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Re: Bladder pads?

Author: Gordon (NZ)
Date: 2006-07-19 12:28

To provide a different perspective from Chris's on leather pads, which are currently in vogue in certain quarters:

I encounter a few clarinets which people have padded the large keys with leather pads. In my experience, the sealing is quite a lot less reliable than with bladder pads.

This is because when leather pads are used they are have to be of smaller diameter than bladder pads, so often the sealing line around the pad is very close to the edge of the pad, where the leather gets rather little support.

This situation is made a lot worse when the key cup is not concentric with the tone hole, which is common, even on top model instruments.

This problem is less for cork pads (which also are of smaller diameter than bladder pads), because there is a sharp edge at the edge of the pad, which is reasonably well supported by the firm structure of the cork.

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