Author: eskil
Date: 2004-06-19 22:59
Just in case anyone is waiting eagerly to hear what my Strasser looked and sounded like, when I got it from the shop...
When the DHL package arrived, it turned out it contained a very worn and battered leather case containing one very worn clarinet - the bell ring rattled like some toy and one of the rings on the barrel fell of when I took the barrel up. Uh-oh. After having felt disappointment run back and forth over and through me, I started looking closer at the clarinet. It actually didn't look battered at all, it just looked very worn from playing. No bruises, nicks, dents or anything, except one small crack repair. And the pads all looked almost new, and there was no excessive play anywhere, and the cork joints looked new too. The suction test showed that both halves were airtight, or at least reasonably so. And the general level of workmanship looked good, about what I would expect from a professional model, or at least an intermediate model. If it indeed is a student's model, it is the best looking student's model I have ever seen - certainly a whole different level than that horrible Kohlert from the sixties I tried once, or a Dixon (Taiwanese, I think) or whatever. Only the bell ring looked cheap - I actually wonder if the bell ring is the original one, it looks kind of thin and cheapishly tin-like, nothing like the rest of the clarinet at all. The bell itself is the original one, though.
Having regained some level of confidence in my prospective purchase, I put it together and tried it out. Wow! A bright, warm, sweet and summery sound, very much what I was hoping for (my SML alto sax has that sound too - is it the SML sound or am I just lucky?). Think "Summertime" by Gershwin. Playing against my tuner showed that the intonation was spotless - about the same as my Yamaha CX, and better than my Selmer Series 10. (I am not suggesting that Selmer can't build clarinets, it is just a fact that my intonation is better on the Yamaha and the Strasser than on the Selmer. Maybe it's me. But I like my Selmer anyway.) The Strasser turned out to be very easyblowing, and very comfortably laid out. Perhaps a bigger difference in sound when you cross the register break than on the Selmer, but certainly not as big a difference as on my Yamaha. (Maybe it is my own fault, but on the Yamaha it is very easy to hear when I cross the register break, the sound changes noticably. A whole lot, really.)
A quick visit to my local technician confirmed that the Strasser was in good shape, and that the price was very reasonable - the servicing it obviously has received recently, pretty much must have cost about as much as I am paying for the clarinet. She also confirmed that the service had been carried out competently and that the crack repair was done correctly, and that it wasn't in need of servicing now or anytime soon (except of course the bell ring). She even said that it looked like a really good clarinet, provided I liked the sound of it - she is a Buffet mafia member, so you can imagine what she feels about sweet and summery sounds coming from a clarinet. Her first instinctive reaction when she heard me say "SML Strasser" was to recommend me an entry-level Buffet instead, as a better buy. But that was before she had seen it, and before she realized that it had been serviced recently. After having inspected it, she took her entry-level Buffet recommendation back and said that the Strasser was better than that. (I'd like to point out here that when I bought my Selmer Series 10 she also tried to persuade me to buy an entry-level Buffet instead, and she never backed down that time. But maybe it is something about Selmers that make Buffet people react like that.)
So I am keeping this little sweetie - it has personality and integrity. I can't say that it is better than my Selmer or my Yamaha, but it is at least able to hold its own against them. For me, the intonation is better on the Strasser than on the Selmer, and the change in tone over the register break is lesser than on the Yamaha. And it has a very nice voice - I can't really describe what they sound like, but the Yamaha sounds somehow "drier" and woodier (but still pretty warm), perhaps like a nice summer day under the shadow of a big old tree. The Strasser sounds very warm, very dreamy, very summery, more like a hot day in the sun. The Selmer, I have a hard time describing - bright, crystal clear, cool, warm, a little hollower (it can't be all of that at the same time, can it?). Perhaps more like eating ice-cream in a cool, air-conditioned restaurant on a hot summer day?
Also, the overall build quality of the Strasser seems about equal to that of the others, perhaps slightly lower, but still about professional-looking. After all, the Selmer Series 10 and the Yamaha CX are more like top of the line models (or pretty near, anyway), while the Strasser was the "cheap" model. I wouldn't describe it as "cheap-looking", and it doesn't feel cheap (or sound cheap) at all when you play it. I wonder what the price-tag was, really, when they were new, they can't have been _that_ cheap compared to what else was on the market?
All in all, the Strasser SML seems to be a nice little clarinet, definitely one worth checking out if you happen to see one. Especially considering that they seem to sell for very little - you can get pro sound for student prices. But if you prefer Buffet over Selmer, you will probably hate the sound of this one. Me, I love it.
/Eskil
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