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Re: a synthetic barrel that won't lose to a wooden barrel

Author: kdk ★2017
Date: 2012-08-28 02:41

What are you actually looking for or, rather, hoping to gain by replacing the barrel the clarinet came with? Does the OE barrel not sound good?

Some makers line their barrels (or some of them) with hard rubber - Hans Moennig himself used to add liners to Buffet (wood) barrels on request - you had to supply a hard rubber mouthpiece you were willing to sacrifice to provide the insert, which he would ream to the same taper he used on the wood Buffet barrels he modified. Selmer 10G barrels are made with hard rubber inserts. I don't know which after-market makers line their bores, but there are still techs around who know how to do it.

You might be able to get a second barrel made of the Greenline material from Buffet and have a tech (or maybe even Guy Chadash or another barrel maker) to ream the bore for you to the dimensions they use in their own work.

I'm not sure, though, what you mean by "the sound of a good wooden barrel." There are as many different "sounds of a good wooden barrel" as there are skilled barrel makers - more, really, because many, like Morrie Backun, use more than one design. There are many parameters involved in a barrel design that can make a significant difference in the sound of the instrument.

If you own a barrel you like, yu might contact its manufacturer and ask about producing a barrel with the same design in a Greenline composite. Then again, if you aren't going to test the clarinet outdoors in bad weather anyway, what's the difference if the barrel is weatherproof or not?

Karl

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