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After a year+ hiatus I am back making reeds for people. I have narrowed down what I’m offering too include bassoon reeds, contrabassoon reeds, and contraforte reeds. Keeping it simple is going to make it a more efficient use of time for me. If you are interested in custom contra shapes, message me and I can make something custom for you. Currently shipping is limited to the USA

kingbassoonreeds.com

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bassoon GSP

King Bassoon Reeds is now offering GSP for bassoon. The bassoon gouged, shaped, and profiled cane sells very fast and so is hard to keep supplying, but now with the school year out (less orders) we have more time to process cane.

 This cane is made using traditional Herzberg measurements and the Herzberg shape. This is all made with California cane which has a medium hard density.

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Bassoonist John Campbell made and posted an excellent video series last fall of his reed making process. The videos show his equipment, many of them are no longer made; and custom made tools, like his tip filing jig. John’s tip finishing is along the lines of what David McGill does, I have never seen or known the tip measurements for this style of reed, so I suggest giving it a watch!

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     I moved down to Silicon Valley about a year and changed my reed setup. I never ended up finishing my series about what was on the reed desk, and now there have been many new additions. So I’m going to revive this series. 
Reed Desk

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King Bassoon Reeds

I have just started working with a new batch of cane and it is very high quality. This is cane that was cut 2 years ago and is on the harder side. It seems more middle of the road and has been great with the Fox 2 shape for bassoon and Reiger K1 on contrabassoon. If you are interested in some reeds head over to King Bassoon Reeds or email me if you are interested in cane.

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Green Reed

I tried an experiment last week involving a Green Reed for Contraforte. I just harvested some cane in early January and decided to try to immediately make a reed out of it instead of letting it dry. And this is what turned out! I regular reed that sounded and acted like any other reed but it was fresh green cane and didnt need to be soaked in water before I played on it. The texture was similar to a very hard piece of cane so I had to make this thinner than I would normally. After a few days it started to dry out and warp and is now is playing very sharp. Next I’m going to try this on regular bassoon.

I would suggest trying it to all of the cane harvesters out there!