 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: RLarm
Date: 2017-07-12 01:46
I just saw the post on Buffet's new model, the LEGENDE. This weekend I saw the video of Istvan Kohan brilliantly playing the Messager on Yamaha's flagship model, the SE Artist, which Yamaha admits it doesn't know when it will be available in the US. (Bet you it is available in Europe and Japan!) Why are companies doing this? For example, why doesn't Buffet just spend more time to make the R13 playable right out of the box, instead of making us spend huge sums of money to customizers so that we can discover what the instrument is capable of doing? I feel sorry for the small retail stores who cannot possibly carry all of the different models. It sure was comforting to read Yamaha's own words describing the CSVRs and the SEVRS," ...these new clarinets are an exceptional product for the progressing clarinetist..." Well if these are step-up models they are exceptional step-up clarinets. Again, WHAT'S GOING ON???
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Author: Fuzzy
Date: 2017-07-12 06:35
Robert - once again your question(s) refer more to markets and marketing than they do music (which is fine...I'm just not sure you'll get the definitive answer you're looking for in this particular forum).
I doubt there are very many successful manufacturers that believe their product is "perfect", or well-suited to their entire scope of customers. So, they research, test, try to improve, try to gauge changes in the market, define niches, and sell - evaluate the results and repeat.
Have a look on this forum for discussions about ligatures if you want a better example of this. Look at the number of different ligatures folks feel "are the best" - it varies far and wide. That, in a nutshell, is "what's going on." People like choices, and companies like to try to figure out how to provide those choices at a large enough profit to make their risk worth it...usually by offering the best product they can (unless they lose their way and just start trying to live on a name...Kodak, Sears, Buffet?, Blockbuster, etc. - note that two of these four simply stuck with the product they had, and didn't innovate or try new things early enough - and now they are virtually gone because the market passed them by.)
On the other hand, if you're happy with your original iPad/iPhone/Droid/Windows Mobile - which incidentally beat the others to market - good on ya. I saw a guy walking down the street last week with a 1980s "Boom Box" on his shoulder. He was having a blast. Good for him!
I think the answer as it pertains to clarinet is: find what works for you, personally, and be happy! 
Cheers!
Fuzzy
PS: If the cycle of new clarinet models is "insanity" - I'd recommend avoiding car shopping or phone replacement any time soon! ;^)>>>
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Author: RLarm
Date: 2017-07-12 08:01
Thanks Fuzzy for the sage bits of advice. I guess the quest for the "holy grail" of clarinets will continue. And yes, retailers have told me the exact same reason(s) that you have stated. So I guess the CSVR would be Yamaha's equivalent of the R13 and the SE Artist model would be their Tosca/Devine. Flavio Ripamonti has a great view on this total mess: "If you like my clarinet buy it. If you don't like it there are many other instruments you can try. I hope you find something that you like." I loved that attitude so much that I actually bought one of his clarinets, the Ripa, before it was officially available in the US. It is very good. Well, if I really wanted an SE Artist Model I could get through Japanese sources. That's sort of what I did with the Ripa. I can't make the convention but if you are, please drop by Flavio Ripamonti's booth and say hi to him for me. He is a great maker of clarinets and he is really a nice and funny man. Those two characteristics seem to be becoming less of a common characteristic in the clarinet manufacturing world. That is indeed sad.
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Author: dorjepismo ★2017
Date: 2017-07-12 08:17
In fairness, the R13 is a great design, but doesn't work for some of us. I think it's great that different bores and different levels of fanciness in the wood and keywork are available, but I wish they were more straightforward about the differences. When I visited S&S, they just wrote out the bore measurements on a card and gave it to me, but all you get from Buffet and Yamaha is a bunch of mystical hype, even though anyone with the right gauge can measure the things. Wish they'd treat us like adults. If they'd just publish meaningful specs, then the reasons for the different models would be pretty clear. I think Selmer is a little better in that regard - they at least give you the diameter at the top of the upper joint.
And sure, the Yamaha SE Artist is available in the U.S. Just get on the Howarth or Dawkes website, order one, pay the CITES certification fee, be ready to pay the customs duty when DHL or whoever bills it, and you have an SE Artist. I seem to remember there used to be import restrictions, even against going to France, buying a Buffet, and bringing it back, but I don't think they can get away with the U.S. government enforcing corporations' marketing strategies anymore.
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Author: jthole
Date: 2017-07-12 09:43
Even in the 1960's, Buffet already had different models. The main difference is that they didn't offer "Prestige" versions back then.
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Author: RLarm
Date: 2017-07-12 10:08
Dorejepismo, I did everything you mentioned to get the Ripas through DHL. And I had to pay the custom fees. What was very interesting is that when I contacted Flavio Ripamonte he actually asked me if the price he quoted was fair. Maybe I could have bargained and paid even less but I told him I thought his price was very fair. I wonder what price he will.be charging when he exhibits at the ICA convention? The "Alien" case looks so stylish and holds 5 barrels with the Bb and A very secure in the case.
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Author: WhitePlainsDave
Date: 2017-07-12 19:20
Charles Revlon: founder of Revlon cosmetics:
“In the factory we make cosmetics, in the store we sell hope.”
http://www.blackout-design.com/2855/in-the-factory-we-make-cosmetics-in-the-store-we-sell-hope/
To a lessor extent, that's what goes on in part in industries such as musical instrument manufacture.
I should clarify. In fairness, countless hours are spent by said musical instrument purveyors not just in market research as to what people want, but in the factory/lab experimenting with designs and ideas, in collaboration with players and instrument making experts alike.
But at the end of the day, these companies put out new brands to sell new product to segments of the marketplace that they believe may have previously been out of reach for them. And can you blame them? Stake holders in the business want management to produce sales percentage growth, not constant sales, worse, shrinking sales when examined from one year to the next.
Like the apparel industry, to some extent they compete with themselves, seeking to create reasons for people to buy new rather than used--especially since many argue the older stuff was better made, (and clarinets last a lot longer than shirts, and both longer than fashion trends--which is why, in large part, there ARE fashion trends.)
To improve an old brand, especially in an industry that doesn't innovate with the speed of electronics, is to some extent to acknowledge limitations in that brand, which is not self serving. Its one thing to come out with a new/upgraded model/year of car, complete with electronic/innovative features that could not meet the deadlines of the prior model year given the pace at which new technology is introduced. The marketplace accepts that.
It's quite another for Buffet, say, to announce that, it has "made the R13 better." Such hype only begs the consumer to ask, and the manufacturer to have to officially answer, "what was wrong with the old?, " even if some of the questions are rhetorical (e.g. consistency among the instruments of the brand, intonation.)
Sad truth, Buffet has made the R13 worse these days, and that's not conspiracy theory but, albeit with some translation, exactly what Buffet has said.
To wit: corner Francois Kloc of Buffet USA at the next conference. Ask him what brand of his company's clarinet you have to buy in order to get the same quality of wood that the R13 was made with back in the golden years (e.g. 50's, 60's).
His answer will not be the R13. I think it's the Festival product line, and higher.
Anecdote: Drucker needed new gear to replace his Bb R13. Kloc outfitted him with something higher than an R13 so he'd have the same quality of wood of the R13 he was parting with. Said higher brand came with a left pinky Ab/Eb key that Drucker asked to have removed.
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Author: RLarm
Date: 2017-07-12 22:04
WhitePlainsDave, Jimmy Yan who was Stanley's technician until his untimely passing, said that Buffet presented to him a set of hand selected RC Prestiges for his lifetime of playing Buffets not long before he retired. Jimmy said they were the BEST set of clarinets that he ever played. So Buffet can make great clarinets if they want to. Unfortunately, almost all of us never get a chance to play one of them.
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