For a time I played around with synthetic reeds on saxophone….
Cane reeds were making me mad- I had switched mouthpieces, so my old reeds didn’t seem quite right with the new piece.
So synthetic reeds can be tempting! You just put them on and play a consistent reed….
But the sound isn’t as good.
You sacrifice a better sound for a consistent experience- a reed that lasts longer and each one you get plays the same.
But then I realized that it wasn’t worth it, I wanted a better sound again.
So I’m back on cane!
Yes, this is a definite issue. A friend of mine recommended a brand of synthetic, and swore it sounded natural. However, when I tried one, I did not share his view, at all…. I’ve been dealing with reeds and their cantankerous nature for over 30 years, and now that they are not only inconsistent, and not always made from good cane, but far too costly (I used to pay maybe a quarter each, back in the day), I would LOVE to find a natural sounding synthetic reed! It would free up a lot of time, and anxiety, since I never know if the reed that played well at home, will do the same that night on the gig! I remember once seeing McCoy Tyner, and his sax player, Azar Lawrence, would squat down, pull out a new reed, suck on it, put it on his horn, take a solo, then repeat the process, for nearly the entire set! Obviously, he was not digging how any of them were playing….
There’s a lot of personal preference in it. Probably a bit easier to get the right reed these days than it used to be for Azar Lawrence.