 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: LonDear
Date: 2008-07-29 03:41
There are frequent threads here about the merits of wood (mostly grenadilla) versus hard rubber. I will relate my experience with many materials over many years then offer up questions for even more extreme materials that seem viable.
I started clarinet at age 5 playing on a grenadilla clarinet.
In my teens, after learning lathes and drills, I tried experiments with sycamore, maple, oak, birch and elm and remember that there were big differences between the various woods with how easy they were to work with versus how good they sounded. What I could not have realized at that point were how the cut of the wood and the aging can affect the playability. I also had no way of fitting keys on those monstrosities, but could get decent scales and learned to adjust hole placement. I quickly gave up the idea of being able to create my own "clarinets".
In college I learned that clarinets had not always been made of grenadilla, so I embarked on a search to play some of the earlier woods and other materials just to see how they compared. Here are some of the things that I found over the last 30 years.
Pearwood/Boxwood - pretty sound, but not a strong sound. I haven't been able to find one with modern keywork and would not expect to without going to a custom maker such as S. Fox.
Rosewood - a great, smooth sound without much of a zing - a bit darker sound than grenadilla
Cocobolo - I have coco barrells but have never tried a whole clarinet, but I know they exist (O&W?). I experience quite a bit better articulation on a coco barrell, maybe slightly better than a hard rubber barrell.
Grenadilla - no comment needed, the most popular material currently and what I thought was the ultimate material until 16 months ago.
Plastic - beginner material - works well and holds the keywork in place...
Greenline - I own one of these that I hand picked from several for my wife and the intonation is just great, but I could never get the power I wanted. She's a section player so it was OK for her. I got her an actual R13 (all wood) in the last few years. I know that the model could make a big difference (E11on the greenline), so the greenline designation might not have been the problem. I think that the greenline concept is really good; my experience with it is very limited.
Metal - I used to buy any metal clarinet I could get my hands on and "try" to restore them. Some of them had been sitting unused for so long that a quick repad put them into perfect playing condition. I just loved the sound (various materials), feel and playability of some (very few) of them. They seemed like the ultimate clarinets, whether brass or some unknown silver-like maybe-nickel composition. I've never come across one of the true silver ones. These were so easy to work on because of all of the room between the body and keys. If metal clarinets come back, I will definately try one, if it is less than $7961 (see below).
I've tried one of the Buffet clear (lucite?) clarinets with the copper colored keys. It played about as good as any low-end wood Buffets and just looked SO COOL, but as much as I would like to have one, I can't get anyone to part with one at a reasonable price. The clearness, which quickly changes to foginess quickly changes from way cool to kind of weird.
Another amazing clarinet that I can't get an owner to part with is a Howarth that is some kind of composite that has superior keywork, the ability to cut through any ensemble with a rich warm tone and adapts to about any mouthpiece. I don't know if these were experimental models, but they don't seem to be offered by Howarth anymore. It is quite heavy, however, heavier than the Lyrique. I may have problems with a heavy clarinet in a few years, but for now, this horn seems to be the only one that could be better for me than the Lyrique.
For now, the Lyrique is THE horn (for me): C/Bb/A/Low-C-Bass, but I still have to use wood for Eb and Alto, and plastic is all I can afford for contra-alto.
NOW - onto the experimental:
Titanium - Hanson has the T-7-T model which sounds VERY intriguing, but at $8000 for a Bb, I want to hear some reviews, if any really are out there. These should be light. These should last a lifetime, at the very least. These should be able to survive the most brutal orchestra pits.
Carbon-Fiber - string instruments are being made of C-F with very nice results. Even the keywork should be able to be made of the material. These would be VERY light.
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Author: C2thew
Date: 2008-07-29 03:53
be careful what you wish for, hanson could probably lower the price to your asking of $7960 and then you'll be held to it =P
your comments so far about the woods have been pretty accurate. rosewood has a nice dark sound, but there's no life in the sound. the sound kind of gets absorbed by the wood itself so the end result is a dark, mellow sound.
the selmer centered tone has probably the most unique sound i've ever heard for a clarinet. it plays with such a quiet jazzy ring to it that every note feels like that it should be bent! so much fun! kinda sad i parted with one
Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which distract our attention from serious things. they are but improved means to an unimproved end, an end which was already but too easy to arrive as railroads lead to Boston to New York
-Walden; Henry Thoreau
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Author: LonDear
Date: 2008-07-29 04:26
Oh so true on the CT. I was offered one after a major clarinet trade with a seriously international pro. I didn't feel worthy of the offer at the time. I'm going to give him some computer lessons this weekend so I might not feel guilty about trading lesson time for his CT this time.
Of course, wood works, Selmer works and working with the vintage stuff alongside the modern developments is absolutely invigorating - what a wonderful clarinet time we live in!
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2008-07-29 08:17
Carbon fibre may be as light as a feather when made to similar wall thicknesses as metal clarinets, though I reckon it'll weigh a ton (probably heavier than Greenline) if made to standard joint dimensions due to the density.
Howarth made some clarinets in PVC and possibly Delrin.
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.
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Author: Gordon (NZ)
Date: 2008-07-29 12:55
LonDear , you seem to be comparing timbers as if these clarinets were otherwise equal in every way. Tiny changes in bore and other aspects of design are extremely significant, probably overiding any differences the timbers made.
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Author: Don Berger
Date: 2008-07-29 13:48
I agree re: the Selmer CTs, my 1956 is my best with a large bore, quite open tip, "somewhat-dark" playing mp. My 1929 Selmer A, ?earlier than the 9 series?, is also very "dark"/resonate. I wish there might be better descriptions of tonal quality !! Both are quite heavy, very dense, thick? wood??, which I believe is important. LonDear, has your "research" included any "densified" plastics such as ABS, polypropylene etc, possibly blends with carbon fiber or metal/metal compounds ?? added. Don
Thanx, Mark, Don
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Author: BobD
Date: 2008-07-29 13:50
"after learning lathes and drills"
It's comments like this that cause me to remain skeptical about the authenticity of some posts.
Bob Draznik
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Author: Don Berger
Date: 2008-07-29 15:13
TKS Brad, very informative, testamonials[sp?], anyone? Don
Thanx, Mark, Don
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Author: Ryder
Date: 2008-07-29 18:47
actually Chris P, carbon fiber is quite light even at thicker level. The main advantage (I don't know if this would be a good thing for clarinets) is that it's strength to weight ratio is much higher than all metals. I see where you are coming from, as you would need a thicker body to create similar resonance to wood, if that is at all possible.
If you used the same amount of carbon fiber in terms of weight as a wooden clarinet, you would have a clarnet that is literally stronger than steel. But with the strength to weight ratio of carbon fiber, you can remove some of the material, and still have a somewhat indestructable (in a sense) clarinet that is lighter. Again, the resonance qualities are not the same though.
____________________
Ryder Naymik
San Antonio, Texas
"We pracice the way we want to perform, that way when we perform it's just like we practiced"
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Author: LonDear
Date: 2008-07-29 22:23
Draznik wrote:
"It's comments like this that cause me to remain skeptical about the authenticity of some posts."
You hit it exactly! My post said that I was a teen when doing those stupid, ignorant experiments with non-professional tools, basically shop class stuff. I certainly don't trust my memory from that many years ago any more than I trust the memory of either of my teenage offspring.
What I did gain from it was a very open mind to trying anything new related to clarinets (except those weird foil things that go between the reed and the mouthpiece).
I would really like to try a titanium horn, but I'm real happy with hard rubber for now. Don't get me started on how great a black nickle bari sax plays!
Thanks to all for the very interesting information on developments in titanium and carbon fiber instrument design - that is exactly what I was looking for.
Post Edited (2008-07-30 03:13)
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Author: Gordon (NZ)
Date: 2008-07-30 06:08
Unlike the rest of a clarinet, the springy characteristics of a mouthpiece must be relevant, because the reed slaps hard against it, and presumably it makes quite a difference whether or not the mouthpiece material returns the energy to the reed, or absorbs it as heat.
There is a new, unique metal alloy trademarked "Liquidmetal" (Nothing to do with Terminator :-), returns almost the entire energy back to something that hits it. This is demonstrated in in a bouncing ball video clip in the manufacturer's website. Surely this property would be really unique for a mouthpiece, for better or for worse, and well worth a try.
Liquidmetal®
http://www.liquidmetal.com/
For ball bouncer: Click on “Media Center”, “Multimedia”, Ball Bouncer Demonstration – DSL/CABLE
IMO Liquidmetal would also be good for casting keys. Super strong. Super light. Very good surface appearance. Very good corrosion resistance. It casts easily, more like plastic than metal, at low temperatures, and items come out of the mold so accurate that molded scalpel blades can be used straight from the mold without sharpening. The only downside would seem to be that it may snap rather than distort when abused, and it possibly cannot be soldered.
Currently it is used for certain scalpels, tennis rackets, golf clubs, cell phone cases and hinges, etc.
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Author: clarnibass
Date: 2008-07-30 07:29
Gordon, sorry, but you have a big mistake. It's very important to mention it is Terminator 2 and not the first one! 
LonDear, you never replied to Gordon's first post so I'm wondering, since it's not clear from your original post, if you are aware that you can't compare the materials unless you eliminatred other differences. Not to mention that for a statistically valid result you need at least 30 samples (in this example, people or clarinets, depending on what you are trying to check). Your comments (while personal subjective anyway) are about different models (which you don't mention) rather than different materials.
Re carbon fiber: A horn player came to visit in the local uni (when I studied there) and he played a carbon fiber alp horn. If I remember right, the wall thickness was slightly thicker than a metal clarinet or saxophone, but it was a little flexible and wouldn't work with this thickness for a clarinet. It was cool that it folded to very small so he could easily take it on the plane with him. I don't think it was heavy either, definitely much lighter than if it was made of metal.
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Author: Gordon (NZ)
Date: 2008-07-30 09:42
"Gordon, sorry, but you have a big mistake. It's very important to mention it is Terminator 2 and not the first one!"
You are so right!
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2008-07-30 11:36
"Re carbon fiber: A horn player came to visit in the local uni (when I studied there) and he played a carbon fiber alp horn. If I remember right, the wall thickness was slightly thicker than a metal clarinet or saxophone, but it was a little flexible and wouldn't work with this thickness for a clarinet. It was cool that it folded to very small so he could easily take it on the plane with him. I don't think it was heavy either, definitely much lighter than if it was made of metal."
Was it telescopic?
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.
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Author: clarnibass
Date: 2008-07-30 12:31
>> Was it telescopic?
Assuming I know what telescopic means (parts getting into each other), and assuming I remember right, then yes it was.
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Author: L. Omar Henderson
Date: 2008-07-30 12:48
Without getting into the "nature vs nurture" debate about materials (nuture being the manufacturing side and specific metric configuration) of the instruments it "may" be more important on the materials side the further up the blowing chain that you go. My recent adventures in mouthpiece materials IMO indicates a relationship between materials (rubber in this case) and the formation and resonance producing properties of the fluctuating air column causing what we perceive as tonal qualities produced.
Gordon - I too am intrigued by the Liquidmetal properties but could you speculate that it might return too much of the vibration energy to the reed and lessen the control that the player has over the reed vibration in playing? Does the mouthpiece have to dampen to a great extent the energy returned so that it can be adequately controlled by the player? Sounds like this could only be determined by experimentation? Does Liquidmetal machine easily?? - could be a CNC project to make a MP out of hard rubber and LiquidMetal to 0.001 mm tolerences (of course 30 + of each!!!) ? What fun!
L. Omar Henderson
www.doctorsprod.com
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Author: Don Berger
Date: 2008-07-30 18:22
Gordon's and Omar's discussions, re: Liquidmetal, motivated me to look it up. US Patent 5.792,236 is specific to it, with the earlier [parent] pats 5,478,978 and 5,391,846 assisting in the discussions of Gallium alloy chemistry. I'm quite sure that the gallium-indium-tin alloys would be highly expensive, and very difficult to "process" [clarinet keys?] without oxidation [destruction] of the Ga's function, [from quick pat. reading]. It interests me partic. as a Hg substitute for use in the compact fluorescent lightbulbs, re: which the Hg's minimal hazard is [at least] slowing their [highly economical] adoption by our retirement village. Since we all know who pays our electric bills [HIGH A C now], its sort of a "crusade" with me ! Just another "extreme material" ? Don
Thanx, Mark, Don
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Author: Gordon (NZ)
Date: 2008-07-30 23:17
Don, from what I have read, news releases etc, it has a very good surface appearance, and casts almost as easily as plastic.
" and very difficult to "process" [clarinet keys?] "
It would seem not. It comes out of the mold with no processing required.
Also, Difficult to process materials seem seldom to be a problem in industry these days. Take stainless, steel, precious stones, tungsten carbide, titanium, .....
"Just another "extreme material"
I would not call it that, when it is already being used commercially in diverse ways. Do some more reading in the Liquidmetal site, and by googling.
Omar wrote
"I too am intrigued by the Liquidmetal properties but could you speculate that it might return too much of the vibration energy to the reed and lessen the control that the player has over the reed vibration in playing? Does the mouthpiece have to dampen to a great extent the energy returned so that it can be adequately controlled by the player?"
I agree that is a possibility, which is why I wrote "for better or for worse". However, the worst mouthpiece materials seem to be the soft, vibration-damping ones, like cheesy plastics. So I am optimistic.
I don't think you can machine very different materials to identical shapes too easily, because the different materials behave differently under the pressures of the cutting tool. (Which makes me wonder about research such as this which claims to have made two identical flute heads in very different metals... http://www.landellflutes.com/-Research/PDF/junruwu.pdf )
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Author: L. Omar Henderson
Date: 2008-07-31 00:56
Gordon - Good points. With a lot of recent CNC experience - for better or worse - you have to machine a part and then do measurements which often tell you that the part has expanded, etc. due to the pressure and heat of the milling head (even though it is cooled constantly with fluid) - thus making the cut smaller than expected - and then you have to go back and make adjustments to the measurements that you tell the machine to make, remeasure, and so forth until the end product comes out to the dimensions that you wish. It is often not a program, cut, and have a finished product affair.
L. Omar Henderson
www.doctorsprod.com
Post Edited (2008-07-31 02:10)
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Author: LonDear
Date: 2008-07-31 02:53
clarnibass and Gordon,
I apologize that I didn't respond to the "timber" comment. I knew nothing about bore sizes 32 years ago. I was looking for feedback on advanced materials used by professional clarinet makers, and I got a lot, and really appreciate it.
OK, there were a lot of "tongue-in-cheeck" responses that I didn't get in my post-practice fatigued state. I've got what I wanted from this thread so I'll let all of you take it over (again)!
[Disclaimer - In all of those experiments I never made a working clarinet and I will always leave my repair work to the pros!]
Post Edited (2008-07-31 03:01)
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Author: David Spiegelthal ★2017
Date: 2008-07-31 02:59
I vote for strawberry Jell-O. Just keep it frozen to maintain the dimensions of the bore and toneholes and it should sound as good as anything else.
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Author: LonDear
Date: 2008-07-31 03:19
You scientist guys have gone way over my head! Let me know when the titanium clarinet is viable.
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2008-07-31 09:35
"I vote for strawberry Jell-O. Just keep it frozen to maintain the dimensions of the bore and toneholes and it should sound as good as anything else."
I was thinking of an ice clarinet, it'll look kinda like the perspex B12s, though only be playable within the Arctic circle.
But on both frozen jelly or water clarinets, condensation freezing in the bore will be a serious problem. And with it being that cold, tuning up to pitch will be impossible!
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.
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Author: Don Berger
Date: 2008-07-31 16:25
Tks, Gordon, for inducing me to look further into this quite complex technology. For those at least somewhat interested, Wikipedia has a good description of this developing field, and LiqMet Tech's publicity didn't satisfy my [chemical] curiousity, so I looked up their patent history on GooglePatents. Their recently issued pat US 7,017,665 is a methodology of "Casting", in much detail, which appears to be where our cl interests prob. are. Being somewhat familiar with polyolefin plastic molding/blowing/?casting? methods to fabricate consumer articles, it seems that L-M's techniques are still in research-phase, very complicated tech. at this stage of development IMHO. On their web-site they compare a "Zr[conium?] alloy" favorably to Titanium metal, so a look at 6,682,611, might be informative. YES, it is very intriguing, causing me [hopefully others also] to revisit "chemical-metallurgy", and I put some Periodic Table sites into fav. places. I prefer cherry to strawberry Jell-O, D S ! Don
Thanx, Mark, Don
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Author: Bob Phillips
Date: 2008-08-02 23:08
But,
Who has played the Matit carbon fiber flute with magnetic keys (no springs)?
Bob Phillips
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