Legere BBQ325 Bb Soprano Clarinet Quebec Cut No. 3.25 Reed

I am an elderly amateur, but trying for the holy grail of making lovely sounds on the Bb clarinet (played for my own amusement, with our local blue grass group, and our Church instrumentalists). I had recently gone from a bass clarinet (fairly expensive, but too heavy to carry around for this old geezer) to a Vito ebonite soprano Bb purchased on EBay for the princely sum of $33. Discarded the mouthpiece that went with the purchase and got a J&D Hite Premiere, but the sound was still not good. Read on clarinetpages web page that the Legere Quebec cut was the ticket, purchased it, and they were right. Makes the Vito sound like a much more expensive clarinet, especially in the lower register. You have to be careful, however, to dry it off and clean the mouthpiece frequently or it will begin to sound saxophony. Also, clarinetpages expert recommends getting a strength about a quarter (0.25) below what you would use on a conventional reed.

I'm a music teacher in a public school and I needed to work up my clarinet chops. I don't want to fuss with shaving reeds or breaking them or prepping them to play, so I got this after reading reviews of other non-cane reeds. This does the trick just fine for me. I know jumping into a 3.25 might seem crazy to real clarinet players, but I'm the kind who likes to make it tough on myself. Sound suffers SOMEWHAT according to my clarinet friends who tried it out for me, but they are surprised by how well it does sound and how well it responds. They'd use the same reed for marching bands or practice they said. So I like this reed a lot.

It is way more efficient than cane reeds for practice. You can still switch to cane for recording if you prefer the sound but for practice and travel, synthetic are the best

IMHO still not quite as good as cane. I keep this reed in my case for emergencies. It is always ready and playable. But a good natural cane reed cant be beat.