 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: MPowell119
Date: 2011-09-17 03:00
Hello I'm just curious as to how key plating figures into tone. I honestly don't see how it can really have that much of an effect. Please don't just tell me that, "that's the way it is." I guess My reason for being skeptical is because I was talking about this with a friend of mine who is a bassoonist. He was telling me that he was excited to get a new bassoon that had silver plated keys (vs his old bassoon with nickel plated keys.) because of the added sound benefits. So I asked him what kind of tubing was inside the wing joint, and he told me, "Oh, that doesn't matter." I just wanted to know what other people thought about this.
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Author: SteveG_CT
Date: 2011-09-17 05:41
I agree with Tim and Alan that the material used to plate the keys will have no noticeable affect on the sound quality. I don't buy into the notion that a part of the clarinet that is outside of the bore and has extremely negligible mass will have any effect on the sound.
That being said, there have been many people who have said that the Yamaha CSG clarinets with Hamilton key plating sound different that identical ones with silver plated keys. I personally suspect that there is something different between the CSGH's and the regular CSG's other than just the plating material but unfortunately I have no way to prove this one way or the other.
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2011-09-17 05:41
Two things.
It WILL imbue a different "feel" to the keys. Nickel is slippery; Silver is tacky; gold is somewhere in between.
And as a confusing note: Yamaha offers the nickel/gold plating known as "Hamilton Plating" on their CSGs. People who have tried both the silver versions and Hamilton versions swear the Hamilton ones sound a bit mellower. This also coincides with what Yamaha states in their initial literature for the product. I am skeptical....... even as a CSG-H owner. But I never tried the silver keyed version.
As an added note: It could be (my personal theory) that (at least in the bassoon player's example) that adding some overall weight to the horn dampens the vibration enough to smooth out some of the upper partials
....................Paul Aviles
Post Edited (2011-09-17 05:44)
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Author: Bob Bernardo
Date: 2011-09-17 07:21
I'm not playing sides - who's right or wrong here or if there is any difference at all. Play testing some recent buffets, for me the nickel plated horns seem to play a bit better regarding the sound. It could be one of those goofy quirks we all have or the selection of clarinets I tried.
A topic of conversation could include the vibration of the whole clarinet. For example if a clarinet weighs 10 pounds and another weighs 1 pound the sound difference would be easy to hear. So perhaps the weight of the metal keys makes a very slight difference in vibration, detected by some players.
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Author: Bob Bernardo
Date: 2011-09-17 07:29
Another example is the Selmer Mark 6 series. Even though the horns are now around 30 to 40 years old they usually look it. Players simply don't want to redo the lacquer and make these horns look new. If the horn has been relacquered they often don't bring in the full value.
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Author: Tony F
Date: 2011-09-17 09:57
I don't think the surface treatment of the keys has any effect on the sound, but the feel of the keys is different with different treatments. My horns with silver plated keys feel better than the nickel-silver or nickel plated keys because the coefficient of friction between my fingers and the keys is different. I find the silver coating makes for a more user-friendly key, and on my Emperor, where I have thinned some of the B & H fat keys and exposed the brass, those keys feel different.
If a horn feels better and the player is more comfortable with it this may explain the apparent difference in sound.
Tony F.
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Author: jicaino
Date: 2011-09-17 14:42
This is nonsense... an ultra thin layer of plating on a key that's installed on the instrument on the outside and mounted to a steel rod or pivot points cannot have ANY effect. And as for those claiming it makes difference, I'm saying this: anything that makes a difference inside the head of a person would make a difference in the real world because that person would work towards validating his/her ideas, even subconciously.
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Author: Bob Phillips
Date: 2011-09-17 16:05
OK, I've tried to estimate the effect of coatings on keywork.
Consider a pipe (like one of the long "rods" linking a pinky finger finger touch piece down the lower joint to a pad. That pipe is twisted a bit as you actuate it, and when closed, there can be a bit of torsional vibration excited by pulsing air at the pad (soft) that is resisted by the pressing finger (soft)
Say the outer layer of that rod were a microns-thick layer of something stiffer than the bast metal (plating). That would raise the natural frequency of the system vibration, moving toward or away from the frequency of the note being fingered and blown. That would affect the tone to some degree.
Going through the calculations (techniques from Strength of Materials) shows that the frequency shift will not be much --because the layer is thin, because the stiffness and mass density of the various metals you can use to plate the keywork vary little.
On the other hand, a thick coating of hard anodizing on an aluminum bicycle wheel rim does provide a measurable increase in stiffness. In this case, the base metal is soft, the coating is a hard, stiff, brittle ceramic, and the oxide coating is thick compared to plating.
If you'd like to ship me a matched pair of CSG and CSGH A clarinets, I'll make a detailed study of their differences and report back in this forum.
Bob Phillips
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Author: tictactux ★2017
Date: 2011-09-17 16:57
On the other hand, sticking your pinky into your ear canal and removing some of the wax therein would have a bigger difference on sound.
(I must know as I have my seasonal clogged ears. Concert today was, uhm, interesting)
--
Ben
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Author: rtmyth
Date: 2011-09-17 17:06
I began playing on a Paris Greville chromium plated clarinet. The whole works was chrome, including the keys. I have wondered ever since (75 years) why I have never seen another clarinet with chrome plated keys, particularily since the chrome held up very well. Acoustically there can be little to no detectable change in formants due to plating differences.
richard smith
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2011-09-17 21:28
Clarinet keys are usually plated in the following layers:
Copper flash over the base metal,
Thin layer of nickel plate over the copper flash, followed by a
Thick layer of silver over the nickel.
(Which can be followed by a thin layer of gold, platinum or rhodium over the silver.)
As nickel is hard and also a very smooth metal, it's an ideal base coat for silver to be plated onto. Copper is very rough in comparison on a molecular level. Chrome plating, like nickel, is a very hard metal and also only applied thinly like nickel.
Applying nickel (or chrome) as thick as silver will make it hard work when it comes to fitting the keys after plating as it's incredibly tough going on reamers, barrel fraises and taps, so nickel is very often only applied a few microns thick. Some plating companies will plate silver straight onto the copper flash without a layer of nickel in between.
Student instruments usually have nickel plate as that reduces the cost of having them silver plated (and therefore the end cost is kept to a minimum), although more and more student instruments are now being offered with silver plated keys as standard. Yamaha were among the first to do this with the YCL-32IIS followed by Schreiber with the Buffet E11, then the YCL-26II was offered with silver plated keys.
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2011-09-18 20:45
Chris P,
Perhaps you can answer, are the keys to Oehler system Wurlitzers (all Wurlitzers) 100% silver? Brannen actually drilled a very small hole through one of my keys at a point under one of the guides (in an attempt to keep his query hidden!!!) and it appeared to my visual inspection that they were of one single type of material - this could explain their great weight compared with most other keyworks.
Note: I never asked Brannen about this since I noticed this several months after the the fact and had never actually taken anything apart prior to the "Brannenization," so could never have actually known for sure that he applied the hole.
..............Paul Aviles
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2011-09-19 10:07
I would have thought Wurlitzers like most pro model clarinets had silver plated nickel silver keys, unless they made Oehlers with solid silver keys. The old Fritz Wurlitzer set I tried had plated keywork as some alterations had been made which showed the base metal and the plating was worn in places as well.
Drilling a small hole into a key may not show up the colour differences between the metals as much as scraping or lightly filing the underside of a key (such as where a key cork will cover it) to expose the base metal or prove they're made from solid silver. So your best bet to be certain is to remove some of the plating from an area of a key covered by a key cork as that can be hidden later on by sticking a new key cork onto it.
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.
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Author: clarnibass
Date: 2011-09-19 11:41
>> People who have tried both the silver versions and Hamilton versions swear the Hamilton ones sound a bit mellower. <<
I've tried both and I don't swear the Hamilton ones sound a bit mellower. Maybe I was swearing... but that has nothing to do with it...
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