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Re: The tale of a Selmer Ct

Author: DougR
Date: 2018-06-14 18:37

I have a CT I acquired recently, along with a Series 9; they're both completely different animals from my R-13. I've been using a Borbeck 11 on the Buffet for decades, with 3.5-4 reeds, and while it sorta worked on the series 9, the tuning was whacky.

Fortunately the CT came with an older Selmer HS**, which with slightly softer reeds works great on the CT.

(the CT itself doesn't work so well, though--the pads look snowy white but apparently they're very old; I sank some money into the horn to get leaks taken care of, but clearly not enough--it gets progressively resistant as you ascend the clarion register, and clearly there's still some sort of leakage going on.)

I did a search here on the B'board after I acquired the series 9, and found people recommending the following for large-bore Selmers: Selmer "bottom logo"/Table HS**; Vandoren 5jb; Pomarico crystal; there are others recommended too, but you'd have to search, I didn't write them down. Even non-collectible older Selmers in the HS-HS** range might work better than a current French-bore mouthpiece.

As others have suggested, you'd want to make sure the bore of the mouthpiece somewhat matches the bore of the upper joint; you may want to check the barrel to make sure it's on-spec for the instrument as well. (there are posts in the archives that deal with that)

I'm not interested in playing jazz on the horns, and I find that the older HS** produces a great, luminous sound; even on the leaky CT, you can tell once the leaks are sorted it's going to be a great horn. Good luck with yours.

PS, I'm an "oil when necessary" guy (some aren't) and I spent a couple days oiling the CT before I played it. It came looking sort of reddish all over; now that it's oiled it's more blackwood-looking. No cracks yet.....we'll see.

PPS you mentioned "heartbreak" and may I suggest that might be a little premature (unless you were hoping for a simple plug-&-play). Both my large-bore Selmers are teaching me things about acoustics and resistance and finger technique (the CT in particular seems to be resistant to any but the exact correct finger placement, possibly because of leaks). Like I said, good luck!

Post Edited (2018-06-14 20:37)

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