 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Clarineteer
Date: 2012-09-21 18:28
All of a sudden I am seeing of few of these R13's that were customized by Charles Bay. Does anyone know anything about these?
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Author: SteveG_CT
Date: 2012-09-21 20:26
Clarineteer wrote:
> All of a sudden I am seeing of few of these R13's that were
> customized by Charles Bay. Does anyone know anything about
> these?
I've seen a few such instruments up for sale as well. It should be noted that these clarinets are listed as being "voiced" by Charles Bay, and not necessarily "customized" by him. Basically this just means that at some point Charles Bay did a setup on the instrument and adjusted all of the pad heights. This may be a good selling point if it was done very recently but you should remember that those "Charles Bay customizations" will be lost as soon as it is time to have the instrument repadded.
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Author: dgclarinet
Date: 2012-09-24 12:25
I bought an R-13 in A from Charles Bay in about 1976. Beautiful horn, still play it, still love it. He made some fairly significant alterations to keys, adding the C#/G# trill key, the key to play Eb/Bb with just the middle finger of the left hand (bis key?), and made at least a couple of keys slimmer (the sliver key on the bottom and top). He really did a great job with the clarinet.
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Author: David Spiegelthal ★2017
Date: 2012-09-24 13:42
We bass clarinetists owe a debt of gratitude to Dr. Bay for the pioneering modifications he made to our instrument, features which have gradually been adopted by makers of newer instruments and have made the bass clarinet generally a better-playing and more comfortable instrument -- these include a more vertical neck angle (back in the old days the mouthpiece came out practically horizontal), better-placed plateau key touchpieces, and tonehole cavity walls chamfered for better venting.
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2012-09-24 15:01
I saw and pressed the keys of (but did not play) his Buffet bass at a Clarinet Congress several years back. It was the model before the current one (marked "Professional") and went down to Eb. He had put rubber tops on the plateau keys and had set the action very light.
I've read that he was in the Eastman Wind Ensemble (with Larry Combs and Elsa Ludewig) when they made the famous recordings with Freddy Funnel.
Ken Shaw
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Author: William
Date: 2012-09-24 21:26
I would think that "voicing" would also include the undercutting of some tone holes to even the scale. Tom Ridenour did that to my set of Leblanc Concertos and it made a big difference.
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Author: David Spiegelthal ★2017
Date: 2012-09-24 21:55
R-13 toneholes come from the factory fully undercut, do they not? Whereas most Leblancs don't (and so could possibly benefit from 'aftermarket' undercutting).
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