hey, this may be a stupid question but, how do you know when to change the reed? thx

When the sound starts to thin out, your control suffers, and when you hold the reed up to the light there is a lot of light showing through.

They tend to start smelling bad too, but that`s not how I judge the life span of my reeds.

when you sound like crap

That`s an interesting way of summing up BGM`s post...

This is going to sound really stupid but here goes. Every sax player has their ideal personal sound pre-programmed in their head. When you get a new reed and you break it in, you reach that sweet spot in your sound that makes you say "yeah, baby". So you continue to play on it until the "yeah, baby" sound is no more. There is no predetermined time frame that a reed is supposed to last, contrary to popular belief. The "age" of a reed is directly proportional to the frequency and length of time it is being played on.

It`s this simple: When you can no longer play comfortably and with a good tone, get rid of it.

P.S. Reeds last longer when they are rotated. You should always keep 4 playable reeds in a rotation. When I was a young sax player, I used to find my "yeah, baby" sound and then continue to use just that one reed until it went dead. In retrospect, I see now why I went through a reed in less than a week in some cases. They`re not like wives where you have to be faithful to one and only one. So the next time you get a box of reeds, sit down and take the time to break in 4 good ones and rotate literally every time you pick up your horn on a new day. You won`t be sorry.

On more thing......

http://www.swt.edu/%7Eds23/reed.html

ya i know it was a good summary though real simple

When they start to look discolored and you loose control of your sound... oh and like Thomas said, they start to smell bad.