 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Rick Williams
Date: 2003-09-25 04:11
I thought I would post this since I have just finished evaluating 3 MP’s from Walter Grabner. A while back I posted a query about a problem I was having with the A5 note being unstable on my clarinet. As it turned out, the problem was a twisted Marcellus M08 MP. I hate looking for MP’s and although I have no reason to believe that the Marcellus in general isn’t a quality MP, the fact that it was only five months old, had warped, with no warranty offered caused me to look for another solution.
I contacted Mr. Grabner by email and told him the problem I was experiencing and the setup I was playing, namely a Leblanc Concerto, Rovener Dark lig., either Legere 3 ¾ or Gonzales FOF 3.5 reeds and asked for a recommendation. He suggested the personal SWI MP. I sent a check and he sent 3 MP’s, 2 SWI’s and one AW MP. Here are my general impressions. Please understand that these are only my impressions and may have no bearing on what you may think about these MP’s.
All three MP’s are Zinner blanks. All three MP’s had a higher resistance than the Marcellus M08. The AW MP had the highest resistance of the three. Mr. Grabner said that he sent the AW for my impression. The AW tone was very nice and fairly even on my Concerto but the resistance was just too much for me. For people that like a higher resistance MP, it may well be a good place to start.
Of the two SWI’s he sent, they had fairly significant differences. I asked about that and he said what the point of sending two identical MP’s was? The two SW1’s which I’ll call #1 and #2 were similar in resistance, but #1 was much brighter and slightly uneven in tone on my clarinet. In altissimo, it went sharp, significantly so, but was very stable. MP #2 was darker, and uniquely even in tone throughout the scale. Bb throat has always been an issue and the MP improved the quality of that note quite a bit. Lower notes were very nice in tone and altissimo notes sounded easily and solid. I ran the scale and on my meter the two lights stayed lit from bottom to High G. Really remarkable!
Mr. Grabner suggested that while using Legere’s that you drop the lig 1-2mm down. I didn’t find that necessary but will continue to play with it. One thing I did notice is that moving up the reed strength resulted in a very large increase in playing resistance, more than I’ve noticed with other MP’s. Using a 4 Legere was almost a geometric increase in resistance. In an email Grabner said that the increase (in general) was due to the Zinner Blank). I'll also mention that the MP worked nicely on my Opus A.
Final impressions:
I never really realized the adjustments and tradeoffs I’ve made playing other MP’s. When I first played one of Grabner’s MP’s I found myself making automatic adjustments in embouchure, tension etc. from playing MP’s that required such maneuvers in order to play. The Grabner SWI’s didn’t. It fully took me 30 minutes to just play the music and let the MP do the work. The more I play the MP the better I like it. Yes, it requires a few twitches when moving across scales, but nothing like the dozen or so MP’s I’ve played over the years. It is a very stable platform for the reed. I'm also probably going to drop down a quarter strength in reed because of the increased resistance. Just for fun I poped a 2.5 onto the MP with surprisingly good results.
I know the MP’s like instruments are in the ear of the beholder, but Walter Grabner’s MP’s are worth a serious evaluation. I’ll also mention that other than being a customer, that is the limit of my association with Mr. Grabner. Yes, they are expensive, but I think they may well be worth taking a listen too.
Best
RW
Best
Rick
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Author: studioline
Date: 2003-09-25 13:15
I now play on a Grabner mouthpiece- CXZ_AW . After playing on a Vandoren B4013 for many years, I fancied trying a few mouthpieces I was not familiar with.
Walter Grabner, recommended & sent me 2 CXZ_AW mouthpieces in the post, after I had informed him of my clarinets (Buffet R13 prestige) and my previous set up.
They were both pretty similar in tone to each other once I had the correct strength reeds for each. One tended to need a slightly harder reed than the other.
Didn't seen too dissimilar to my B4013 as far as blowing wise, maybe a little less resistant, especially as I got higher up in the scale. Tuning is good, and tone is silky smooth, and warm. Just what I was hoping. Focussed bot not so that it becomes hard.
I've now teamed this up with a Walter Grabner cocobolo barrel, which not only looks very beautiful, but makes the tone more thick, dense and compact sounding. For me, I could certainly notice an increase in resistance from using my regular buffet barrel to using Grabners cocobolo barrel. Although, I feel I cannot reach quite the same volume with the barrel, I think the compact sound contributes to the projection. Anyway, i'm sure I will swap and change between the 2 barrels, accordingly.
I agree with Rick that Mr Grabner's mouthpieces are certainly worth a serious look at....
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Author: Iceland clarinet
Date: 2006-11-11 17:15
Grabner's mouthpieces are not expensive they are even cheaper than Lomax,Gregory Smith and Hawkins all also made out of Zinner blanks. I've now been playing the AW-Personal for about 8 months now and I like it much more now than I did when I bought it or even just 2 months ago. I used to play on Bay H2 M-M with no.3.5 V-12 and had tried about 12 different types of reeds and wasn't happy with the result. Even Gonzalez FOF I'm using now on the AW playing powerfull Buffet Festival clarinet didn't work very well on the BAY. Maybe they have a little bit too long facing for them.Now that I play no 3.25 FOF reeds on the AW(which means that I might be using a little bit harder reeds now than 8 months ago) I have with 4-5 hour practice per day played through 4 boxes of Gonzalez and I'm about halve way through the fifth box. When I played the BAY I bought about 12 boxes of V-12. So my point is every one that say that this or that mouthpieces is expensive need to try for themselve the reed result and you might have payed up the mouthpiece in 1-2 years.
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Author: swkeess
Date: 2006-11-12 19:02
Right now I'm playing with Walter Grabner's CXZ_Chicago mouthpiece on my B flat R-13 with Gonzalez FOF 3 reeds and am very happy with the sound: rich, warm, and precise. I've had two friends also purchase the Chicago mouthpiece after hearing the difference in my sound. This mouthpiece, along with the other mouthpieces I have purchased from Walter, is really worth the investment!
Susan Keess
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Author: SFroehlich
Date: 2006-11-14 00:14
One addition - it is pretty typical of Walter, when he sends mouthpieces for trial, to intentionally not send two identical ones, but instead he will make sure to send two with somewhat different facings (within the range, but towards either end thereof).
While this annoying when Vandoren does it in a box of reeds, its a nice additional quality and makes it worth dealing with him directly - you don't get a random distribution but instead a reasonable survey of the portfolio.
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