 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: ruben
Date: 2026-07-26 17:55
As grenadilla wood benefits from tight protection, for it is in danger of disappearing, are clarinet manufacturers using something different? I worked with a clarinet builder that experimented with all sorts of wood, but, in my opinion, nothing was quite as good as grenadilla. One exception: boxwood. It had fine acoustic qualities, but warped too easily.
rubengreenbergparisfrance@gmail.com
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2026-07-26 19:12
Several makers have been using mopane as well as cocobolo and kingwood for oboes and clarinets, although they would benefit having a fully lined or partially lined top joint and bushed toneholes to reduce the risk of cracking. Even grenadilla top joints would benefit with having a lined or partially lined bore. Clarinets seem to be slow in adopting lined top joint when it's fairly common with oboes.
Far too many oboes and clarinets that have cracked within the guarantee period have top joint transplants, when repairing the cracked joint is a far better option in my opinion as it's both less wasteful than scrapping the original joint in favour for a brand new top joint that also has to be played in, plus it may not play as well as the original top joint did which is why the owner chose it to begin with.
As many players, even professionals and teachers are clueless about the whole playing in thing when getting a brand new oboe or clarinet in they often get them at the worst time of year, far more if not all makers should stress the importance of when it's best to buy a brand new wooden clarinet depending on the local climate. The worst time of year to buy any brand new wooden instrument is when the weather's just about to get cold and dry as well as suddenly going from hot to cold conditions and subjecting these instruments to wide and sudden temperature and humidity changes.
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
Independent Woodwind Repairer
Single and Double Reed Specialist
Oboes, Clarinets and Saxes
NOT A MEMBER OF N.A.M.I.R.
The opinions I express are my own.
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Author: SecondTry
Date: 2026-07-26 19:28
Ruben:
Best that I know Selmer and Yamaha still limits their professional instruments to Grenadilla https://tinyurl.com/37bhy2mn but if you look at some of the offerings of the top clarinet makers you'll see vendors like Buffet https://tinyurl.com/ydevv3ma making "clarinet material" one of their website filters, with choices like ABS, Boxwood, Green-LinE, Grenadilla and Mopane.
(Green-LinE: no joke, Grenadilla shavings from producing clarinets of this wood, originally used to heat factory furnaces in Winter, now mixed with epoxy to make instruments.)
There's Ridenour, with his hard rubber instruments, a personal favorite material given its dimensional stability, Backun with Carbon Fiber exteriors, Cocobolo options, and (echem) "Premium Synthetic" (plastic) choices.
A word on plastic, and my tongue in cheek ridicule of Backun's marketing:
Plastic, IMHO, can be an awesome material to make a clarinet out of. But its relatively cheaper cost has seemed to historically associate it with poor workmanship instruments. My take: put as much craftsmanship into producing a clarinet made of plastic (i.e. hydrocarbon sourced) and you could have a top notch instrument if people could get passed their material biases...
which IMHO is why you won't find Backun refering to the instrument's material using the "P" word....
...or, to be fair to Backun, do people think that Buffet's mixing of Grenadilla powder with hydrocarbons is like some fairy pixie dust that gives the Green-LinE instrument great sound? The marketing choice of putting the word "Green" in its description is no less comical. Is saving Grenadilla all while producing hydrocarbon sourced (epoxy) instruments somehow more environmentally friendly?
That said, my hat's off to Buffet for marketing. The Grenadilla in their Green-LinE instruments is filler material. There is no way that anyone is going to convince me that Grenadilla saw dust or shavings render some magical acoustical properties when it's myth that even pure Grenadilla does; originally chosen for clarinet production given it being less susceptible to breaking while being machined (i.e. cost) than the so called magic of its sound. On the plus side they're more dimensionally stable than Grenadilla instruments, on the negative side they're more susceptible to cracks from impact if not weather.
My cynical marketing of Green-LinE instruments might read: "We can make more money putting Grenadilla shavings into clarinets that the costs of buying other woods to burn in our furnaces in Winter at 5 rue Maurice Berteaux."
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Author: Fuzzy
Date: 2026-07-26 19:30
Chris P mentioned lined (fully or partially) upper joints.
This brings a question to my mind...
If lined - what properties would that wooden instrument have that some other instrument wouldn't have?
Granted, I've grown to believe that the type of material used to manufacture clarinets isn't of much importance to the clarinet's overall sound (barring things like warping/expansion/contraction, and other physical stability issues) - but still, I ask the question honestly to those who believe differently: Would a lined wooden clarinet's upper joint be expected to sound differently than an upper joint made up entirely of the lining material? If so, what properties would likely be affected?
Thanks,
Fuzzy
;^)>>>
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Author: kdk
Date: 2026-07-26 22:51
Fuzzy wrote:
> Would a lined wooden clarinet's upper
> joint be expected to sound differently than an upper joint made
> up entirely of the lining material? If so, what properties
> would likely be affected?
>
This caught my attention because the question isn't framed in the usual way, i.e. how would the lined version sound different from an all-wood clarinet? He asked it the other way - how would the lined version perform compared to a clarinet made of the same material as the lining?
AFAIK (please correct me if I'm wrong) barrel linings and oboe upper joint linings are made of hard rubber, so I assume the comparison would have to be between lined wood and a hard rubber clarinet. It seems like an obvious question, but one I had never considered (I had always compared lined to unlined barrels). I don't know the answer, but I'm interested to hear thoughts based on experience.
Are linings made with other materials? Would there be a point to doing it? You're still putting the liner into nearly the same amount of a now protected wood.
Karl
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2026-07-27 00:55
Bore linings are often made of ebonite, although cast resin can also be used - Schreiber has been casting the bores of their oboes and bassoons with resin and Yamaha have also been doing that on their student model Duet+ instruments which also have the toneholes cast to completely encapsulate the bore and toneholes. Yamaha also use ebonite bore linings on their Custom series Duet+ oboes with bushed toneholes to completely isolate the wood from the lining,
I'm pretty sure acrylic has also been used as a bore lining on some wooden instruments and there have been ebonite bodied clarinets with nickel silver top joint bore linings, either to add more strength to the tenons or add more density to the instrument as a whole.
Plastic and wooden clarinets do resonate differently due to the different density of the materials. Greenline composite is pretty dense stuff as it's a mix of glue and wood dust formed into billets under pressure and heat, but it's also brittle as it has no natural tensile strength as natural wood has which has the grain pattern to thank for that. Even though Greenline is a composite and no longer has any semblance of real grain pattern, it can still crack between toneholes like wooden instruments due to thermal expansion/contraction.
Greenline composite could be used as a bore lining, but only if that lining has a wall thickness no thicker than 1.5mm to be sure the tenons aren't compromised - likewise with any ebonite, plastic or resin lining. Some German makers lacquer the bores of their clarinets which also acts as a moisture barrier between the bore and the wood.
With lined bores, the quality of grenadilla and other exotic hardwoods doesn't have to be perfect with dead straight grain or without any natural defects and worm holes as all those will be taken care of when the lining is fitted.
I'm sure bore linings can also be made from carbon fibre composite with the outside machined down so it's either tapered or perfectly parallel. It definite won't be anywhere as disastrous as the Oceangate submersible if the layers have any lumps and bumps removed as the lining will be bonded to the inside of the joint and not subjected to any untoward stresses.
If the bore is formed on a mandrel, then that will ensure consistency provided the bore linings are glued into the bore with the polycylindrical or reverse tapered top sections all lining up exactly the same with each joint made and lined. On wooden instruments with reamed bores, the top tenon will meet a stopper on the reamer to ensure the same depth of taper/polycylindrical section, but sharpening or burnishing the reamer will change the dimensions. Having the bore lining formed on a mandrel willmean it's the same dimensions each time, just as it should be with injection moulded ABS resin joints.
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
Independent Woodwind Repairer
Single and Double Reed Specialist
Oboes, Clarinets and Saxes
NOT A MEMBER OF N.A.M.I.R.
The opinions I express are my own.
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Author: farabout
Date: 2026-07-27 03:34
IMHO & ceteris paribus (yes, I own grenadilla, hard rubber, and plastic horns): as long as the instrument is properly made and maintained, the material itself doesn't matter one shi+ bi+, regardless.
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Author: David H. Kinder
Date: 2026-07-27 06:46
I'll just add that Backun made a bass clarinet out of maple which is also lined with some kind of polymer - it's a clear lining, per Michael Lowenstern.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7eJ2WPfFO0
Selmer has their Evolution bore lining option:
"Evolution Bore Treatment: This innovation combines a new generation resin into the wood, allowing better stability and longevity of the instrument, all while preserving the acoustic qualities of a wooden clarinet."
To me, it's clarinetists being open to other materials than grenadilla. Manufacturers stick with it for tradition and musician sentiment. Some offer hard rubber, but they price it and classify it as lower than their wood models (I'm looking at Copeland and Kessler in particular.
With the protections for grenadilla, it will only get more expensive. The more open-minded we are, there may be something yet to be discovered. I already have, but that is my own biased opinion.
I'll just add Tom Ridenour's article on The Grenadilla Myth here:
https://www.rclarinetproducts.com/the-grenadilla-myth
Ridenour AureA Bb clarinet
Ridenour Artist MT36 mouthpiece
Vandoren Optimum black ligature (plate 1)
Vandoren Traditional #3.5 reeds
Brad Behn HR adjustable barrel
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Author: ruben
Date: 2026-07-27 09:31
I disagree with the statement that the type of wood...or other material, has no bearing on timbre. I worked as a tester for a clarinet builder for many years and the same model of clarinet sounded very different according to whether it was made from grenadilla, mopane, wild olive wood, rosewood, etc.
rubengreenbergparisfrance@gmail.com
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2026-07-27 18:12
Oboes and cors anglais made of different materials definitely play very different from each other - all plastic cors are far more brash and blary than their wooden counterparts or ones with just a plastic top joint and cors made of lighter density cocobolo and kingwood resonate far better than their blackwood counterparts.
I've heard recorder players also comment how differently plastic, pear, maple, boxwood, bubinga, kingwood, grenadilla and ebony recorders of the same model all play differently to one another.
Maple bodied bass clarinets aren't a new thing as Heckel made them with either a heavily varnished or maybe an ebonite lined bore. Fox have recently been making maple cors with the classic deep red staining on them as bassoons have, so they look almost like mini heckelphones in appearance.
The downside with maple is with it being very soft compared to the various Dalbergia woods, threaded pillars are far more prone to loosening or the pillar threads stripping and are either reinforced with epoxy or superglue to consolidate them.
Plastic is also a nightmare when it comes to pillar threads and machining as well as thermal expansion, meaning keywork has to have end slop factored into it which is why people moan about plastic bass, contra-alto and contrabass clarinets having really sloppy key fit when that's done to prevent everything binding up in cold conditions, especially on the long key rods which need far more end play relative to their length. Machining plastic joints creates friction which causes plastic joints to bow as the plastic expands between centres. And plastic is incredibly flexible compared to wood - you'll see how much a plastic instrument bends if you gently flex it when you don't have that with wood.
Bakelite (phenolic resin) was a popular choice for student clarinets and oboes in the '60s and '70s before it got replaced with the much less dense and less brittle ABS resin in the late '70s and '80s. I've heard some recorder players like how bakelite recorders respond due to how dense it is and also how razor sharp the fipple can be made compared to wood which has its limits which you'll see with Buffet clarinet tonehole crowns.
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
Independent Woodwind Repairer
Single and Double Reed Specialist
Oboes, Clarinets and Saxes
NOT A MEMBER OF N.A.M.I.R.
The opinions I express are my own.
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Author: farabout
Date: 2026-07-27 19:32
ruben wrote:
> I disagree with the statement that the type of wood...or other
> material, has no bearing on timbre. I worked as a tester for a
> clarinet builder for many years and the same model of clarinet
> sounded very different according to whether it was made from
> grenadilla, mopane, wild olive wood, rosewood, etc.
>
Were these clarinets geometrically absolutely identical and equipped with the same keys & pads?
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Author: ruben
Date: 2026-07-27 19:59
farabout: Yes: "identical" to the extent that the same model with the same keys and pads can be identical. There are bound to be slight differences. But, two clarinets of the same model and made of the same wood sounded far more similar than the same model using different types of wood. I would also add that denser doesn't always mean better. We used a wood that was denser than grenadilla and were not satisfied with it. The timbre produced by itsounded less flexible: more brittle.
rubengreenbergparisfrance@gmail.com
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