Klarinet Archive - Posting 000320.txt from 1995/08

From: Mitch Bassman <mbassman@-----.COM>
Subj: Re: Buffet vs Leblanc
Date: Thu, 24 Aug 1995 09:25:56 -0400

Regarding the "policy" of Buffet to deliver "unfinished" clarinets, how
long has this been a policy? I can understand the desire of *experienced*
players to have a new instrument adjusted to suit individual preferences,
but an unfinished-instrument policy would seem to be a very poor one --
one that would discourage less experienced people from buying new
instruments.

In the summer of 1967 or 1968, as a college student on vacation, I visited
a music store in New York City with the intent of buying a Buffet Bb to
replace the (professional model whose designation I cannot remember)
Leblanc that I had been playing. (The Leblanc was an excellent instrument,
but it just "wasn't right" for me, and I had liked the feel of a friend's
Buffet.) Nobody told me to expect new clarinets to be unplayable, so I
was expecting to have a positive experience.

When I asked to play several new Buffets, the man in the shop pulled a
large box off a shelf and told me he had just received a new shipment from
the factory. Inside the box were sections of clarinets wrapped in brown
paper; I seem to recall that entire instruments were kept together with
outer wraps of more brown paper. They were clearly "from the factory"
and had not been adjusted. I tried about seven or eight new Buffet
clarinets that day. I don't remember having any trouble assembling any of
them. Also, as I recall (and it *was* 27 or 28 years ago), they were all
playable. I selected the one that I liked the best, for whatever reason
at that time, and bought it.

I still use that instrument -- as a clarinetist in a university/community
symphony orchestra, as a frequent Reed I player in pit orchestras for
several community theatres, and for an occasional double in a swing band
where I play lead alto -- and I still like it.

The real point is that I played that Buffet Bb clarinet for several years
in its just-from-the-factory state before I ever had any work done on
it. A couple of professionals, who tried it when it was new, told me it
was a good one. Is the "policy" real? It doesn't seem reasonable that all
new clarinets would be unplayable.

Mitch Bassman
mbassman@-----.com

   
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