REED FEATURES

Reed Features

Reeds may seem like simple little pieces of wood, but there are intricacies to reeds which affect how they play—and D’Addario takes pride in designing those intricacies. We even built our own machinery to create the most precise and consistent reeds available, so you know every reed is the finest it can possibly be, right out of the box.

Reed Anatomy

Reeds have three main parts: the tip, the vamp, and the heart. The tip impacts the response of the reed, with thinner tips providing a more immediate response. The vamp is the part of the reed without bark. Longer vamps increase tonal nuance and flexibility; shorter vamps have more focus. The heart is at the center of the vamp and gives the reed its tone and color.

REED FEATURES
REED FEATURES

Strength

Reed “strength” is a measurement of the reed’s flexibility. Commonly, you’ll see strength options as numerical values, such as 1 through 5, with lower numbers being more flexible and higher numbers being stiffer. To be clear, a strength 5.0 reed is no thicker than a 2.5 reed. The cane that produced the 5.0 reed is simply stiffer than the cane that produced the 2.5. You may also see strength expressed as “soft, medium, and hard” or some combination of those words and numbers.

Filed V. Unfiled

You may not notice it at first, but some reeds have a slight distinction at the vamp. Reeds that are filed have a very straight vamp, while unfiled reeds have a vamp edge which has a “U” shape. Practically, filed reeds brighten the sound for darker sounding mouthpieces.

REED FEATURES

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