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Re: The effect of bore material on the perception of tone quality

Author: David Spiegelthal ★2017
Date: 2009-08-11 19:37

I now have an excellent opportunity to conduct an experiment with bass clarinets, if I can just find the time and a group of volunteer listeners. I have in my possession three fine Kohlert bass clarinets -- one each of wood, of hard rubber, and of metal. Granted they are from different eras and have some design differences (primarily in the register mechanism), but I believe they are close to identical acoustically.

To my ear they sound the same -- it would be fun to find out if other folks could tell the difference in a good double-blind test.

I'm sure that body material makes a very audible difference in thin-walled wind instruments having large surface areas (e.g French horns, and maybe even flutes to a lesser extent), but from what I've read (and what makes sense to me as an engineer), the effects of body material on a small-diameter but thick-walled instrument such as clarinet or oboe, should be inaudible. The caveat is always "all other things being equal", which they almost never are.

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