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Author: Paul Miller
Date: 2011-03-29 01:22
I had a couple hours with a few dozen of these mouthpieces and I have to say that I am extremely impressed with them. The only problem is that they're tuned fairly sharp - maybe even to 442? - and because of this I wish that Vandoren would have kept the length of the old blanks.
The CL5 has a fairly thick tip that gives it a very dark, chocolatey sound, but I think it blunts the articulation a little bit too much and runs the risk of making your sound rather ponderous. The mouthpiece also allows you to play some HUGE dynamics without blowing out, but (for me) it's a bit too much of a blunt-force-trauma kind of mouthpiece. It would have been a good mouthpiece when I was in one of the Fleet Marine Force bands.
The CL4, however, is by far my favorite of the two Masters series mouthpieces, and of the Vandoren line of mouthpieces in general. I am trialing a couple of these over the next several weeks and am fairly sure already that I'm going to switch - they seem to be a very good match for my S&S M1000 instruments.
It is far more agile in character than the CL5, articulates very cleanly and clearly, with a very dense core to the sound with easily ringing overtones. Register changes are also effortless with the mouthpiece. The big solo from Pines of Rome smoothed out nicely, with no bumps or breaks to the line even through the very wide leaps, and I didn't feel like I had to be chewing on the mouthpiece or make any massive changes to make that happen. I just blew straight through the clarinet and it worked. The high pitch of the mouthpiece does concern me a bit but a few tuning rings seems to have fixed that issue.
The M|O ligature seems to be a solid addition to this line of mouthpieces as well. I tested a couple Rovners, a BG, a Bonade, and a Spriggs with the CL4 and CL5 mouthpieces. They all played well but the M|O is pretty clearly specifically designed for the Masters series mpcs and provided a clearer sound than any of the others. I have not yet tested the M|O on any other mouthpiece, as I go through the coming weeks I'll have more information on it.
All in all, the Masters series is an outstanding addition to the Vandoren line. Very nice sound, clean articulation, consistent pitch. Again, they're tuned sharp, so you'll either need longer barrels or some tuning rings to compensate. They also seem to take somewhat softer reeds, so you can expect to get serious some use out of your reed knives and sandpaper.
Disclaimer: none. I don't work for Vandoren (or for anybody else for that matter...)
Cheers
Edited for clarity
Post Edited (2011-03-29 01:27)
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Raff P |
2011-03-17 09:36 |
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Andy |
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claaaaaarinet!!!! |
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Re: New Vandoren Masters Mouthpieces |
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Paul Miller |
2011-03-29 01:22 |
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Ed |
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claaaaaarinet!!!! |
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kdk |
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claaaaaarinet!!!! |
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The Clarinet BBoard
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