On August 26, 1924, the US Patent Office issued Patent No. 1506364 to Hippolyte Marius Chiron and Frederic Parme, of New York, N.Y. What was it for? Well the patent was for what would become known as Vibrator Reeds.
Source: eBay.com
When Chiron and Parme came up with improvements to cane reeds, they did so in order for these new reeds to have:
- “Far greater vibratory power”, and;
- “A richer and more resonant tone”, thanks to the grooves on the face of the reed increasing its linear vibrating surface.¹
The diagram that Chiron and Parme provided at the time of the Patent application, looked like this:
Source: google.com/patents
Vibrator Reeds were around for a while. I don’t know how soon after the Patent was granted, that Chiron and Parme started production, but in the 1950s the company was going strong.
Based on the number of vintage print ads available on eBay, the company was marketing itself heavily in the 1950s. During that decade it had some big-name endorsers, like the Count Basie sax section—shown here in this 1957 advertisement.
Source: ANTIQUE~GRAPHIQUE
At some point the company appears to have ceased to exist, and Vibrator Reeds are now nothing more than vintage curiosities. They appear on eBay every now and again.
Source: theworldsgoods
Does anyone know what in fact happened to the company? Why did no other company pick up on the groove idea to increase a reed’s vibratory power?
Despite our instrument being very young—when compared to other woodwinds like the clarinet or bassoon—we have already burned through a lot of ideas, patents, and one-offs. I think it’s interesting to look at some of these discontinued, forgotten, or unsuccessful improvements and inventions for our horns. These lessons in history provide us with a historical road map, and show us how we got to where we are today.
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Back in the late 50;s and early 60;s Vibrator reeds were my reed of choice. They seemed to be more consistent in grading than Rico or even Vandoren reeds . I don’t know that I noticed much difference in sound but the overall quality seemed better.
After some time I found a plausible connection between the Pierret Vibrator and Vibrator reeds.
M. Poimboeuf mentioned on some of the Pierret saxophones is sometimes called
H. Poimboeuf. Here the H stands for Hippolyte.
Hippolyte Poimboeuf on tenor saxophone, is one of the founders of Le Quatuor de la Musique de la Garde Républicaine, later known as Le Quatuor de saxophones de Paris.
He is also mentioned to have tested a series of Super Artiste Pierrets.
So Hippolyte Chiron could be Hippolyte Poimboeuf who was Marcel Poimboeuf.
There was also a french syndicalistic socialist with the name Marcel Poimboeuf who did not play the saxophone. But that is a different story.
In 1929 Chiron and Parme got another patent: US171893 for an underslung octave key.
In the same year Pierret finished a patent for their version, the virtuator, in France: FR671054(A).
This strange coincidence connects the USA vibrator reed with the maker of the French vibrator saxophone.
I guess there is a story behind this.
Interesting coincidence. I haven’t looked up the patents you list Theo. Are they in fact connected? If they are, it would indeed be an interesting story.
Except for the name “vibrator” and simular patents, there is no connection.
The pictures used are also slightly different.
Pierret used a drawing with two posts for the virtuator, one on each side of the neck.
Chiron and Parme described one double post on the downside of the neck.
My Pierret vibrator has an underslung octave key which looks like their picture.
Probably a younger version which replaced the difficult construction in their patent.
It is possible that they were thinking on similar lines, based on the same source, which is lost in the past.
The Conn underslung construction was different from both patents as the octave key was on the underside of the neck.
Actually US1718930A, patented also in France (priority numbers is indeed FRX1718930 19271116), filed by Chiron, is the patent of the Pierret Vibrator neck, a neck which is slightly different, as you noted, form the Virtuor neck (the French patent FR671054A).
The Vibrator neck was engraved with “patent pending USA – breveté s.g.d.g” plus a 3-digit number. The Virtour just “breveté s.g.d.g” with the 3-digit number.
I’m investigating the history of Pierret and I’ve spent part of this morning searching the USPTO database for a patent in the late ’20 – early ’30 of the Vibrator neck (if a patent was pending and then granted in the US I should be able to find it, I thought), and when I saw it and that the inventor was Chiron, who is connected with the Vibrator Reeds (this is why I arrived here), I had no doubt of the connection.
BTW, it is the Virtuor which is younger: the first Vibrator we know has serial number 3126 while the first “Concerto with Virtuor” we know something about is, I believe, Helen’s 51xx.
There seems to be no information about Chiron, not even in French. But at list we have something for dating those saxophones.
It’s a pity that such a precious information for reconstructing the early Pierret history was buried in the comments about a brand of reeds.
I know I’m late but I wanted to stop by to praise your insight.
In 2012 a patent was granted for reeds with grooves (again)
See Patent Reed for a saxophone US 20120227566
They missed some Bassic Sax facts in their investigation of the prior art.
Interesting. This is what the Abstract reads like this:
Maybe I’m just a bit dense, or maybe it was lost in translation, but what the heck does “the tones of a tenor saxophone can be expressed with an alto saxophone” mean?
Or in the summary: “An embodiment of the present invention is basically directed to expressing the tones of an alto saxophone with a soprano saxophone with the deep and abundant tones by increasing the vibrations of the reed and also to expressing the tones of a tenor saxophone with an alto saxophone, thus being well applied to various applications.”
I’m not understanding what this is even supposed to mean.
I guess he means more projection.
At the time I found this patent I was looking for patents on ligatures.
Found 50, do you want the whole list?
I can’t answer what happened to the reeds or the company (yet), but here’s what I found out when I looked into Vibrator reeds. Googling vibrator is best done with your parental controls set to 11.
http://stuffsax.blogspot.com/2013/11/hippolyte-marius-chiron-vibrator-reeds.html
Mark
😆 😆 😆 How true it is!
Nice article on the Vibrator reeds Mark. I’ve been meaning to write about them for some time. I hadn’t started my research into the company yet. Guess I don’t need to now, someone beat me to it.
I didn’t know that the company made mouthpieces though. That was new info to me.
For my next research into the unknown, I’m thinking of putting together something about the mouthpiece maker Riffault. Almost nothing on the web. I think I’ll have to go to Paris.
I did finally get around to researching Riffault et Fils. Here’s the blog.
http://stuffsax.blogspot.com/2017/12/riffault-woodwind-mouthpieces-you-have.html
Mark
I’m thinking that today, no one would think to use the word “Vibrator” in conjunction with anything related to musical instruments. Although it might be fun to try… :devil2:
Maybe someone might want to pick up the idea Pierret had with its Vibrator Model of saxophone. Call it the…
New & Improved Vibrator, with more complex vibrations, for those smooth jazz moments in your life.
:devil2:
The grooves were just a gimmick. The cane and the way the blanks were prepared with the grain well-aligned was what really set these reeds apart. At most, the grooves might have allowed the reeds to expand and contract more freely under changing humidity and avoid warping.
You ask why no other company picked up the idea.
Maybe those reeds weren’t as good as they claimed. That part of the reed is not supposed to be vibrating anyway.
this is probable untrue ,years ago i heard the rico company had reeds that had mildued(spelling?)thus they cut out the bad and the new name was formed.that was way back so true or false i do not know i do know they were really not all that good but rico was the reed back then,now there are so many brands its a players choice just like horns.love your site and you helen keep up the good things,im still stuck in the art pepper mode although a tenor playerchris potter has my attention.your sax bud :saxy: sam