit to being a little skeptical about the precise validity of this claim - but I'd love to see the details of the research. On the other hand, I do agree with the basic concept that highs (and high overtones) are generated towards the tip, middle register notes in the middle of the vamp, and lows towards the bottom.

Perhaps you are familiar with this test for how to balance the left and right sides of a reed (quote is from this article on reed adjustment):

Turn the mouthpiece clockwise, so that your embouchure only controls the right side, with the left side of the reed free. Blow an open C# (sax) or G (clarinet) - then turn the mouthpiece the other way, to free the right side. If the “free” side (L or R) seems stuffy compared to the other, some wood should be removed from the stuffy side. 

Try combining this test with the idea that highs are controlled at the tip, lows at the shoulder - for example, if your middle D is stuffy, take some wood off approximately where the word "even" is in the diagram above, but first test that note with the mouthpiece-turning method to see which side is actually the problem; remove a little wood at the appropriate point on the reed for that frequency, and do it just on the appropriate (stuffy) side. It seemed to work for me.

A Method for Evaluating Reed Cane

The December 2012 issue of The Clarinet (my favorite quarterly) has an interesting article by Michael J. Montague and Tina Ward: "Reeds: Good or Bad? It's in the Cane - An Inside View of Arundo Donax L." The article describes a method of evaluating reed cane by magnifying a cut cross-section of a reed or a piece of cane, and examining its visual characteristics.

All reed players dream the impossible dream of always having wonderful reeds to play on, so this is potentially valuable information for us!

If you hold a reed up to the light, you will see "fibers" of darker material running lengthwise. These are "vascular bundles." Each one is a sheath ("fiber ring") containing tubes that carried water and nutrients when the cane was a living plant. The butt end of a reed is a cut cross-section of the cane. By sanding and polishing this surface, one can see (with a magnifier) a cross-section of every fiber ring. According to Montague, unbroken rings make for good cane, while a high proportion of broken rings would signify cane with poor potential. Anyone can perform this examination, using a glass surface, sandpaper, and a 40x magnifying lens.

See this article by Marilyn Veselak for a picture of a clarinet reed cross-section, showing the fiber rings.

Montague cites two previous scientific studies that found a correlation between intact fiber rings and cane quality ("good reeds"); one of this article's contributions is the "anyone-can-do-it" method of evaluating cane.

Montague notes that after examining three boxes of Vandoren V12 clarinet reeds (2.5, 3.5, and 5+), he discovered that "softer reeds have more discontinuous rings. The average was 17.4%, 10.9%, and 3.9%, respectively, for strengths 2.5, 3.5, and 5+." Thus, if one uses commercial reeds, it might be better to start with a stiffer strength - which would give better odds of quality cane - and then adjust the reed to one's preference.

Or by taking a few minutes to examine the reeds, one could eliminate those with poor potential (i.e., those with discontinuous, or broken rings).

I haven't worked with this method yet.

As the article notes, commercial reeds are apparently all cut with the same machines, to the same proportions, regardless of strength. They are then graded for flexibility ("hardness"), and boxed accordingly. Montague states that "hardness is a property of the cane itself." My own impression is that harder reeds tend to have thicker fiber rings; the fiber rings (and the bark) are the hardest components of the cane.

Over the last few years, I've been trying to develop my reed-adjusting skills, and it's going well. I've improved my percentage of playable reeds considerably. While I've been working on single reeds of all sizes, I've put the most time in on tenor sax reeds. The tenor mouthpiece I've been using is a Jody Jazz 8*. It blows much more easily than than the 8* designation would suggest, for whatever reason. To find reeds that work with this setup, I usually start with a batch of Vandoren Java 2.5 or 3 reeds, then put them through a 4- or 5- day adjustment procedure (see this article). Starting with harder reeds than that has not worked well - when I thin a hard reed as much as is necessary to make it playable on this setup, the tone suffers. I don't think that starting with #5 reeds would work for me. I'd say that more factors are at work than just thick, or continuous, fiber rings.

But I'll certainly buy myself a magnifier, get out the sandpaper, and check out this method. I'll report back.

This article is not accessible online. If you are interested in joining the ICA and receiving The Clarinet, here is the link. Members can access back issues.

And here is an absolutely terrific article on cane, by James Kopp. It's aimed at bassoonists, but has info relevant to all reed players; includes another fiber ring closeup.

Update: I got the magnifier and worked with it a bit; here's my report.