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Saving DEAD sounds of Zinner's

Author: Bob Bernardo
Date: 2018-02-26 05:34

Wow, I have always felt the same about Zinner's sounding pretty up close and dying in music halls.

I have a patented baffle chamber measuring tooling gauge that actually has several patents on it so it is pretty cool and very accurate.

Here is a standard Vandoren chamber/baffle. I'm leaving out several measurement, but measuring the exact same spots starting from just behind the tip to the table and then going the same exact spots with the Zinner I have in stock.

Vandoren M13 - 75, 145 209, 298 386 439 488 552

Basic Zinner - 96, 164 {244 346 427 482 527} 570

Thes are measured in thousandths of inches, of some of the numbers are actually a 1/32nd on an inch deeper and more in different areas of chamber/baffle of the Zinner compared to your standard Vandoren M13 and a lot of other mouthpieces of the market which have similar sounds. To me this is wrong and promotes a dead sound.

To help understand measurements a 1/32nd" is almost equal to 0.03" or for those whom prefer meters it's 0.78mm.

From my { } you can see how deep most of the chamber area of the Zinner's are at least 1/32nd of an inch too deep causing a DEAD sound that doesn't carry in halls and not a warmer sound which we all want to hear.

In fact the only measurement I can live with, but I don't like it is the first one which is 96. This can lead to a tonguing issue where you hear your tongue hit the reed before you hear the sound of the note, mainly in the upper registers.

A trick to try if you've spent $100's and $100's of a Zinner is use nail polish and fill the chamber and baffle area as indicated above. then take a nail file and file the areas until you get the sound you want. This sure beats throwing away a ton of money. As we know some jerks out there charge a lot of money for these mouthpieces and they really don't work. $1500 for a dead mouthpiece? Lets fix it for pennies. Go to Walmart and buy thin wooden nail files and black nail polish. Just be careful not to scratch the tip of the mouthpiece so put a piece of tape over the tip.

As I've been saying lately clarinet playing should be fun, not expensive. Let's fix your dark dead mouthpieces for pennies and don't go and buy a $2000 mouthpiece that also is horrible.

Hope this helps!

Designer of - Vintage 1940 Cicero Mouthpieces and the La Vecchia mouthpieces

Yamaha Artist 2015

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Saving DEAD sounds of Zinner's new

Bob Bernardo

2018-02-26 05:34