 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: ned
Date: 2018-03-11 12:55
Maybe the sound waves are square - or at least rectangular - I dunno.
I saw a toothbrush the other day, which had a breakthrough design promising that it could reach one's back teeth, supposedly for the first time. Struth, so what have we been missing out on ever since the toothbrush was first invented?
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Author: Caroline Smale
Date: 2018-03-11 23:03
OMG - read plenty of hype over the years - but this takes the (square or rectangular) biscuit.
Who are they kidding - other than Band Directors
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2018-03-12 14:01
I haven't seen these since the '80s - I didn't think they were still around.
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.
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Author: Ed Palanker
Date: 2018-03-12 17:28
I used it for seveal years both a the princial at the Eastern Music Festival orchestra and well as my position in the BSO as bass clarinetist performing on clarinet as well in many positions. I also performed a good deal of chamber music using it. People that reject it out of mind may not realize that rectangular bores on Sax mouthpieces was already around for some time. At the time Rovener was also manufacturing a successful Sax mouthpiece but was NOT the first one to use that type bore on them. I did eventually change to an Chaddash barrel and then to a Backun on my Buffet as I evolved and changed mouthpieces. BUT, it worked and tuned very well.
I used his barrel as an experiment for him to prove it's effectiveness. I didn't tell my friends or section for well over a year so no one ever realized what I was using. So I playing it on my Bb only as a principal, playing second or third, in solo and chamber music playing. I'd explain the technicial reasons why it worked so well as a barrel but I can't remember all the reasons he explained to me. Phil no longer owns the business but he as a clarinet player, and sax, studied at Peabody with Genussa years ago, and received an enginering degree so was always experimenting with different ideas.
ESP eddiesclarinet.com
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Author: Burt
Date: 2018-03-13 06:53
Now what you need is a clarinet and a mouthpiece, each with a square bore!
Seriously, I can't imagine any advantage to having such bad mismatches between the barrel and the adjacent sections.
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Author: kdk
Date: 2018-03-13 07:01
I've never tried one of these (but *have* heard of them), so I have no opinion about how they compare in playing qualities to traditional round-bored barrels. But I have to wonder if a square bore isn't harder to cut that a round one, which can be drilled and then reamed. If it's harder to mass-produce, it will be more labor-intensive and more expensive than a round bore of equivalent quality.
What automated tool cuts a square hole through a cylinder that way?
Karl
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Author: eddiec ★2017
Date: 2018-03-13 11:57
It seems like it would be easier to fabricate two halves with a slot cut out and glue them together than create a square hole. I can't tell from the pictures, though.
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2018-03-13 15:41
They're moulded from plastic, so relatively easy to make.
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.
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Author: Ed Palanker
Date: 2018-03-13 17:53
Burt said," Seriously, I can't imagine any advantage to having such bad mismatches between the barrel and the adjacent sections."
As I indicated I used his model for over a year before any of my colleagues realized it, and only when I told them and showed it to them. I didn't find any real advantage to it at all, but it played and tuned as well as the barrels I was using before so it was worth experimenting with it for Phil. I was his Guinea Pig from the first day he showed me his very first ligature.
The first barrel he made was made of plastic with a standard round bore and had indented rings around it. It played OK but really looked funny and I told him no would use it because it was no better than a standard wood barrel. After a while he came up with this design made of plastic too that looked like wood and played OK too. The he took a Buffet barrel, rimmed out the bore and but his insert in it made of some hard material which I do not know. So it looked like a standard Buffet barrel which is why no one ever questioned me until I finally showed them. As I said, it played well, was as good as anything I used up till then, but I can't say it was any better than a good normal barrel. He never put it in production because I convinced him it would not sell enough to warrent the expense of manufacturing it. He explained to me the advantage of the way the sound waves worked and the rectangular bore added on dimension. I never actually understood any of that but liked playing it at the time. That's the end of the story.
ESP eddiesclarinet.com
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Author: Mojo
Date: 2018-03-13 17:58
Ed’s experience using it shows that it works. I think the concept could be developed further to include reverse tapers and double tapers, lengths, materials, etc to match all the variations out there with cylindrical barrels.
But it does not appear to have a clear advantage or disadvantage. It does make us think.
MojoMP.com
Mojo Mouthpiece Work LLC
MojoMouthpieceWork@yahoo.com
Post Edited (2018-03-13 17:59)
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2018-03-13 18:40
If it works, then it works regardless of what it looks like or what the preconceived ideas may be. I've been wanting to get one of these barrels but never got round to it. Maybe they are worth the 30+ year hiatus - there's no harm in trying.
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.
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Author: kdk
Date: 2018-03-13 23:57
Ed, I'm just curious - did you find that it made any difference what direction the square bore was oriented? You could have set it so that, looking down into the barrel on the clarinet, the shape made a square, or it made a diamond, or you could rotate if to any position in between those two. Even with round-bored barrels there's variation in the sound as you rotate the barrel. I'm wondering if the position of the corners of the square bore mattered.
Karl
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Author: Ed Palanker
Date: 2018-03-14 01:57
Yes Karl, i found it worked best in certian positions with different reeds so I'd move it a bit to find the best position. It usually worked best in a direct line with the register tube on either side.
ESP eddiesclarinet.com
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Author: shmuelyosef
Date: 2018-03-14 03:21
All of the various barrel designs have a common factor...they all 'engineer' (I use the term loosely) a discontinuity in bore size/shape purposefully at the upper joint interface (and because mouthpiece exit bores vary so much generally one exists at the top of the barrel as well.
My understanding is that these are designed to make intonation a little more predictable, if not always improved, by confining the primary resonant cavity to the main body of the clarinet (upper and lower joint) and isolating the excitation module (mouthpiece and barrel) and launch module (barrel).
Except for the mouthpieces, most of these designs are roughly circularly symmetric; because of the reed and the shape of the human mouth, the mouthpiece is required to be asymmetric, except for a side-to-side mirror symmetry.
I can imaging that there was some thoughtful intent in this design to try and improve the efficiency of coupling the asymmetry of the pressure waves that the reed launches.
It's enough of a different variable, that for $90 might be an interesting experiment.
These discontinuities are important...it is often surprising how much effect pulling the barrel or mouthpiece out a mm is on resistance and intonation; note that this creates a bore discontinuity...and hence the use of tuning rings to fill the space.
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