Rovner Products – From the Dark, Small Things Turned Big in the World of Woodwinds

A ligature is no small thing.

It’s the company motto, and the initial building block that started Rovner Products, a highly innovative company that makes accessories for woodwinds that is internationally known for developing its first groundbreaking, patented textile ligature 42 years ago.

In 1974, Phil Rovner developed a ligature in hopes that it would improve the sound of his saxophone. Dubbing it the “Dark,” this little-but-big product ultimately became one of the most widely recommended ligatures in the world.

“You’ve got an engineering head who is a musician and he says, ‘You know, this thing isn’t working as well as it could,’” says George Reeder, president and owner of Rovner Products since 2014 with his wife Lynn Reeder.

Rovner, who worked in the fields of microwave, mechanical and electrical engineering, also studied music at the Peabody Institute in Baltimore. He combined the fields of expertise and continued to expand on the Dark, developing more high-performance ligatures. But it was a slow evolution.

Initially, Rovner worked out of his home, marketing his product to the clarinet community, which is considered a “conservative community” in the world of musical merchandise. The company did not shoot like a rocket from Rovner’s Maryland basement.

“It was slow to grow,” says George,” but eventually after a couple of years, he thought, ‘Hey, this could be a company.’ I would say the first ten years it was in his basement, then moved up to the living room, and ultimately into a real industrial space 32 years ago.”

Expanding from the home, the first Rovner facility, located in Timonium, Maryland,  spanned 1,800 square feet, and eventually grew to occupy 5,400 square feet. Rovner designed and added several mouthpieces for the saxophone and clarinet over the years, with the most recent being the performance-enhancing product, the Rectangular Bore Clarinet Barrel.

“The accessory takes a novel approach to improving intonation,” says Lynn. “It’s made of durable and stable polymer, and offers an affordable option for the student clarinetist, a market that Phil felt was underserved and for whom the barrel’s features are especially supportive. Available in seven sizes for optimum tuning, it is also an excellent option for the woodwind doubler, who is often flat when switching from sax to clarinet.” 

Rovner hired George, for the first time, in 1995 as his general manager, pulling him away from a 19-year career at Xerox Corporation. He hoped George could take on administrative duties so that Rovner could focus on bringing a new mouthpiece design to the market. But, it proved still too early for the company to embrace a growth spurt of that degree. He wasn’t able to support George, so the position lasted only a year.

They stayed in touch over the years, and in 2008, Rovner approached George again with a strong desire to bring new products to the market.

“That’s when things once again really began to take off for the company,” says George.

That year, Rovner responded to an ailing economy by developing the Star Series ligature, the first of five patented Next Generation Rovner models. The company made changes to the assembly process, which allowed for a more affordable ligature. The Star Series then inspired the Legacy, followed by the Platinum, and in turn the Versa-X, and then the Van Gogh; all models featured the patented Resonating Ribs™ and Mass-Loaded™ technology.

“Our classic models have a strong grip on the woodwind player’s psyche,” George says, “but I believe our Next Generation models are the ligatures of the future because they take a targeted instead of generalized approach in supporting the player and solving problems.”

Rovner had relied almost solely on word-of-mouth marketing, but knew that these newer models would need a stronger push in the market. He hired the Reeders as subcontractors to take care of this role, and they developed a successful advertising campaign. They also became the face of the company after attending countless trade and educator shows. Perhaps the economy was ailing, but Rovner Products managed to experience growth.

In 2014, Rovner retired and officially sold the company to the Reeders.

“I’ve had multiple lives,” says George, “from working as the general manager at a precision sheet metal company, then owner of a high-end construction company, and before that I was a field engineer for a mainframe computer company, and then Xerox. I’ve been in the corporate world, and an entrepreneur. And now I’m home as an entrepreneur in the world of music.”

Rovner is still a fixture at the company he started, and actively develops new products and “continues to be a resource for improving the existing line,” notes Lynn. Rovner and George are also side-by-side in one of several big bands in which they are either members or subs.

The company employs nearly 20 full and part-time employees, and still sits in the same location it has for the past 32 years.

This year, Rovner Products is celebrating the 42nd anniversary of the Rovner Dark, the original Rovner ligature. Four of its products have been around for more than 34 years. Ninety-seven percent of Rovner products are sold through domestic and international distributors, with the remainder sold to the occasional dealer who wants to deal direct, and to the end user via the Rovner website.

The ligature line now includes nine patented models, with each bringing a unique approach to the playing experience, and “each creating a synergistic relationship between the ligature, reed, mouthpiece and player.” These models are available in from nine to 23 sizes. With the Rectangular Bore Clarinet Barrel, along with another product called Boost Juice, that makes 11.

Until the recent NAMM show, Rovner Products’ newest creation was under wraps. Just released at the event in January, the company debuted a blue ocean product called the Mouthpiece Manager. As the name would imply, it’s designed to organize mouthpieces. Durable, washable, and compact, retailers can stack Mouthpiece Managers, so they are easy to store. The organizer holds 12 mouthpieces, sells for $24.95, and like all Rovner Products is made in the USA.

George says that the company’s products are often inspired by the musicians to which they cater. Rovner Products attends numerous trade shows throughout the year, and welcomes direct feedback from the consumer and other companies.

“The biggest thing we hear is how much difference a ligature can make, especially when people aren’t accustomed to it,” he observes. “We received a call from a well-known musician in the L.A. area recently. He was never a gear guy, and always used what he had started playing with. Someone turned him on to our ligature recently, and he said he couldn’t believe the difference. People love our products because they are brand loyal to us, because our products work, because we’re made in the United States, we’re affordable, high quality, and our products last a long time.”

Between November and April, the Reeders have ten shows on the books to attend, and keep a dynamic schedule. Alex Hesson, the Reeders’ son, was hired in 2014 to fill a newly formed technologist role. He’s involved in production, human resources, trade show staff and more.

“The implementation of the new technology increased efficiency, further refined the quality of the products and enabled Rovner Products to deliver top-notch customer service to our network of distributors,” said Lynn. “The company is scalable, sustainable and more stable than ever. Customer satisfaction is at the center of every change that has been implemented, and gratitude for the decades of excellent customer relationships that have contributed to the Rovner success story is what propels the company forward.”

Invariably, Lynn explains, at every show the Reeders attend, a player walks up to them and pulls a tattered, old Dark out of his pocket, saying he’s been using it since the 1980s and, “isn’t the least bit inclined to replace it with a different model.”

“There are extraordinarily talented celebrity players who will not budge from our classic Dark,” says Lynn, “which is one of our least expensive models but which provides them with the warm sound they are looking for. And there are kids who want the Platinum, no matter the cost, just because it’s so pretty. Fortunately, the performance is well worth the price tag. We believe we have a model that can satisfy the needs of most any player, at any level of experience, and in any musical genre.”