A Lyon saxophone professor, his son and the family garage.

BG is a family firm in Chaponost, a town just south-west of Lyon, that makes ligatures — the band that holds a reed against a clarinet or saxophone mouthpiece — and a long list of other accessories for wind players. The company says it was created in 1985 by Franck Bichon, and that the idea behind it came from his father, Serge Bichon, a saxophonist, pupil of Marcel Mule and teacher at the Lyon conservatoire.

Serge Bichon’s teaching career is documented independently. French Wikipedia lists him among Mule’s pupils and describes him as a professor at the Conservatoire National de Région de Lyon. It says he founded the A.P.E.S., an international association for the development of the saxophone, in September 1983, and that in 1989 he set up the Université Européenne de Saxophone at Gap with Claude Delangle and Yves Rambaud, a course for advanced students. Its article on the saxophone names Lyon, under Bichon, among the conservatoires that formed saxophone ensembles. BG adds that he trained Delangle, later a professor at the Paris Conservatoire, and the Habanera quartet.

His idea, as BG tells it, was that the ligature — “this small detail that nobody was trying to improve,” in our translation — could make a real acoustic difference. The company says it ran “no fewer than 200” trials to settle the fabric for its ligatures, arriving at a two-material construction, and that Franck took up his father’s idea and turned it into a business, starting in the family garage and creating “a market that did not exist and that nobody believed in.” The company that trades today, BG Franck Bichon, is registered in France as a limited company formed in 1993, with Franck Bichon as its manager, under the official code for the manufacture of musical instruments.

Fabric, gold plate and three hundred small things.

Ligatures remain the core. BG’s current saxophone range runs from the Standard, a fabric ligature with a rubber plate that the company pitches at ensembles and chamber music, through the Revelation and the Super Revelation, the latter adding a plate of 24-carat gold-plated brass and a cord meant to damp unwanted vibration, to the Tradition, a gold-varnished metal ligature with two grooves that follow the fibres of the reed and a single screw. The Duo, Flex and Universal Jazz complete the list. Many come in silver, gold or rose-gold finishes, and an online tool on BG’s site matches them to mouthpieces from makers including Selmer, Vandoren, Meyer, JodyJazz and Theo Wanne.

Around them BG has built what it calls the widest range of wind-instrument accessories in the world — more than 300 items, it says — including neck straps, the pull-through swabs French players call écouvillons, pad dryers, mouthpiece pouches, stands and thumb-rest cushions, with ranges for saxophone, clarinet, flute, double reeds and brass. French Wikipedia’s article on the swab names BG France among its makers. Two side lines stretch the name further: BG Rocks, with guitar straps and drum accessories, and BG Lifestyle, with bags and travel goods.

The company describes itself as one of the first French accessory makers for wind instruments, focused on the middle and upper end of the market, and says it relies on established artists and selected teachers to develop and refine its products; its product pages name the players who use them.

Brass, woodwind and the small parts.

A brass or woodwind player’s sound depends on small parts as much as on the instrument. The seven makers here each specialise in one or two of them, and several have changed hands.

Two make mutes. Denis Wick was founded in 1968 by the London Symphony Orchestra trombonist Denis Wick and makes mutes and mouthpieces in Poole, Dorset (“handcrafted in Dorset,” it says); since August 2025 it has been controlled by Music Center of Trento, Italy, Companies House records show. Humes & Berg’s website said in 2012 that Willie Berg founded it in Chicago in 1935 to make Stonelined mutes, and that its factory had been in East Chicago, Indiana, since 1948.

Two make mouthpieces. Otto Link began with Otto Link’s shop in New York in the 1920s; its mouthpieces are made in Elkhart, Indiana, by J.J. Babbitt, which says it acquired the brand in 1977. JodyJazz, founded by the saxophonist Jody Espina in New York in 2000, the company says, makes its mouthpieces in Savannah, Georgia, and owns Chedeville and Rousseau.

Three make reeds and ligatures. Marca was founded in 1957 by Franco Guccini in the Var, in Provence, is run by his grandson and says its reeds are made in France. Rovner, founded by Phil Rovner in 1974, makes its ligatures in Timonium, Maryland (“handmade in the USA,” it says) and has belonged since 2024 to Music Center, which also owns Légère. BG France, a family firm that Franck Bichon founded in 1985 from an idea of his father, the saxophone teacher Serge Bichon, says its ligatures and straps are made in its workshop at Chaponost, near Lyon.

This guide sets out what can be checked about each brand — who founded it, who owns it, and what it says about where its products are made — and marks clearly what rests only on the company’s own word.

Made near Lyon, sold in 85 countries.

BG makes much of where its products come from. Its site says the company is firmly rooted in the Lyon region, which it describes as a land of textiles, leather goods and jewellery whose luxury crafts shaped its own know-how, and that it has 1,200 square metres of production space; its footer reads “Made in France — in our workshop near Lyon.” Its manufacturing page says that all its products are made by hand and, more specifically, that its ligatures and straps are made in France and checked three times during production; individual ligature pages carry the line “Fabriqué en France.” It says it sells in 85 countries and exports 85 per cent of its products. We give these as the company’s own figures and statements.

It also lists distinctions: the French state’s Entreprise du Patrimoine Vivant label for exceptional craft skills, a departmental Artinov prize for craft businesses, the title of maître artisan and a grand prix from Fondexpa, a foundation for craft exports. These too are the company’s own list. Its slogan, “When details make the difference,” runs through the site in French and English, and the name itself is reduced to two letters, BG, with “France” added in most international use. No official colour or typeface is published.

For a design guide, BG France shows how a small family workshop can build a brand on the least glamorous part of the instrument, by telling the story of a teacher’s idea and stamping a place of making on every product page. Compare Vandoren, the Paris reed maker, and Buffet Crampon. For this guide we use atelier black, silk red and gold with a geometric sans, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep BG France’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.