The Clarinet BBoard

Tosca Bass Clarinet review.

Author: Kenton153  Date:   2015-03-03 09:52 I had a lesson from a teacher whom owns a tosca bass clarinet. i played his instrument for about 20 minutes. Not much time, but enough time to get "acquainted" Throughout High School i frequently switched between a buffet Prestige (school owned and well maintained by me) and a selmer bass clarinet(my personal instrument). . FWIW, all three were/are low C instruments. The FIRST thing i played was a chromatic scale. I did this specifically to get an idea of how the throat Bb sounds compared to other notes around it, and of course... the B natural. They are not kidding when they say they have SOLVED the problem of intonation and timbre matching. Intonation: This was the best aspect of the horn IMHO. Very even, and very true, need i say more? I believe this is one of the most important aspects of an instrument. Tone: To my ear and my taste, this is where the instrument left a little to be desired. The room i played in was an average living room size, and the horn felt somewhat stuffy. Granted, this could mean that it possesses a certain projection that i wasn't able to experience in that location. Overall, i felt like i had to force the sound quite a bit. I have always felt this way about the Prestige, but i felt it to be even more noticeable on the Tosca.The upper clarion didn't seem to have that much weight to it, and it seemed very difficult to get a "full" sound out of the low register. Of course, I am used to playing a selmer, and my ear is more acquainted to that type of soundscape. Response: I played a few excerpts. Rite of Spring, Khachaturian Piano Con., On the trail and some others. Despite having a rather constrained tone, the horn responded with ease. The altissimo register played almost identically to a Prestige regarding intonation, and the fingerings i used. i was pleased at how easy articulation was on the instrument. Keywork/ Ergonomics: The instrument felt substantial in your hands. Arms and elbows will fall into a realxed position and the finger touches lineup with your fingertips at comfortable angles. I'm very happy they reworked the extended range fingerings. The rollers they added to the Low C/C# cluster was absolutely necessary. That is one element i felt was deeply missed from the Prestige. Also, i'm happy they changed the low D thumb key into a low Eb key. I thought it was absolutely silly to have THREE fingerings for 1 note and One fingering for another note like it was on the Prestige. Now there is two ways to finger any pinky note, left or right and any passage is possible. Try going back and forth between Low Eb, Low Ab, left hand Db, back down to Low Ab and then to Low Eb. That passage is IMPOSSIBLE without a thumb Eb. (the selmer has had a thumb Eb for 10 year now I used a Clark foes HB "massaged" by Brad Behn with a #3 v12 reed. CONCLUSION: The mechanism for the Bb and B natural is superb. truly beautiful and i can't wait for it to become standard on all professional level instruments. The tone is the only aspect of this instrument that didn't please me. This is a well made and well thought out instrument. We are headed in a great direction with musical instrument technology. Post Edited (2015-06-05 09:58)

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