 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: DavidBlumberg
Date: 2016-05-11 20:42
There has for a long time been banter on "materials" for things involving the Clarinet from the Clarinet to Mouthpiece to Lig, etc.
I now have the Silverstein Maestro in both Solid Rose Gold, and Solid 10K Gold.
It is the metal part that touches the back of the Mouthpiece, and the 2 resonating bars on the side.
Dimensions are exactly the same, tension the same, position of the reed the same, bars positioned identically:
Would there be a sound difference from one to another?
Would the player feel any difference, or not?
If a player had no clue which one cost more, etc, would a player feel that they both are identical as to how they sound, and feel?
I'm a Silverstein Artist *BG also*, and NOT trying to get anyone to order one, as they are a fortune, and primarily for his Artists.
But is a very good comparison of strictly materials.
I had 5 students try both who ranged from 10th grade to 67 years old (he made All State NY in HS, but an Amateur player). I told them nothing about either one of them.
Thoughts and speculations please:
http://www.SkypeClarinetLessons.com
Post Edited (2016-05-11 20:43)
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Author: brycon
Date: 2016-05-11 22:37
I'm guessing you and all your students could feel/hear a difference (or you probably wouldn't be posting...). What would be cool, however, is for you to record some short excerpts on all the equipment and post it to a soundcloud account so we can judge for ourselves.
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Author: MartyMagnini
Date: 2016-05-11 23:09
I would be skeptical about any difference. I do use a Silverstein, I have one of the original design, and one of the "new improved" design, and I played a cryo for a couple of weeks. I could not tell any difference in sound between the three. I do like the "new improved" version a bit better, but it is because I feel the strings are a bit more pliable - makes it easier to make fine adjustments to the bars, etc., but I can't tell any difference in the sound or feel.
I will be curious to see what your students and friends think.
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2016-05-11 23:26
As a budding recording engineer I can tell you quite frankly that a recording is not going to tell anyone squat. The things that you have to do to a recording to make it sound right, as a recording, make the scientific or subjective aspect null and void.
I would say though, it is telling that a number of Berlin Philharmonic players use versions of them..........if that helps.
.................Paul Aviles
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Author: seabreeze
Date: 2016-05-12 01:05
I would assume that there are real perceptible differences in the sound, response, and feel between the two ligatures. I hear, along with some other players, differences among gold-plated, silver-plated, and standard nickel alloy Bonade inverse ligatures and similar differences between the silver and gold BR tradition and Duo ligatures and the silver and gold Vandoren M/O ligatures. Ditto for the differences between the Ishimori metal ligatures made of different materials. The all copper Ishimori for instance dampens much more of the sound than the solid silver, too much probably for most players' tastes. What I am less sure about is how much of this difference carries to the back of a hall when you are playing in normal non-electronically amplified settings. Does any of this actually get to the listener's ear in the 45th row or is it mostly important to us as players?
I don't know the answer. David, have you listened to players on these ligatures from a "back of the hall" perspective? Do you have any thoughts on this?
Post Edited (2016-05-12 01:16)
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Author: ClaV
Date: 2016-05-12 01:16
In my limited experience with different metals in BG ligatures, to assure an absolutely identical design is very difficult (even if it looks physically the same the rigidity of the springing elements may be quite different).
My conspiracy theory would be that the best modification of a design (or individual best ligatures) are plated in a material that is then marketed as the most expensive.
Disclosure: I am not affiliated with any ligature manufacturers and would not even qualify as an alto player in a community band.
Chemistry trivia (could not help asking): if you have 10 K gold alloy with the rest of it being copper, what is the ratio of gold atoms to copper and does it make sense to call it "gold"?
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Author: patrica
Date: 2016-05-12 01:24
Paul, only two players in Berlin Phil (out of five) SOMETIMES use ligature of this brand. I guess it might be not very telling. If you really want to know what they use, I suggest you get a ticket of the Digital Concert Hall.
I am curious about how they select their "Artists". Meyer and Fuchs, fine, but it seems someone who is not a player in an orchestra nor a soloist can also be their artist?
Post Edited (2016-05-12 01:31)
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Author: DavidBlumberg
Date: 2016-05-12 02:31
No back of the hall test was done - just in my Studio.
Interesting result though.
No recording, as it wouldn't begin to do justice. But none of the students knew exactly what they were playing (so no preconception), just that they played 2 Ligatures.
http://www.SkypeClarinetLessons.com
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Author: seabreeze
Date: 2016-05-12 08:24
So what did the students say after they had tried these highest of high-end ligatures? What did you and they discover about the ligatures from these studio trials?
Post Edited (2016-05-12 08:30)
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Author: babrinka77
Date: 2016-05-12 10:55
Hello,
There's a very interesting spanish clarinet blog where recently there's been a comparation between three ligatures: Ishimori, Siverstein and Florian Popa made with an FFT software, giving as a result the intensity of the armonics in different ranges of frequencies.
It's a long study, but here i post the link of the final results. It is writen in spanish, but you can use a translator, and there are two previous post with more parameters, so you can read them all.
As one can see in the final graphic, the ishimori has more intensity in the armonics.
the author doesen't talk about a winner, just shares the results.
http://jose-antoniosole.blogspot.com.es/2016/05/test-abrazadera-silverstein-florian_6.html
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Author: DavidBlumberg
Date: 2016-05-12 18:20
I have all of the Ishmori's also
Like the Silverstein more - and nobody would have the Silverstein Maestro except his Artists.
It is in a different class with how it plays.
btw - every single student preferred the 10K Gold one right away. They didn't know which was which and to me the Rose Gold is the most pretty looking.
http://www.SkypeClarinetLessons.com
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Author: seabreeze
Date: 2016-05-12 20:48
Babrinka77,
I can't pull up this study to read it; I get a "does not exist" message.
In general, though, studies like these may contribute to the science of ligatures but leave the aesthetics unprobed. You can measure the intensity and number of overtones in a sound, but you can't easily tell from those measurements which resultant sounds music lovers and good players will find the most endearing and will want to employ in their music making. Music after all is an art, not a science or an applied science like engineering. Musicians select the sounds they want for far more variable and often less expressible reasons than scientists or engineers select materials, for something like a bridge, a rocket heat shield, or a radiation containment capsule.
The ligature with the most intense partial distribution will not necessarily be the one chosen by a clarinetist for performance. For example, in the three ligatures
tested, some may find the Ishimori altissimo a bit too aggressive and edgy and may opt for the less intense harmonic profile of the Popa, especially if they have to play something like the Prokofiev Sonata with its loud extended altissimo passages. Good clarinetists are always using the "data" their ears can actually hear and the sensations thier body conveys to them to make choices of gear, rather than relying mainly on non-anthropomorphic electronic measurements.
If the progress in robotics and cybergenetics continues, and a robot is created that exactly copies the hearing and bone conduction and skin feeling collection mechanisms of aural data found in gifted musicians, then that might be a different story. We could program the cyborg to try the ligature. It would select the features we want in a ligature better than we could: equipped with a perfect embouchure, the cyborg could try the ligatures with mouthpeices, reeds, and clarinets, and let us hear why the choices are best.
Until that day comes, no matter what the electronic charts tell us, we will have to still use our own musical judgment in choosing ligatures. By the way, this study appears, from your description, to have the merit of choosing really good-sounding ligatures to test. The Popa, Silverstein, and Ishimori designs are all capable of supporting high-level musical sound production and have found acceptance among very capable players. The Popa, of course, is not the most practical if you have to make quick changes from one clarinet to another in the orchestra.
Can you supply an active link so we can read the study?
Post Edited (2016-05-12 22:55)
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Author: WhitePlainsDave
Date: 2016-05-12 22:36
...not that this thread is anything but good, and certainly not a challenge to any of my schools of thought.
David went out and actually tried something and got interesting results (I presume): bravo.
Sure, there's plenty ways to make his tests comport more with proper methodology but David's design was deliberately informal; he knew his findings were just a starting point for further testing.
This said, seabreeze makes the excellent point about the proof being in the listener's ears. But weight also needs to be given to the idea that the player who feels they're playing better exudes the confidence to paradoxically make what might be a placebo effect into a real one.
As I continue to see it, if improvement is seen, the player needs to pit that benefit against the cost of doing without other things, clarinet or not, that such a lig purchase precludes them from buying.
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Author: Bubalooy
Date: 2016-05-13 02:41
I would like to comment on the ease of playing aspect. If I get the exact same sound on two different ligatures, but I feel as though it is harder to get that sound on one, then the ligature that is easier to play, for me, is the better one. The audience, even those with really good ears, may not hear a difference, but it largely doesn't matter.
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Author: SteveB
Date: 2016-05-14 03:51
I am one of David's student's who participated in the ligature test. (I'm the old guy.) There was no question in my mind that the solid gold ligature was superior--my sound was bigger, fuller, and I felt that my playing was better. (Psychological, no doubt.) But I felt really good playing it, and then Dave told me the price....
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Author: Klose ★2017
Date: 2016-05-14 05:05
If the difference between Maestro and regular Silverstein is significant enough to be heard via Skype, I will definitely buy one!
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2016-05-14 05:13
David -
Please compare your Silversteins to string. For me, that plays freest and sounds best.
Ken Shaw
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Author: DavidBlumberg
Date: 2016-05-14 06:24
I've never been a string ligature player except for about 4 Months my Junior year of High School.
Silverstein does not feel like having the dampening qualities that pure string has. It is much much more vibrant and full of harmonics to me.
http://www.SkypeClarinetLessons.com
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Author: dorjepismo ★2017
Date: 2016-05-16 02:23
Dawkes has a promo video in which they try to sell Silverstein ligatures based on their similarity to string. Have to agree with David; they're noticeably different. String seems to let the sound come out freely without messing with it, and the Silverstein seems to concentrate it and give it a bit more power, at least for me. Obviously, string doesn't acoustically join a chunk of metal to your mouthpiece. But talking about "the string ligature" is about like talking about "the metal ligature." Different kinds of string can feel and sound a lot different.
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Author: WhitePlainsDave
Date: 2016-05-16 03:34
Cord, as in that used by Silverstein, often has metrics on its degree of expandability, weight it will hold, and strength in shear (slicing through it). Silverstein originally went with cord used by NASA to lower the Mars rover to the planet's surface: both missions sharing similar goals--a cord extremely resistant to expandability.
Since them Silverstein added thread inside the cord claiming it minimizes the cord's contact with the reed, and in so doing enhancing the lig's performance. YMMV, but regardless, given cord with severely limited elasticity characteristics, like *metal* I guess people's take that it plays like a metal, rather than conventional string lig (with far more relatively elastic cord--like a shoe string) isn't surprising.
Post Edited (2016-05-16 03:34)
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Author: eefer ★2017
Date: 2016-05-16 05:45
I can't hear squat of a difference, but I CAN feel a difference in the response of the reed. I have a cryo gold that I found on the floor at an event. I reported the loss to the security people, gave my phone number, and have had this ligature for almost 3 months now. I think it is probably mine. It responds quickly, and the articulation is clean and clear. For that reason alone, I like it. However, maybe something could be done about that price....please?
Nancy
Nancy Buckman
AACC Symphony Orchestra
Opera AACC
Early Music Society of Northern MD
(and a lot of other ensembles, too)
nebuckman@gmail.com
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Author: seabreeze
Date: 2016-05-16 07:21
Maybe like the preference of some players for the Vandoren 56 Rue Lepic to the more vibrant Traditional Blue Box? The 56 have more of a "halo" or "aura" around the sound. Not everyone thinks more overtones = better sound, though many do.
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