 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: selmerplayer
Date: 2009-05-23 15:51
One more dumb question about this Selmer Signature if ya'll don't mind.
It has raised tone holes and I was wondering what the advantage is. Do they seal better?
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Author: larryb
Date: 2009-05-23 19:27
I forget what the advantage is (I used to know).
But one big disadvantage (at least on older sigs, such a mine) is that they tend to leak. The "chimneys" are made of plastic and screwed in place. If they leak, they need to be sealed with crazy glue or similar adhesive.
If you find that there is a mysterious leak, it could be one or more tone holes. Fixable.
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Author: selmerplayer
Date: 2009-05-23 19:45
larryb wrote:
> I forget what the advantage is (I used to know).
>
> But one big disadvantage (at least on older sigs, such a mine)
> is that they tend to leak. The "chimneys" are made of plastic
> and screwed in place. If they leak, they need to be sealed
> with crazy glue or similar adhesive.
>
> If you find that there is a mysterious leak, it could be one or
> more tone holes. Fixable.
>
My Signature is new but manufactured in 2008. It has wooden tone holes that are raised and it looks like they are made into the body all one piece.
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Author: Sylvain
Date: 2009-05-23 19:50
basically rasing a tone holel allows you to make its diameter smaller while keeping the volume of the hole the same. Its another variable that you can tweak to keep intonation, tone and resistance more uniform across the instrument.
Generally speaking, smaller usually means more resistant.
--
Sylvain Bouix <sbouix@gmail.com>
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Author: donald
Date: 2009-05-23 20:15
Sylain- i could be wrong but i think you've got it the wrong way around.
The raised tone hole chimneys allow the hole to be larger in diameter (in relation to the length and width of the bore), and thus reduces resistance. On the Signature they are needed as the bore configuration would be uncomfortably resistant without this. I have have heard many players comment that despite this they still find the Signature more resistant than other models.
When a raised tone hole is used for the C#/G#/high F hole (bottom of the top joint) it has the effect of reducing resistance on the high F (as well as being a feature of Buffet Vintage, Tosca and Reform Boehm design, some customisers like Chadash will actually install this addition for you).
Please feel free to correct me if i'm wrong
dn
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Author: selmerplayer
Date: 2009-05-23 21:19
donald wrote:
> Sylain- i could be wrong but i think you've got it the wrong
> way around.
>
> The raised tone hole chimneys allow the hole to be larger in
> diameter (in relation to the length and width of the bore), and
> thus reduces resistance. On the Signature they are needed as
> the bore configuration would be uncomfortably resistant without
> this. I have have heard many players comment that despite this
> they still find the Signature more resistant than other models.
> When a raised tone hole is used for the C#/G#/high F hole
> (bottom of the top joint) it has the effect of reducing
> resistance on the high F (as well as being a feature of Buffet
> Vintage, Tosca and Reform Boehm design, some customisers like
> Chadash will actually install this addition for you).
>
> Please feel free to correct me if i'm wrong
> dn
It doesn't seem resistent to me but then I'm use to playing a 10S II which was resistent at first until I got use to it. I also play on Legere #2.5 reeds which are probably softer than what most are playing.
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Author: Brenda Siewert
Date: 2009-05-23 21:57
I thought it was a matter of making the raised hole the same height as the ringed ones, thus making the hand action more uniform. I owned 2 Signatures and sold both of them because I found them too stuffy and I didn't like the raised tone hole thingie.
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2009-05-23 23:04
I fitted a tonehole chimney to my plastic Yamaha YCL-24's LH3 tonehole as it needed it for the addition of the forked Eb/Bb mechanism I fitted to it. The original LH3 tonehole diameter was either 8 or 8.5mm (I've forgotten now as it was a while back).
But after fitting the chimney and recutting the tonehole to the original size the D/A was really flat, so the tonehole diameter was opened up to over 9mm to bring it up to pitch.
I'm surprised at how much the diameter was increased considering the chimney has only raised the height of the tonehole by around 1-1.5mm at the most, but now the tonehole has a flat top as opposed to the curved top a plain tonehole has.
And as this is an ABS clarinet, the heat from just cutting the tonehole out to fit the new tonehole bush (an ebonite one that's screwed in) melted the plastic! So if drilling or cutting ABS bodied clarinets, go much slower than you would with wooden ones.
http://www.clarinetperfection.com/galleryclar/Keywork/CP2/09.jpg
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.
Post Edited (2009-05-24 13:30)
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Author: Sylvain
Date: 2009-05-23 23:39
OK,
I am no expert, but my understanding of pitch is that it is a function of total volume of bore + closed tone hole and distance from reed to first open tone hole.
So if you raise a tone hole, and keep the same diameter, you have more volume when the hole is closed, when it is open, more than the volume, it is the distance to the reed that matters most and undercutting/enlarging will essentially move the hole closer to the read.
As for the resistance, my experience is that when half-hole a note I get more resistance, but then again I may be imagining it.
Any acousticians out there?
I guess I should really get that Benade book...
--
Sylvain Bouix <sbouix@gmail.com>
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Author: Ed
Date: 2009-05-24 00:14
I don't know about the acoustics, but I have to say that when I have played the Signature with the raised tonehole I barely noticed it.
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Author: skygardener
Date: 2009-05-24 01:53
As far as I have been told-
The Signature clarinets are thinner than other Selmers usually are. The main goal of that is to make them lighter as many people complain that Semlers are too heavy.
If you make the body thinner then all the tone holes will be shallower (assuming the length and hole diameter is not changed), which will make the pitch poor. So the holes are not really "raised" they are in the same place that they would be if the body was thicker.
---
ChrisP That is nice work. May I ask, were do you get the key parts? It doesn't look like you just salvaged something from an old instrument.
Post Edited (2009-05-24 02:01)
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Author: Iceland clarinet
Date: 2009-05-24 12:56
The Signature is still a bit heavier than my R-13 Prestige and Festival Buffets.
But I found the Saint Louis to be very close in weight to the Professional Buffets.
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Author: aero145
Date: 2009-05-24 13:24
Stefán, you know of anyone in Iceland with a Saint Louis? I have one but I have now moved abroad, and I didn’t notice anyone else with, well at all, Selmers, other than Kjartan Óskarsson and Víðir Petersen…
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2009-05-24 13:37
skygardener - "ChrisP That is nice work. May I ask, were do you get the key parts? It doesn't look like you just salvaged something from an old instrument."
The key barrels, pinned steel and other key pieces were adapted from discarded oboe key pieces. I copied one of the smaller RH rings for the ring key which was turned from nickel silver bar. Here's another view of the same mechanism:
http://www.clarinetperfection.com/galleryclar/Keywork/CP2/10.jpg
Buffet Elites and Toscas have some raised toneholes on them - the Elite did this as the joint diameters were narrower than standard clarinets and the Tosca A clarinet has a raised C#/G# tonehole.
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.
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Author: aero145
Date: 2009-05-24 13:50
Ow, didn’t know about that! Interesting, thanks. So, the Selmer-clarinet-society only uses Signatures? :-P
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Author: Ed Palanker
Date: 2009-05-26 01:03
I use and love my Signature. It is my belief that the raised tone holes simply add some tonal advantage being that the air has to travel a little further giving it a little more residents. That might be far to simplistic but that's what I think based on the fact the a Selmer tech told me that the Signature was designed to play close to the way the Recital does but not made as thick and therefor not as heavy. The raised tone holes gives the air the same travel distance. You will notice that there are many other makes and model clarinets on the market that have copied the raised tone hole theory so there must be some advantage to doing that for some players. Like anything else clarinet wise, you can't get everyone to agree on almost anything. It's difficult enough to get two players to agree on one thing. ESP http://eddiesclarinet.com
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Author: skygardener
Date: 2009-05-26 05:21
The really strange thing about the LH ring finger on the Signature is that it is still *lower* than the other holes and on an angled plane just like on any normal clarinet. It is not flat in the same plane like in ChrisP's above modification.
This is one thing that I love about the feel of German clarinets and I wonder why it is not incorperted into French instruments- even without the extra keywork, but just the raised, flat hole would make me happy.
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