Klarinet Archive - Posting 000483.txt from 1997/11

From: peter.stoll@-----.ca
Subj: Simon's visit from Vandoren
Date: Wed, 12 Nov 1997 19:57:53 -0500

That was interesting news; about a month ago we had a visit from the new
technical head of production at Buffet, and some of the confusion about
their different brands was cleared up. The thin-walled Elite model is
apparently mostly popular as an A clarinet due to the highly-focussed
sound (both the A and the Bb are the same length! Something to do with
resonance keys for low F). The Prestige horns are selected from the
heaviest billets of wood that come in, hence the denser sound/feeling most
notice. He also brought a "DG" model Bb, in which some tone-hole
re-shaping had been tried by the inventor (Daniel Gauthier I think) which
had a nice smooth sound but was a bit smaller in overall tonal breadth.
The most interesting thing was a chart which showed the regions (Europe,
North America, Asia) where each model was most popular. Worth an hour to
hear all this!

Peter Stoll
Instructor of Clarinet and Chamber Music
University of Toronto