 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: tb0b
Date: 2000-11-22 03:05
Metal clarinets? are they still made?
what do they sound like compared to a wooden one?
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Author: Dee
Date: 2000-11-22 03:18
tb0b wrote:
>
> Metal clarinets? are they still made?
>
> what do they sound like compared to a wooden one?
To the best of my knowledge, none have been made since the 1960s. Due to the poor quality of so many student grade ones, metal clarinets were saddled with a poor reputation.
Yes they do sound like wood ones. The mouthpiece/reed setup controls the sound quality more than the horn anyway. However cheap student metal horns sounded bad just like cheap plastic student horns just like cheap student wood horns. And yes a badly made wood horn can be awful. I have a very nice metal Noblet that sounds wonderful and I haven't even gotten around to fixing the pads that are going bad.
There were even some pro grade horns made and they are reputed to have had an excellent sound. However consumer resistance, which was driven by the huge number of junk horns, killed off the metal clarinet.
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Author: Willie
Date: 2000-11-22 04:46
I couldn't have said it better, Dee! Still, the quickest way to get impailed (sp) by a conductors baton is to show up for rehearsal with a metal clarinet. However, I recently shfted to my metal Elkhart during rehearsal when my "good" one died. The professor was kinda astonished when he saw what I was playing. He has an uncanny ear for tone and didn't notice even with my short solo. Blended in beautifully.
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Author: DLE
Date: 2000-11-22 10:12
Willie wrote:
>Still, the quickest way to get impailed (sp) by a conductors baton is to show up for rehearsal with a metal clarinet. However, I recently shfted to my metal Elkhart during rehearsal when my "good" one died. The professor was kinda astonished when he saw what I was playing. He has an uncanny ear for tone and didn't notice even with my short solo. <
Oh dear! The image of being IMPALED, or EMPALED by my conductor will haunt me forever after this post! Sorry, but I can't believe that a conductor with an "UNCANNY EAR FOR TONE", would not have noticed your new instrument. Was he asleep? It's the job of the conductor to notice for ... sake!!
DLE.
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Author: Bill
Date: 2000-11-22 10:54
I picked up my first metal clarinet on eBay a couple of weeks ago. It does sound like the plastic and wooden clarinets that I've played.
I was tempted to get a metal clarinet from Freeport Music. They advertise two types: sold as is, and repadded and adjusted. You can return it, if you are not satisfied.
http://www.musicalinstruments.com/fmi/
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Author: MIchael Kincaid
Date: 2000-11-22 11:57
I have seen metal clarinets discussed here before so I was curious. I found a nice
Bettoney metal clarinet on ebay and I bought it. It needs new pads and cleaning
up, so I'm delivering it to a sneezy.org sponsor, Instrument Restoration (Mr. Butler).
So far the metal clarinet has been a great conversation piece. Michael
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Author: Gordon (NZ)
Date: 2000-11-22 12:14
Some problems:
1. Often the pads aree barely bigger than the tone holes so reliable pad seating is impossible.
2. Key cups that don't line up well with tone holes, giving the same problem.
3. The tone holes are soldered on. With moisture the solder can deteriorate, presumably from electrolytic corrosion, and partially part, causing a multitude of leaks. Resoldering is likely to melt or damage (accelerated oxidation from the heat) the soldering of neighbouring tone holes. A nightmare to fix therefore.
4. The tube bends even more easily than that of a soprano sax. And this bending, or any jarring knocks even, can easily partially part the soldering of tone holes.
Availability:
I have heard a version is manufactured in Turkey and very common in the marketplace there. I've forgotten what key it is in, I think deeper than Bb. It is very cheap to buy by our standards and is of a low standard of manufacture, e.g. very sloppy pivots. One is played (along with a Western clarinet) on the recording Silan: Yair Dalal and the Al Ol Ensemble, Amiata records. I heard the astonishingly flexible clarinetist at a WOMAD festival. (Search these 2 words on the web)
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Author: Bill
Date: 2000-11-22 12:36
Author: Gordon (NZ) wrote:
Some problems:
3. The tone holes are soldered on. With moisture the solder can deteriorate, presumably from electrolytic corrosion, and partially part, causing a multitude of leaks. Resoldering is likely to melt or damage (accelerated oxidation from the heat) the soldering of neighbouring tone holes. A nightmare to fix therefore.
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Gordon: Professional metal flutes have soldered tone holes, and I beleive this is advertised as a plus. Does this comment apply to flutes, particularly the resoldering aspect??
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Author: Dee
Date: 2000-11-22 16:15
Items 1 to 3 in your list are merely signs of poor design and/or poor manufacturing control. Unfortunately most of the metal clarinets that you will see are cheap, shoddy student grade ones (say equivalent to today's Chinese made plastic horns) and so will have problems. This is the very type of thing that contributed to the bad reputation of metals. There were a some better student grade ones made, even fewer intermediate, and rarest of all some professional grade ones.
If you want to see some shoddy wooden ones, get hold of a Pan American from almost any era. The construction was cheap, the design poor and intonation was very bad. I would much rather play the metal Noblet that I have.
Naturally any instrument will not hold up if abused or poorly stored. They just fail in different ways.
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Author: Willie
Date: 2000-11-23 03:49
He, like many other music educators, have a big distaste for metal clarinets because of the reputation of the so many cheap clunkers that were made. Even some of the good ones sounded bad because they came with sorry mouth pieces and were being played by young beginners. Fitted with the right mouth piece they can sound from decent to great depending on the players ability.The only complaint I have about my old Elkhart is you must lip the altissimo up a bit, but this comes automatic after a little practice. Of the three different I own, all sound different even with the same mouth piece set up.
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Author: Gordon (NZ)
Date: 2000-11-23 08:15
Sorry but to answer Bill this is mainly a flute topic:
Bill. Yes I have met this problem on professional flutes, but not often. I think this is because the soldered tone hole 'cylinders' on flutes are larger diameter and much shorter. Therefore they can flex more easily with the body if the body suffers knocks or bends. Also the body tube of a flute is much more rigid and flexes less if knocked. Also the soldering of sterling silver possibly is subject to a lot less electrolytic corrosion because of the metal combinations, and is inherently a more secure joint anyway.
However if this soldering on a flute does part then the repair job is even more of a nightmare because sterling silver is an excellent heat conductor and transfers soldering heat to all neighbouring joints very well indeed.
I think the tone and response benefits of soldered tone holes are probably so miniscule as to be irrelevant. If you want to pay megabucks more for a flute perhaps the manufacturer has to do SOMETHING to justify it. And then you will have to believe that you got SOMETHING special for you money so you imagine there is a benefit. (I play on a soldered tone hole flute but would never buy one again because this feature is associated with lack of regulating screws, which can make servicing adjustments take hundreds of times as long. Stupid feature!)
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Author: Gordon (NZ)
Date: 2000-11-23 08:19
Another feature of metal clarinets may be of interest. Pro wooden (and good student plastic) clarinets have undercut tone holes to improve tuning and tone. This undercutting is even more difficult to do on a metal clarinet and I have never seen it. I ask you guys who have seen good models - Do they have tone holes that flare at the bottom to enable undercutting? All that I have seen is junk.
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Author: Bill
Date: 2000-11-23 11:56
Author: Gordon (NZ) wrote:
Sorry but to answer Bill this is mainly a flute topic:
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Gordon: Thanks for the interesting, to me as a metal clarinet and flute owner, info. You've convinced not to expand my collection beyond the one metal clarinet that I have.
Are the Silver King metal clarinets made of some type of silver, and what about the Haynes?
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Author: Dee
Date: 2000-11-23 13:17
Gordon, most metal clarinets were made before undercutting was developed. So pro (wooden) clarinets of the same time periods also did not have undercutting. If the development of metal clarinets had continued, it is possible that some altenate approach would have come about to achieve the same effect. Also, even today, undercutting is not universally considered appropriate in all cases. As with any other change it has its benefits and drawbacks.
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Author: Dee
Date: 2000-11-23 13:25
Bill wrote:
>
> .... Are the Silver King metal clarinets made of some type of
> silver, and what about the Haynes?
I can't be 100% sure but I believe that only the Haynes was actually made of silver. It was considered to be a very high quality professional grade instrument and if you get your hands on one today, it is very valuable.
Other metal clarinets were either made of nickel alloys or cheaper metals (brass) and then nickel plated or in some cases silver plated. In general the nickel alloys tarnish to brownish colors while the silver tarnishes to grayish/blackish shades. I don't know about the Silver Kings personally. "Silver" in the name may or may not mean anything. It's common to give clarinet models attractive names.
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Author: Fred
Date: 2000-11-23 13:37
I believe that the Silver King is silver plated. I know that it has a sterling bell. It is a pro grade horn.
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Author: MIchael Kincaid
Date: 2000-11-23 13:49
The Bettoney clarinet I have appears to be silver plated. The sound isn't
too bad even with some bad pads. I just delivered it for repairs yesterday. Michael
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Author: Bill
Date: 2000-11-23 13:55
I assume that the mouthpiece contributes how nice the metal clarinet sounds.
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Author: Willie
Date: 2000-11-23 16:44
I watched a tech resolder a tone port on a solid silver flute. She simply stuffed the adjoining tone ports with a wet padding and had it done in just a few minutes. A little buffing and it looked like new.
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Author: Dee
Date: 2000-11-23 20:35
Bill wrote:
>
> I assume that the mouthpiece contributes how nice the
> metal clarinet sounds.
A universal truth for ALL clarinets.
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Author: Nate Zeien
Date: 2000-11-24 12:02
First of all, my opinion stays the same on metal clarinets, there are a few good ones, and a lot of cheaper student models. The good ones are still worthwhile, and with only minor adjustments on the part of the player. Also, in reply to the post about Freeport music, they are good enough to deal with as a music store, not fantastic, but not too bad. Their "in-house" repair shop does less than desirable work. You would get better results by spending the money on a couple fifths of whiskey, a rather stupid monkey, a screwdriver, pads and cork, and some bubble gum. Give the monkey a screwdriver, the pads, bubble gum, and a bottle of whiskey, and the clarinet, and then tell him to fix it. By far you come out ahead. At the very least, you have a bottle of whiskey left for yourself. To put it frankly, the drunken monkey could do a better job, even with one hand up his rear, and periodically reaching up with the screwdriver to pick its nose. If you buy from them, don't get the overhaul. It's not worth the money. -- Nate Zeien
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Author: Fred
Date: 2000-11-24 15:12
Nate - quite a word picture you've painted! The purpose of language is to communicate clearly, and I think we got the point.
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Author: Gordon (NZ)
Date: 2000-11-25 14:28
Willie, you said "I watched a tech resolder a tone port on a solid silver flute. She simply stuffed the adjoining tone ports with a wet padding and had it done in just a few minutes. A little buffing and it looked like new."
i'm not sure why but when a solder joint is heated to NEAR melting point it becomes far weaker. It must crystalize the solder or something. If the flute was sterling silver and the neighbouring tone holes remained under water boiling temperature it would be doubtful whether the soldering was done at a suitable temperature for good bonding, unless it was part of the flute that had well-spaced tone holes.
By the way you can test to see if the metal (of a metal clarinet) is silver or silver plated copper-nickel alloy by heating it over the flame. If the metal is sterling the heated area will not be localized because silver conducts heat soooooooooooo well. Indeed the heated area will only be warm, because the heat travels away. Don't burn the soft materials by putting them near the flame!
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Author: Bill
Date: 2000-11-25 15:43
Author: Fred wrote:
Nate - quite a word picture you've painted! The purpose of language is to communicate clearly, and I think we got the point.
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Monkeys don't like whiskey, right?
Seriously, I'm glad I went for the one on eBay.
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Author: Charlie
Date: 2000-11-26 18:15
Isn't that a soprano sax? What's the difference? (I don't mean to offend anybody by this I'm just a bit of a novice, before you all jump on me)
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Author: Nate Zeien
Date: 2000-11-26 18:23
Well Charlie, to put it simply, the bore. A soprano sax has a conical bore, and a clarinet always has a cylindrical bore of some type. This eliminates the even numbered partials of the harmonic series, which gives for a different sound, and is also why the clarinet jumps up the twelfth rather than the octave. -- Nate Zeien
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