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Say what you will ... The Siverstein Cryo 4 is one fine ligature.

9K views 54 replies 25 participants last post by  GHawk 
#1 ·
Yes, it's a little spendy and they make some interesting claims about flash freezing the metal and so forth, but the thing works really well. And it sounds good. I get more buzz from my mp with this lig than any other that I've tried (many), including my next favorite, Theo Wanne's Enlightened ligature. It's a perfect fit for my Dukoff (medium metal size) and seems to be fitting better as it settles in. Is it worth the $? For the extra buzz and richness of tone, for me, the answer is definitely yes.


Turtle
 
#5 ·
What do you mean by "buzz"? :)
By "buzz" I guess I mean texture in the tone. It adds a little texture to the sound, which for me is a good thing. Maybe it's because the lig allows the reed to vibrate more freely, like is suggested in the ad copy. I spent many months with my singing coach (and a lot of $) putting "buzz" into my singing .... through a variety of exercises that were intended to do that. It's worth the effort to get more buzz (or texture or richness of tone).

Yeah, it's a little spendy (especially when you can rig a "useable" lig from the hardware store for $2) but so are VIs. It's all relative.

Turtle
 
#11 ·
Yes, it's a little spendy and they make some interesting claims about flash freezing the metal and so forth, but the thing works really well.
It works!!!!! I put my ligature in the freezer overnight and tried it this morning and its got the buzz!

Body jewelry Silver Watch accessory Jewellery Ring


Sorry Timmy, I could not help myself. I tried really. I promise.

Seriously, glad to hear that the Silverstein works so well for you. When gear works for you, it's a good thing. If you can afford it, even better.
 
#12 ·
It works!!!!! I put my ligature in the freezer overnight and tried it this morning and its got the buzz!

View attachment 86474

Sorry Timmy, I could not help myself. I tried really. I promise.

Seriously, glad to hear that the Silverstein works so well for you. When gear works for you, it's a good thing. If you can afford it, even better.
Yeah, but how cold is your freezer, man .... are you down to -300 degrees F? I swear I'm getting more emotional content in my sound with this lig, more 'cry' as it were. Maybe that's what Cryogenics is all about. :dontknow:

But, seriously, it's working well. Rugged and simple to use, it looks like it'll last a long time.

Turtle
 
#16 ·
I have one of the standard Silversteins as well, to fit a couple of hard rubber mouthpieces, that just don't really work for me (the mouthpieces). It's hard then, for me to compare the Silversteins. I'm just a metal guy, I guess. It's just as functional as the cryo version, but I don't play those mps, so it's hard to comment thoughtfully on the sound. Playing characteristics, I think, are about the same.

Turtle
 
#19 ·
I had played a vandoran optimum lig for years until recently, it was well past its sell by date, so I looked at one of these.
Font Metal Fashion accessory Rectangle Cable


And thought REALLY !!!!! that much

I bought one of these
Font Audio equipment Handwriting Logo Brand


I have to say it has added something over the old lig but I put that down to the fact I can actually see where and how I am placing the reed on the mouthpiece and can easily adjust and set the pressure plate to hold the reed just where I want it. Could this not also be the case with one of these??
 
#20 ·
Here's a great, short thread on cryogenic treatment. Posts #2, #4, #6, and especially #22 explain what is happening to cryogenically treated metal. In sum, it seems like a real boon to
tool dies. Cryo treatment doesn't seem to harden steel further as much as it finishes the conversion of austinite to martensite keeping it harder for longer. (No, this is not a pharmaceutical commercial.) We're talking about minute molecular movement over years and resistance to deformation.

BTW, whether the characteristics of your saxophone's sound are enhanced or not, if the ligature makes playing markedly more enjoyable for the owner then
the purchase is worthwhile. I've certainly spent more than my share of dough trying to optimize my various hobbies and pursuits.

http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/s...tempering/page2?highlight=cryogenic+treatment
 
#24 ·
""The Silverstein Works commitment to bringing technology to the modern artist introduces the Silverstein CRYO4 Gold Ligature.
The cryogenic treatment process, which plunges the metal parts of the ligature to a chilling -300 degrees Fahrenheit, greatly improves the characteristics of the ligature by changing the crystal structure of the metal itself.
The cryogenic process allows the metal to become a more refined, homogeneous solid. This has a profound effect on the sound waves that travel through it: sound waves travel much faster and without loss, resulting in a fuller, more natural sound with improved resonance.
The additional pair of Fine Tuners on the CRYO4 Gold Ligature maximizes the effects of the Cryogenic process to bring out more refinement and control.
CRYO4 Gold Ligature also features the Dotted Cord found in the ORIGINAL Silverstein Ligature."

http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/sound-speed-solids-d_713.html

The speed of sound through steel is listed as 20,000 feet per second

The speed of sound through brass is listed as 11,000 feet per second

The speed of sound through gold is listed as 10,000 feet per second

What is the point of these guys at this ligature company telling us how much faster sound travels in a bit of metal less than an inch across, just b/c of the special treatment process they use on that metal?

How many tiny parts of a second difference is that, math wizards out there?

It is just like those node vibration stone goofus folks with what is probably a perfectly good saxophone ....

It is really hard to get past that kind of hucksterism.

Still, having a ligature that fits the reed to the mouthpiece just right for you is a great thing.
 
#27 ·
""The Silverstein Works commitment to bringing technology to the modern artist introduces the Silverstein CRYO4 Gold Ligature.
The cryogenic treatment process, which plunges the metal parts of the ligature to a chilling -300 degrees Fahrenheit, greatly improves the characteristics of the ligature by changing the crystal structure of the metal itself.
The cryogenic process allows the metal to become a more refined, homogeneous solid. This has a profound effect on the sound waves that travel through it: sound waves travel much faster and without loss, resulting in a fuller, more natural sound with improved resonance.
The additional pair of Fine Tuners on the CRYO4 Gold Ligature maximizes the effects of the Cryogenic process to bring out more refinement and control.
CRYO4 Gold Ligature also features the Dotted Cord found in the ORIGINAL Silverstein Ligature."

http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/sound-speed-solids-d_713.html

The speed of sound through steel is listed as 20,000 feet per second

The speed of sound through brass is listed as 11,000 feet per second

The speed of sound through gold is listed as 10,000 feet per second

What is the point of these guys at this ligature company telling us how much faster sound travels in a bit of metal less than an inch across, just b/c of the special treatment process they use on that metal?

How many tiny parts of a second difference is that, math wizards out there?

It is just like those node vibration stone goofus folks with what is probably a perfectly good saxophone ....

It is really hard to get past that kind of hucksterism.

Still, having a ligature that fits the reed to the mouthpiece just right for you is a great thing.
Is it 7? :dontknow:

Turtle

Seriously, though, it does fit well and that is a great thing.
 
#25 ·
Yeah, it's a shame that Marketing has to put that stuff out there. It can really detract from the Facts.

I liked Phil's (Phil-Tone) take on a conversation about marketing several years ago. I recall his whimsical suggestion of an advertisement slogan - "Phil-Tone. It's a good mouthpiece. Try one."

As a scientist with degrees in both physics and materials science, I am offended by the drivel that gets spewed by the Cryo industry. If the Silverstein lig works well, I wish the marketing department could just leave it at that and stop propagating misinformation.
 
#29 ·
Well, poopie-doodles and butterfly knuckles!

[please pardon the strong language, I am under great stress here!]

I am going to take a crack at it. Horrors!

Going metric, natch!

Assuming the material is brass:

sound travels 3475 meters per second through that material

shift over 3 decimal points = sound travels at 3,475,000 millimeters per second through brass

My largest tenor mpc ligature is 30 millimeters across.

Round that out to be 34.75 millimeters to make it even.

You could line up 34,750 ligatures in a row and sound would go across them in one second (assuming perfect connections).

So that means that sound would travel across one brass ligature of that length in 34/000ths of a second.

[Boy, I bet this is stupid wrong all over the place. My ignorance of simple math (and tons of other shtuff) frightens me.]

Assuming that what I laughingly call my calculations are correct, then consider this:

Internet searches (which are NEVER wrong) say that the human ear can only hear a click as a separate sound when they are close to 16 clicks per second, faster being heard as merely a steady buzz.

Anything much beyond 16 travel times per second would then be also beyond the capacity of the human ear to distinguish.

34,000 travel times across a ligature per second is crazy beyond human capacity.

Wood, gold, rubber, almost anything would conduct sound faster than we could hear the difference between them across 34 millimeters. Also note that the entire critter they built is held together with STRING! What does THAT do to the total sound travel time? Besides that, the whole model they assert fails to account for the development of a standing wave in the tube/cone of the mpc/sax body as being the overwhelming feature of what we hear .

Arguing that speeding up the sound travel time through a tiny bit of metal will be noticed by the human ear, when it is placed at the mpc end of this structure, and where the ligature is mostly made of string does not make any sense.

However, I base my opinions upon facts and evidence to the best of my ability and I am fully prepared to correct my opinions to match correct facts.

While I instantly concluded that the model urged by these ligature sellers concerning sound distribution was nuts, I am afraid that my concrete abilities to translate that belief into a workable scientific test do not meet requirements.

I think I was in college 40 years ago the last time I tried to do a word math problem anything like this one.
 
#30 ·
So, with a error bar of .0001% on any one of these estimations, do you concur that 7 is a good answer?
 
#34 ·
I got a Cryo 4 for my Link Double Rings some months ago and I feel a lot more comfortable with it than with the original early 50s Link ligature and the Olegature I used before. Recently I could get a second-hand Cryo TLE which I mostly use on my Alto Meyers (Bros and NY USA). The sound really opened up with the TLE as well, but of course I'm aware the very high price of a new Silverstein Cryo MUST be polarizing. This happened before when I presented my Inderbinen Tenor and Alto. It's quite natural to doubt the benefit of something that expensive. However, I like my stuff and feel my decision was rewarded with an improvement in sound and resonance.
 
#38 ·
What I mean by saying "opened up" is a result of an interaction between player, mouthpiece and ligature. If you take the envelope analysis (ADSR)of a sound as a role model, I would say attack is faster and leads to higher volume, decay is neglectiable with a sax, sustain is longer and needs less support, and decay lasts a bit longer.
I haven't got the machines to prove this, so it's "back to the start" of terms like "individual feeling", "self-delusion". Maybe a sound analyzer would not be able to prove it because with the sax the player is much more involved in the process of shaping the sound than with a piano or synth. It would be interesting, though, to have a lab compare envelope and further parameters of different ligatures.
For me as a player, it's only about feeling satisfied with a piece of gear. Now and then, I come back to the Link lig and the Olegature only to find out that I like the Silverstein better. On the other hand, the self-fulfilling prophecy..... (the wheel goes round and round).
 
#39 ·
After my experience with a slightly misaligned reed last night, I'd pay good money for a ligature that automatically aligned the reed properly. Shouldn't be that tough, a couple of servos to slide forward and back and to twist and a laser diode on a retractable rod to 'sense' the gap ought to do it. Probably need some sort of solenoid/spring arrangement to clamp the reed down. Even an arduino would be overkill for a controller.
 
#40 ·
I find that I have to adjust the read again and again. A machine could just do a basic alignment. Sometimes a fraction of a inch back or forth will result in a very different tone. So the job of fine-tuning will always be the responsibility of the player. If you watch the pros, you will often see them alter the position of the reed during a concert. I remember a concert of Wayne Shorter that I had the pleasure to attend: he aligned the reed many times.
 
#44 ·
This discussion about the effect of ligatures on the tone is completely irrelevant. Because the effect of ligatures on the tone is completely irrelevant. The only thing that matters is how a ligature feels for the one playing it. If it helps him - subjectively - to get closer to his sound concept it doesn't matter how it sounds for the listener. The player will most likely feel more secure and confident, resulting in less stress and possibly a better performance. So if the player decides it makes a difference, it does. If he doesn't believe it makes a difference, it doesn't.
 
#48 ·
This discussion about the effect of ligatures on the tone is completely irrelevant. Because the effect of ligatures on the tone is completely irrelevant. The only thing that matters is how a ligature feels for the one playing it.
Your point is well-taken and I agree. However, from a factual standpoint, if someone claims that a given ligature has a specific or significant effect, noticeable to the listener, on tone, then it does matter in regard to the veracity of that claim.
 
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