Author: Bob Bernardo
Date: 2010-04-15 08:10
SantiandCo and perhaps other readers on this forum.
After about 2 months of first receiving Tom's clarinet I had to ship it back for adjustments. I have a keen understanding of tuning holes, working with barrels, and the bores of mouthpieces to gain better tuning. I sent it back to Tom asking him to fix the problems but in my opinion it didn't help, and I have to question if he actually made any adjustments at all.
Pros - when playing around Metzo forte (MF), hope I spelled that right, the horn is really good, actually the sound quality could be a tiny bit better than my hand picked Buffet R13's. I tried about 40 R13 horns before picking the one I have. I've played about 60 clarinets since I bought the 1975 horns and I still go back to the ones I have. I did try Dave Shifrins clarinet one time, it was a Selmer 10G and I really loved that key work and ease of playing. That was the only horn I've ever been tempted to buy.
The upper registers of the 575 "A" clarinets are pretty darn good, again maybe easier to play than the R13. Also going from a very high note to a low E was really fun to do. That was excellent. I like how Tom took the time to put cork pads on several of the left hand keys. It's a very live horn and projects really well. It can handle the demands of playing in an orchestra to a professional military band.
The horn also came with a double case. The case is black and seens well sealed from the cold elements.there's room for sheet music, 3 clarinet barrels. The barrels he sent me ranged in size, so you can tune from 443 to 438. Also the case comes with a shoulder strap.
Cons - I had a few friends over and we played the Mozart Clarinet Quintet, not all of it, just parts of each of each movement. Well the horn projected very well, but trying to play softly it was a very frustrating experience. I could not obtain a quality sound. The resistance is too great. I tried several barrels with the same results. Another problem is some dead notes. Some notes pop out fine then the next note you have to add more air control during the 2nd movement. I actually went back to the Buffet clarinet at this point.
Conclusion - When playing softly the clarinet doesn't make make the cut for advanced symphonies nor the pro's. You and the conductors will be frustrated when the notes won't pop out, causing you to actually miss the note. You probably won't be able to play those delicate pieces.
For the record, I tried a Chedeville mouthpiece, a Kasper, a Zinner, and a Vandoren M13. The M13 actually played very slightly freer. Needless to say I had a great range of reeds to try, going back to the early 1980's. So that wasn't the problem. It's surely the horn with the problem.
I would much rather buy a used Buffet, Selmer 10G, for about the same price of Toms clarinet.
Tom is a great guy, he's on to something that can be remarkably great. I hope he can solve this, because the horns can be good enough for symphony orchestras.
Feel free in emailing me for any other information or comments. I'd be very interested if someone else had the same problems but were able to fix it.
Designer of - Vintage 1940 Cicero Mouthpieces and the La Vecchia mouthpieces
Yamaha Artist 2015
Post Edited (2010-04-16 07:06)
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The Clarinet BBoard
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