“I have been playing single reeds since 1968. I have been to NAMM show 30 plus times and have tested 80% of the sax products available today.

I am a daily player with a repertoire of over 200 songs. It is a rare occurrence for something truly new and better to become available in the woodwind instrument market. Fiberreed Hemp is one such rare product.

There are plenty of good synthetic reeds. There is only one phyto-synthetic reed, Fiberreed Hemp. This reed offers extraordinary response and extreme control with which highly advanced shaping of the sound is possible. The tone is different, cleaner than a cane reed. At first it will seem brighter, but what is happening is there is less in-congruence and unstable artifacts in the vibrational performance of the reed.

After a while it will be possible to generate a much greater myriad of tonal shadings. It is well worth it to experiment with reed strength and mouthpieces to arrive at what will be a slightly cleaner, more ringing sound with far greater flexibility and accuracy. The extreme longevity and unchanging, consistent performance of this reed allows a player to really dial in a technique.

The reed gets out of the way of the music by offering a combination of flexibility and consistent playing characteristics that encourage the development of precision in ones playing style. Most of what we do with embouchure is adjustments to compensate for reed characteristics, assuming the mouthpiece is good. With the hemp reed, there is little need to adjust for anything.

The practice of focusing on the breath results in a kind of automatic response. I use a medium-soft on a 5* mpc with ready access to the altissimo and a variety of sub tones. I have not found any other reed that soft that will get up there or deliver a musical dynamic range like this one does. The soft reed technique is how I get my dynamics and flexibility in sonic flavorings, I can’t say if a harder reed will be as dynamic. In my experience a harder reed is louder at the expense of flexibility. The total range is very balanced in timbre and response.

If you are careful with your stuff, there is no downside to this reed. It lasts long enough to offset the cost and be more economical than cane if you don’t break it. If you want to sound your best all the time, this reed will help you do that by eliminating most all of the typical reed hassles, and allow you to focus on developing consistently in your skill.

There is no reason not to try it as Fiberreed will allow you to exchange to find your strength.”