You wouldn’t believe that just changing the brand of a reed could double the sax volume.

I’ve been playing on La Voz (med/hard reeds equiv to a size 3 in other brands) and i bought a Vandoren V21 reed (size 2&1/2 equiv to a La Voz med reed) and the volume was twice as loud, i was struggling to play a lots quiter, and my teacher even asked not to play as loud in lessons.

It took me about 2 weeks to play a lot quieter, much harder on the diaphragm.

The other interesting thing, i changed the metal plate on my ligature that presses down on the reed from a thin gold plated metal plate to a thicker brass plate, and the sound has got a lot more body in it and this has made the higher notes a lot fatter.

So i’ll stick with this setup for another week until it settles down, and do another upload, in the meantime i need to buy a size 3 V21 reed and try that out (which might mean going back to the thinner gold plated metal plate)

Thanks Jak, just need to buy/try a size 3 then its back to the la voz if it doesn’t work out

lol – i tried out ‘green sleeves’ recently, and was ok until i got to the bottom of the page, but am bit confused with the where and when of going into the repeat of the tune?

I’ll have to reread the sheet and relisten to what happens at the end of the page to do with going back to the top of the page.