 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2005-10-28 01:45
I've been playing a new R13 purchased in January with some nagging issues with the intonation. The high clarion C seems a tad low, the altissimo G and G# (side key, fast scale ones) are fairly low and the chalameau E and F are low as well.....hmmm.
Attributing this to old age on my part I carried on. Just the other day I succumbed to the siren call of a barrel said to make you play perceptably louder (now how could I resist?) just by taking advantage of upper partials that can be emphasised through acoustic engineering - Dr. Omar Henderson's Power Barrel.
Low and behold the results that I got were most dramatic in the above pitch issue department. The intonation of my R13 has now become much more even. The high C (second ledger) got higher along with the chalameau E and F. Remarkably the always high B below the staff is now a little.....dare I say.....lower!!!! Both my standard barrel and the Moenig render the same pitch woes that are now almost completely cured by the good Dr.'s barrel.
As for the advertised decibal increase, colleagues hear some bump in volume but not to the point of chasing them out of the room. The tone is slightly brighter but not at all incompatible with classical music or my prevailing sensibilities and best of all......I can play "in tune."
Who needs a Bacun? (Morrie is not an advertiser is he?)
.............Paul Aviles
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Author: vjoet
Date: 2005-10-28 14:42
Thanks for posting on the Power Barrel. The intonation problems you describe are 100% the problems I've been tormented with (new R13 Greenline). I've ordered the barrel and will let you know if my results are similar.
vJoe
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Author: Bob Phillips
Date: 2005-10-28 16:59
I just had my Buffet re-build at Muncy winds. They did some alchemy with the body of the horn and the tone holes. They returned it with a synthetic barrel that they picked to match the horn.
After fighting my way through a handful of mouthpieces, I spent a day with the barrel and had some other folks try them out. After the rebuild, the horn is much more in tune --its so close that I can usually discern the "beats" when holding a tone, and pretty easily know what to do to get it in tune.
The adjustments to the instrument itself seemed do do most of the needed tuning, so the synthetic barrel doesn't make a spectacular change to the horn. It does, however, darken the tone, balance loudness between notes and improve the intonation in the throat tones.
I kept the new barrel. Yesterday, I spent about a half hour with the old stock barrel and felt some awkwardness, so switched to the new one. It felt much better.
Great barell, $50!
Bob Phillips
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Author: donald
Date: 2005-10-29 05:40
i was also impressed with the Muncy plastic barrel- although one colleague told me that it sounded bright, and would never have the resonance of wood! i must say that my Chadash barrel does sound better (i don't know if this is because it's made of wood though, it might be....) but i often use the Muncy when teaching (to lengthen the life span of the Chadash)
i felt that the $50 was a steal!
donald
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2005-10-29 14:01
Is it o.k. to follow up on my own thread?
I wonder if Buffet is doing anything with the bore dimensions of the standard barrels marketed to the States in an attempt to provide "American Pitch." Certainly in the 1980s, the standard length barrel everyone got with their horn was 65mm. I had to buy a Moenig 66. It would be a lot less involved to "tinker" with the barrel than retool the bore of the whole clarinet - just wondering out loud.
The bore of barrels seems more important than we typically discuss amongst ourselves. I switched barrels (an A barrel on a Bb) on my Booseys for a time (both exactly the same mm length) and had very odd pitch discrepencies, some notes flat others high, in places I would not have dreamed. I present this anecdote only to help make my point.
If there is anyone in the US that bought a Buffet in Europe and has no idea what we are talking about, I'd LOVE to hear from you. Also would love to hear from someone working at Buffet - prefferably an acoustic engineer.
.............with love,
.....................Paul Aviles
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Author: Bob Phillips
Date: 2005-10-29 15:33
O, by the way, my Buffet is a european model with a F prefix in the serial number. It is supposedly tuned to A-442. I think that means that the barrel is not the same as that provided with instruments of its vintage (1961) that were tuned to A-440.
Evidently, the barrel swap was easier than fiddling the body joints!
I, too would like to know more about this acoustic alchemy. My grad school acoustics course is totally inadequate to deal with this complex problem.
Bob Phillips
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Author: Ken Mills
Date: 2005-11-02 01:38
Dear Mr. Aviles; In reference to the notes on either end of the pipe the tuning is influenced by the register key's degree of openness or the size of its hole. Press that key to get the thumb C then you can release it and without letting the note slip to the low register you will notice the pitch flatten and sharpen again as you open the key again. So raise or lower the key's clearance or enlarge the hole to help. Of course be careful of the throat Bb. On the barrel I have more power if the bore continues to expand as the mpc bore was doing. That is the opposite of the typical barrel, but the bore diameter can effect the tuning of the middle pipe tones, especially around the register tube however. Buy an eletronic tuner to use once? But my clarinet is a hotrod. Now if only I knew more notes, Ken
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