Hi, I'm pro saxophonist Jamie Anderson and you're watching Get Your Sax
Together. I sax up your Sundays with famous
solo breakdowns, technique tips and other goodies to help you improve
your saxophone playing. In this week's free online saxophone
lesson, I'll be comparing the legendary $69
Reed Geek Universal Classic with a $3
high speed steel lathe tool. When you're buying a reed adjustment tool,
is that extra $66 really worth the money?
Let's find out!
I was teaching my student Oz one day when I asked him if he had a Reed Geek
tool. He said he had one similar that did the
same job. I wasn't aware of any rival brand to Reed Geek and I was
gobsmacked when he said that his tool only cost £2.50 on eBay,
including delivery. So many of my students want to be able to easily
adjust their reeds but find the Reed Geek prohibitively expensive,
so I thought I'd check it out. Make sure you watch my previous video on reed
adjustment using a Reed Geek using the card linked
above now, and you can get a free PDF cheat sheet
on read adjustment by using the link in the description,
or the URL below. And keep watching to the end of this video,
because you might be surprised at the results.
So let's take a look at the two rival tools.
First we've got the industry standard, the famous Reed Geek Universal Classic
which retails at $69. If you want to upgrade, you can spend $83 on the
Reed Geek Black Diamond, or even $95 on the Universal Special ZR, but for this
comparison, we're just using the universal classic,
which is the cheapest Reed Geek. Company founder
Mauro Di Gioia says the Universal Classic "undergoes a proprietary Chromium medical
grade process to enhance corrosion resistance and edge retention
longevity" It features four planing edges, two rail
adjusters and a pencil eraser precision tip for
fine adjustments. Every Reed Geek comes with a plastic
carry tube and a cool neoprene storage pouch.
One little known feature that I noticed is the hole at the end
so you can wear your reed geek around your neck on a string as you make
frequent adjustments. The Universal Classic is the tried and
tested king of the marketplace and you'll find countless endorsements
from the world's greatest players. This $69 tool will be
going up against a three dollar high-speed steel lathe tool
from ebay and that $3 included shipping
in the UK, that makes it 23 times cheaper than a
Reed Geek. I got mine on eBay from a firm called RDG
tools based in Yorkshire in the UK although there are many alternatives if
you search for a high speed steel lathe square tools. These square
tools are blanks, designed to be shaped into more specific
tools to be used on a wood shaping lathe, and they come in various
sizes. The closest size to the Reed Geek's
8mm square was out of stock, so I got this slightly smaller 6mm
square size. My tool just arrived in a plain jiffy
bag, but although it's 75mm long compared to the 66mm of
the Universal Classic, it still fits in the Reed Geek's
neoprene pouch, which you can buy separately for $6. I couldn't
find any fancy information on the spec of the steel used for my $3
tool and there are no additional edges to the generic lathe tool, although both
ends are angle cut, giving you a crude type of pencil
eraser tip. Cosmetically, the Reed Geek feels much
better finished, with crisp, sharp edges and an even
brushed matte finish. The lathe tool has noticeable machine
marks where it's cut to size and the edges don't feel
quite so sharp. I weighed in the universal classic at 31g, compared
to the 22g for the lathe tool. You can find links for both tools in the
description. Incidentally, you should take care when
using these square reed tools, especially when
clearing the sawdust off the edges, as they're sharp enough to cut your finger.
I can testify to that from personal experience.
Now that you've been introduced to the rivals, let's see how they perform back
to back. I'm going to compare both tools'
performance on the three main tasks that the Reed Geek is used for -
flattening the back of the reed, balancing and decongesting the reed's
rails and wings and freeing up the spine. Just before we
start though, if you're dedicated to improving your
sax playing and you're finding yourself getting confused with too many
conflicting YouTube videos, why not make yourself a coffee and
settle down for a whole hour of tuition with me instead?
You're gonna love this - my Saxophone Success Masterclass
is totally FREE, and it's a solid hour of detailed saxophone teaching designed to
transform your playing. The link is in the
description or you can visit getyoursaxtogether.com/masterclass
Right, that said let's get on with the
bench tests on the David and Goliath of reed tools.
As you would expect, the Universal Classic effortlessly takes off a fine
layer of burr from the back of the reed with light pressure
using any of the four long side edges. You can see the residue on the edge.
Because my generic lathe tool was only 6mm square instead of
8mm square, it didn't have quite the same weight in
the hand, so I needed to use slightly firmer pressure. This might be
different with the 8mm size. It wasn't quite as easy to level the
back, but it could still be done fairly easily, and the edge of the tool
itself was dead straight, giving a smooth finish. At the end of the
day, both tools give an equally smooth, silky back to the reed, with the
Universal Classic making the job slightly easier.
Using the universal classic, the task of balancing the side rails of the reed can
be done with the two rail adjusters or the
pencil eraser tip. Both worked really well, and it's easy to
use fine strokes to slowly make adjustments.
Keeping the reed on the mouthpiece, I used both the long sides and the angled
tip of the generic lathe tool to make adjustments to the reed rails,
and it required a bit more effort to take off the equivalent amount of
material to the Reed Geek. Because the front isn't rounded like the
Universal Classic, care had to be taken not to create
gouge marks in the wood of the reed. However, I found that I could
successfully make adjustments to the reed's sides and get
both halves of the reed in balance. The Reed Geek has
two sculpted edges at the front which makes it much easier to adjust the reed
rails, and fine adjustments can be made with
ease and precision. When it comes to decongesting the reed,
one thing that the Universal Classic excels at, is small detailed adjustments
to clear out specific dense patches of wood fibres.
This is done pretty effortlessly using the pencil eraser tip.
A couple of scrapes and the offending area is cleared out.
The wider, flatter tip of the generic lathe tool
makes this job harder and I couldn't get as much pinpoint accuracy on the fibres
I wanted to clear. Snagging and gouging were also a
constant concern. That said, with a bit more effort and a
bit more concentration, I was still able to make
smaller adjustments to the cane, just not as easily and
concisely as with the Reed Geek.
For the less specific and fiddly job of adjusting the thicker spine of the reed,
the generic lathe tool measured up better against the Reed Geek.
This is probably because it was a job for the large straight edge, rather than
the custom edges missing from the lathe tool.
Both tools were able to take a good amount of material off the thick spine
of the reed, although as before, the Universal Classic
did the job with less effort and slightly more control.
I'll come straight out with it - the Reed Geek Universal Classic is a superior
reed adjustment tool. This is exactly as it should be, and I
think we'd all have a cause for concern if it wasn't.
But, and this is a huge but - my generic lathe tool which is a whopping 23 times
cheaper, was not far behind in performance,
especially for the less fiddly jobs like flattening the reed back and adjusting
the spine. Considering the lathe tool is probably
cheaper than the shipping for the Reed Geek, this is quite
astonishing and with a bit of practice, I think most
people could get an acceptable result with this inexpensive device. I didn't
test these devices on synthetic reeds, although I understand that this can be
done and I'd have to guess that a comparable result would be obtained by
both tools on a synthetic surface. If you're a beginner on saxophone, even
up to an intermediate, and you want an effective
low-cost method of making your terrible reeds playable,
then a high-speed steel lathe tool could be a great option for you.
Is Reed Geek's Universal Classic better? Yes.
Is it 23 times better? No.
So that's it for this week. Hopefully this free online saxophone lesson has
been useful for you, and maybe you don't need to raid your
piggy bank to get a usable reed adjustment tool after all.
Don't forget to get your free PDF reed adjustment cheat sheet using the link in
the description, and if you want to learn some more
in-depth sax stuff, go to www.getyoursaxtogether.com/masterclass to get your
free one-hour lesson with me. As always, thank you so much for your
support and if you haven't already, please go ahead and give the video a
thumbs up, leave me a comment, subscribe to the
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I upload new content and check out my Insta and Facebook
pages. I'm going to sax up your Sunday next
week with Michael Brecker's legendary solo on Native
New Yorker by Odyssey, but until then, enjoy your music,
practice smart and stay safe. See you later.
rather than the custom edges missing
for a whole hour of tuition with me instead
that's pretty guff