The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Colin Farquhar
Date: 2002-05-19 21:42
HI There:
I just got my Selmer RI rebuilt, and it's a great horn. there is one small issue however: It seems to be rather sharp over the whole range! The instrument is in tune with itself, but its a bit sharp-may this be due to mouthpiece selection (I'm using a b45 right now), or do I need to resort to using tuning rings?
Thanks, Colin Farquhar
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Author: jbutler
Date: 2002-05-20 02:16
Colin,
Quite a common problem with the older large bore clarinets when used with modern mouthpieces. Look for an older, large chamber mouthpiece. A Greg Smith Chedeville copy works very well also. One of his Chedeville copies brought the tuning down quite a bit on my Selmer Balanced Tone. This is also common with other older (vintage) clarinets. Conn 444 and 424, as well as some older SML and LeBlanc clarinets have the same tuning tendencies when using B45, 5RV's, M13's etc. I also have found that some older Chedeville and Lelandis blank mouthpieces work well with these instruments. Find a large chamber/open tip mouthpiece with no firmer than a 3.0 or 3.5 (pushing it) reed.
jbutler
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Author: Mark Pinner
Date: 2002-05-20 06:45
The 10G suffers the opposite problem. The early 10G's were sold with a 10G specific mouthpiece and the barrell often needs shortening to get them up.
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Author: Colin Farquhar
Date: 2002-05-20 15:06
Thanks very much! I had heard rumours to that effect, but no definitive answers... As an interesting aside, the tenor sax player in my dixieland band also play a RI (a 1934, mines a '32), but with a different barrel-he uses aB45, with no tuning issues (apparently). Food for thought...
Colin Farquhar
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Author: super20dan
Date: 2002-05-20 23:40
eaiser to change your barrell than find an older vintage mpc. every clarinet player needs a varity of barrels to match any tuning situation. most players suffer from being too flat .you can eaisly solve your prob. with tunning rings.i use them on my 1923 conn that has a short barrel and the rings work great.i also use a b45 mpc
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Author: Don Berger
Date: 2002-05-21 13:49
Hi Colin et all - I have a 1932 Selmer-Paris RI Full Boehm , ser.# L 1206, UJ crack sealed?, it plays quite well, perhaps somewhat "stuffy" in some "long" notes. I haven't carefully checked note-pitches vs a tuner, but I play it along with FM classic music OK. Beyond its 4 additions to make it a 20/7 FB, its most unusual feature is the barrel, which, from top down to an UJ insert is metal-sleeved and of .640" [15.24 mm] ID, with the UJ bottom of .580" [14.73 mm] ID !!! Its difficult to ascertain where in the UJ the bore is narrowed, it certainly preceeds Carre-Buffet poly-cyl/conical bores! I plan to "look-into" this further and will report. Does anyone know anything about this "strange one"?? Velly interesting! Don
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Author: Don Berger
Date: 2002-05-21 18:59
Following up on JButler's post re: mp chamber size, I checked [visually] the bore diameter matching of a number of my mps with that of my "tubed" barrel and found that an old ?O'Brien-made? glass Selmer HS* Clarion was the largest/good match. Diameter diffs. were small, fracts. of a mm, but noticeable by ring-shadow inspection. So, I'll try to assess pitch vs FM classics, after my Sel's wood-treatment, with my brand-new sweet almond oil [JB], takes place, by slow capillary-distribution! Don
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Author: Colin Farquhar
Date: 2002-06-01 19:15
HI There:
My RI has a barrel with a metal insert in the top, which I was told was stock for that horn, but at some point in the past a metal tube was fitted inside the whole barrel to correct an impending crack. I've found so far that it plays with an unkown mouthpiece i found in my collection 'o' stuff, but I'll be keeping my eyes out for an old crystal mouthpiece. the last time I used one, I really liked it, but didn't have the money at the time-I still don't have the money, but hey...it's for a good cause!
Colin Farquhar
PS-I just returned from the Sacramento jazz Jubilee with my band, and ran into at least 10 other clarinetists using Selmer *RI* clarinets!
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