D’Addario H-Ligature & Cap, Alto Sax, Gold-plated (HAS1G)

I am a retired band director and perform regularly in all kinds of musical groups from concert bands to jazz bands. I have taught clarinet throughout my entire career. Here is my impression of the D'Addario H-Ligature.I haven't had the clarity of sound and the response from the reeds in quite a few years. This ligature gives the reed the freedom and opportunity to clearly produce quality sound on all the pitches from low E to super C. Compared to the original H designed clarinet ligature, it is pretty nice. It is a bit bulkier with the "H" shape design that rests on the reed. My memory of the original H designed ligature was that it was a bit finer it its detail. But, it has been quite a few years since I used one of those. If you are looking for a good response of your reed across the entire spectrum of the clarinet pitch range, this ligature is a good choice.

It comes with the ligature and cap for the mouthpiece. The ligature is very shiny. It's an H ligature so the screws actually face away from you instead of towards you.It has definitely (and surprisingly) improved my sound compared to my last ligature. If you need a new ligature and thinking about this one you should get it. It looks very nice and fits well onto my clarinet mouthpiece.

My expensive metal ligature recently broke. I realized I didn’t have an adequate backup so I bought this one as it is cheap and metal. I have to say I was not expecting to love this ligature. But it’s working great, maybe even better than the more expensive one I had. The gold plating is also a lot nicer than I was expecting. The ligature and cap fits perfectly on my Behn mouthpiece and the response is great. If you are looking to upgrade your ligature and want something different than the rovners which can really muffle the sound, I highly recommend trying this H ligature.

Pretty good ligature. In my experience, my favorite types of ligatures are ones have gold plating such as this and make only a couple of points of contact on the reed. This fits the bill and performs how I expected it too. The sound is bigger with more core, less diffused, and articulation seems a bit easier with it.I can't count how many saxophone and clarinet mouthpiece caps I've gone through over the years. Plastic ones break from trying to take off the mouthpiece when the reed and cap are on, metal ones dent my instruments or are incredibly loud when dropped in the orchestra pit in the middle of a show (yup). So when I finally found this cap, I bought them for all my saxophones and clarinets. The plastic has a very high rubber content in it, so it is extremely durable and hard to bend even if you tried. The snug fit makes it very comfortable to grab and move around with the reed and ligature on. Highly recommended.

We'll see how it goes long term. First few times using it, it's hard to get the ligature to match the shape of the mouthpiece. You have to tighten it and let it shape itself to fit. Meanwhile, the reed is slipping several times. The tone and playability seem pretty solid for the ligature so I'm hoping it will adjust itself to the exact shape of the mouthpiece.

I like this literature a lot for other mouthpieces. It’s advertised to fit a certain mouthpiece and simply put does not. On a different jazz mouthpiece I use it and it works wonderfully. However, I bought it for a metal Otto Link tenor mouthpiece. My mouthpiece has the ridge on top and it does not fit very well. I was worried about having to bend in shape of the literature for something I was trying out first. If your mouthpiece does not have a ridge on top then I would suggest looking at a different ligature. Bg France universal jazz fit perfectly with no issues with the ridge. If you’re wanting to use this ligature for any other mouthpiece, I would say go ahead for the money. It’s wonderful. I do like this literature on many many other mouthpieces.

Received ligature but was missing a thumb screw. Luckily I had another D'Addario ligature I wasn't using and took one from it. The ligature fit my 10Mfan Black Widow tenor metal perfectly and works great. 5 stars for the ligature, 1 star for missing screw. So a 3 star it is...

Very well made ligature based on classic design allowing easier 5C and 6Cs and a rich resonance in the lowest notes. It should be noted this ligature influences greatly the sound and reed resonance based on its' positioning ( up / down ) on reed mouthpiece combination. This is mainly due to the mouthpiece table design of a particular mouthpiece which may be either flat or slightly concave. A flat table designed mouthpiece is less affected, however a mouthpiece design having say a .0002" to .001" deep gradual concave valley dip located under where the lower half of the reed is clamped creates variations on the reed vibration sounds. Each ligature position tried will influence the angle of the spring board created by the clamping action of the ligature on the valley and give a different reed response. These changing spring board angles created, change the main reed tension adding openness to the reed when it does vibrate. Sliding the ligature up or down by 1/16" degree increments allow the point of the clamping action contact in the concave valley to be different creating colored patterns of reed sound vibrations. Do Not over-tighten ligature and experiment with positions up to +- 1/8". Just thought this may be interesting to some.