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Re: 13 Series Vandoren

Author: Bob Barnhart ★2017
Date: 2022-05-26 20:26

Some years ago I bought a BD5-13 to try with my Yamaha CSGs. I found the tone to be quite dark/resonant but had to use a barrel that was 2mm shorter to even get close to A440. Over the years, I've kept it around for situations in which the temperature is so high that I have to use a low-pitched mouthpiece.

I subsequently tried a traditional BD5 to see if its higher pitch (442) would solve the intonation problems and it does. Mine actually tunes at about 440-441.

Recently I've been experiencing pitch issues in my orchestra. I wound up testing both my BD5-13 and my traditional BD5. The traditional seemed to provide the appropriate intonation, but I noticed that, although the tone was similar between the two (based on recordings), the resistance and feel were quite different. The BD5-13 felt more resistant and less flexible than the traditional version.

I have to say that for me, the traditional BD5 tuned, felt and played more to my liking. It plays well in turn with my standard (56.5mm) barrel pulled out about 1mm.

I have also compared a BD4-13 to my favorite traditional BD4. In this case, I experienced the same results, although they are more similar than my BD5s. However, I still prefer the traditional BD4 with the barrel pulled out about 1mm.

Based on these limited experiments, I do not believe that the only difference between 13-series and traditional mouthpieces is just the length of the bore. They seem to tune, feel and play too differently for that to be the case.

Bob Barnhart

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