Klarinet Archive - Posting 000185.txt from 2003/03

From: Karl Krelove <karlkrelove@-----.net>
Subj: RE: [kl] More corporate shenanigans in the instrument manufacturing
Date: Tue, 4 Mar 2003 18:41:41 -0500

> -----Original Message-----
> From: GrabnerWG@-----.com]
>
> 6. Prices will always rise due to inflation. Also, please
> remember that clarinets are among the cheapest instruments,
> especially at the pro level. Have you priced a pro quality
> bassoon lately? A flute? A cello?
>
> 8. Quality is VERY expensive, as it takes TIME. The best quality
> takes the time of the best people, and they want to make a living
> just like everyone else.
>
These two points from Walter are the crux of a number of different but
related threads we've followed over the years. The quality of pro-level
clarinets has always been a source of complaint. Klarinet is full of posts
accusing Buffet, Selmer, LeBlanc et al of uncaring, sloppy production with
little or no quality control, etc... The fact is that professional level
clarinets ARE among the least expensive instruments of that level available.
It's because they are, to a far greater degree than top level flutes, oboes,
bassoons or string instruments, mass produced. Machine labor is much cheaper
over the long run than hand labor, and we in the clarinet community have
benefited from it as much as any group. Only brass players get away cheaper
because there's just not as much mechanism in a brass instrument and the
material is produced mechanically as well. The added cost of having our
R-13s and 10Gs improved by the handcraftsmen who regularly do that sort of
work still leaves us hundreds of dollars better off than our other woodwind
or string playing brethren.

There doesn't seem to me to be much threat that conglomeration and reduction
of competition will likely cause a lowering of quality, and the aftermarket
craftsmen who are in place and the successors they will train will still be
available. The problem I see is that it will be harder to bring in anything
new at this level of mass production. Without the spur of competition, the
need to improve or innovate *at the design level* may be gone. The small
instrument makers like Rossi and others will continue to innovate and
improve their products at a price commensurate with the amount of hand work
they put into them. The unfortunate danger is that the mass produced and
marketed Buffets, Selmers, LeBlancs and others will simply stay put and,
while things may never get worse, neither will they get better very soon.

Karl Krelove

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