 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: vjoet
Date: 2012-08-15 16:07
Hi all,
I recently got a digital recorder, and from it noticed something I don't like in my tone quality: At mf and f the open throat tone G has a nasal quality to it, much like a "snake-charmer" oboe sound.
I've tried multiple combinations of multiple things. Certain combinations lessen it, but I don't get a beautiful crystal clear tone I seek:
1. Different clarinets:
Buffet Elite
Buffet early 1960's R13
Vintage Cartier (thinking maybe the undercutting on Buffets was the cause)
2. Multiple mouthpieces:
Portnoy BP02,
Richard Hawkins B,
Walter Grabner, Chedeville style, in both straight baffle and slanted,
Gigliotti
3. Reeds
Legere, 3, 3.25, 3.5
Vandoren, 3.25, 3.5, 3.75, 4.0
The best result – still not what I seek – comes with the R13, Grabner slanted Chedeville, Legere 3.5.
With the accumulated knowledge here, can anyone suggest a solution?
Thanks for any insight!
Vann Joe
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Author: David Spiegelthal ★2017
Date: 2012-08-15 16:58
Get a better microphone. If you're using the one supplied with the recorder, it's probably pretty crummy. Very possible that you sound just fine.
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2012-08-15 18:04
As well as increasing the venting and having a cork pad fitted to the LH1 ring key vent, make sure the tonehole isn't occluded with fluff and clean it out if it is.
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.
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Author: David Spiegelthal ★2017
Date: 2012-08-15 18:35
Folks, look at the multiple instruments, mouthpieces and reeds he used. Does it really seem likely that his 'problem' is a mechanical one on EVERY combination of equipment? The only things common to all combinations he's tried are the player, and the recording equipment -- so those are the places I'd start looking for root causes. And of course, we can ALWAYS eliminate the player.....![[grin]](http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/smileys/smilie5.gif)
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Author: Donald Casadonte
Date: 2012-08-15 19:26
I am trying to think of a way a player could be responsible for the nasal quality of a single note. Unless his oral cavity resonances are precisely tuned to yield destructive interference, i cant see any way that turbulent flow could be produced by the player. The nasal sound is an indication of turbulent flow, generating white noise. It could occur if the oral cavity is strangely coupled to the mouthpiece, but that would be worthy of a paper being written. It might be the microphone, but unlikely. Changing mouthpieces will not affect the problem. Changing the reed will minimally change the problem. This is a fluid dynamics effect, pure and simply.
Donald Casadonte
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Author: kdk
Date: 2012-08-15 19:54
The validity of all the above discussion assumes that everyone accurately understands Vann Joe's description of the problem. The conundrum may be solved if what Vann Joe meant is not what David, Donald and Chris understood. Sound is always hard to deal with over a text-based discussion forum.
Vann Joe, is it possible in listening to your recording that the problem actually exists to some less obvious degree in the notes immediately below throat G, perhaps increasing progressively and only becoming objectionable when you actually hit G itself? What about throat A and B-flat? Do they have the "beautiful crystal clear tone" you're listening for?
Another thing to consider checking, since the nasality doesn't appear until you play mf or f, is whether anything in your embouchure or oral cavity is changing as you get louder.
If the answers to neither of my two questions above lead anywhere useful, my vote would be some artifact of the microphone's response. Donald, I'm not sure why you seem to dismiss this out of hand. It seems, given all the equipment combinations involved, as though the only two reasonable explanations (assuming we're all discussing the same problem) are in the microphone or the player.
Karl
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Author: vjoet
Date: 2012-08-15 20:37
Thanks to all for coming to help.
On the R13 (the combination that is better) I've taken all the involved keys off, and have cleaned the vents. There was no visible crud.
The usual barrel for the R13 is a Clark Fobes. I've also tried it with a Robert Scott and a Dr. Henderson Power barrel. No discernible difference.
The adjoining G# and A are crystal clear. The F# fingered with just the index finger has a tiny tad of fuzziness. (F# fingered with the lower trill keys has a slight fuzziness, but I think that is why some pros avoid that fingering, or so I'm told.)
Does anyone else experience a lessening of crystal-clarity on that note?
I am beginning to think it is a Buffet design problem, one of long standing. The impression I've gotten after working on this and thinking about it for WEEKS, is that the vent under the A key is either too small, or needs deeper undercutting. To make it a tad larger would cut down on the turbulence, possibly eliminating the problem. It wouldn't affect the pitch -- as I see it -- except for the G and the throat tones above; but if it is not too much of an increase in pitch, my resonance fingerings should correct things.
Of course it is possible that the recorder, a Tascam DR-07 MKII, is just a piece of junk.
Sunday afternoon I'll be playing trios with a pro and a band director. I'll also get their ears to judge things. (We're doing Oliver Seely's edition of the Bouffil Trio 5, op 8, #2 among others. The Chicago Clarinet Trio -- Combs, DeRoach and Yeh -- has recorded it, and it is a pleasing work.)
Thanks to one and all.
Vann Joe
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Author: kdk
Date: 2012-08-16 03:26
vjoet wrote:
>
> The adjoining G# and A are crystal clear. The F# fingered with
> just the index finger has a tiny tad of fuzziness. (F# fingered
> with the lower trill keys has a slight fuzziness, but I think
> that is why some pros avoid that fingering, or so I'm told.)
>
> Does anyone else experience a lessening of crystal-clarity on
> that note?
>
The main cause of fuzziness on F# and G for me is a reed that's too resistant (not necessarily too hard - it could be unresponsive for other reasons). But that's not the same as a nasal sound.
Karl
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Author: gsurosey
Date: 2012-08-16 04:22
I have no clue as to whether or not this would be a factor, but could something in the room be sympathetically vibrating with that pitch? Since this happens with different equipment combinations, have you tried playing in a different location?
When I practice at home, my throat G# on my Bb clarinet sounds different ('buzzy' is the closest I can think of, but I'm not sure how accurate the description is). When I'm in my teacher's studio (or anywhere else for that matter), I don't have that issue.
----------
Rachel
Clarinet Stash:
Bb/A: Buffet R13
Eb: Bundy
Bass: Royal Global Max
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Author: Tony F
Date: 2012-08-16 06:30
With the range of equipment tried, the problem has to be elsewhere. Possibilities that occur to me are:
Recording equipment/microphone.
Some peculiar characteristic of the recording area, if the same location has been used throughout. Perhaps a noise peculiar to that location affects notes at certain frequencies. Air con, fan, fluorescent light buzz, whatever.
A characteristic of the player's embouchure, or the structure of his oral/nasal cavity.
A characteristic of the players hearing. It may be that particular notes excite sympathetic resonances in the players aural mechanisms, or that there is a deficiency in the hearing at certain frequencies. This could be a natural condition or the result of industrial/ recreational conditions.
Tony F.
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Author: Buster
Date: 2012-08-16 18:58
Try making the G sound more nasal when you play loudly, as much as you'd like to avoid hearing it.
Sometimes we work so hard trying to eliminate a "problem" with prescribed solutions that we don't ever take the time to step back to get a better point of view.
Letting a "problem" occur, and then embracing it by making it more evident, may show you something that you never see because you are so concentrated on a final corrected result. Worry a bit more about the process and do a 180 with your viewpoint for a few minutes; I don't see that any harm can come from that--- and perhaps you'll find something.
The human brain is a strange machine....
-Jason
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Author: Donald Casadonte
Date: 2012-08-16 20:19
"Some peculiar characteristic of the recording area, if the same location has been used throughout. Perhaps a noise peculiar to that location affects notes at certain frequencies. Air con, fan, fluorescent light buzz, whatever."
This is actually a good point. This happened to me in my research. If it is true turbulence you can detect it in the acoustic spectrum by calculating the Lyapunov exponent. If it is a buzz, it will have a different spectrum. I strongly doubt it is caused by the microphone qua microphone, however.
Is the sound buzzy or turbulent (white noise)? It makes a big difference in the analysis. Reeds do not produce turbulent flow down their length without affecting the laminar flow layer just above the reed and this would destroy the frequency-locking with the mouthpiece and no sound except white noise would result. One can get turbulence at the tip if there is excessive water, but this would not affect only one note.
The oral cavity is problematic. It might create a type of interference that might sound a little like fuzziness, and it can occur with one note, but the odds of such a precisely tuned oral cavity is practically nil, especially since you can reshape the oral cavity by changing your vowel shape and this would remove the problem.
The likeliest problem is either the room recording acoustics or flow turbulence. Mouthpieces will only minimally affect this, as with the reed. You need to try ten instruments, not just two to see if some odd mouthpiece/reed problem is at work. Statistically, you might just have found two poorly constructed instruments.
Now, acoustically, throat G is keys going to be a problem because it is near an impedance maximum in the tone hole lattice. Higher Reynolds numbers near the tone hole can lead to a transition to turbulence, do either cutting, lack of rounding, or a bad pad can do it.
Donald Casadonte
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Author: Donald Casadonte
Date: 2012-08-16 23:12
Man, I've got to turn off iPad spell-checking. You know, I never understood the definition of fascism until I began typing on an iPad with spell-check.
Donald Casadonte
P. S., Any possibility of digitizing the recording of the fuzzy note? It is a back burner project of mine to look at the acoustic spectrum of different playing artifacts.
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Author: Buster
Date: 2012-08-16 23:15
Try making the G sound more nasal when you play loudly, as much as you'd like to avoid hearing it.
Sometimes we work so hard trying to eliminate a "problem" with prescribed solutions that we don't ever take the time to step back to get a better point of view.
Letting a "problem" occur, and then embracing it by making it more evident, may show you something that you never see because you are so concentrated on a final corrected result. Worry a bit more about the process and do a 180 with your viewpoint for a few minutes; I don't see that any harm can come from that--- and perhaps you'll find something.
The human brain is a strange machine....
Sophistry serves nobody....
-Jason
Post Edited (2012-08-17 02:01)
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Author: kdk
Date: 2012-08-17 03:24
That was one of my points. Vann Joe didn't say "fuzzy," he said "nasal," then described it as a "'snake-charmer' oboe sound." That doesn't suggest fuzzy or containing white noise to me, but I don't really understand what it *does* mean, other than that it sounds like a (perhaps) out of tune oboe.
I can think of all kinds of things that could cause that - I just have trouble imagining anything that would cause it on one isolated note on three different clarinets with all the combinations of reeds and mouthpieces he tested.
A recording *might* at least clarify the problem. I don't think we're all imagining the same problem.
Karl
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Author: Tony F
Date: 2012-08-17 06:26
Question.
Does the open G, as played on the instrument, sound nasal to other listeners?
If so, it establishes that the problem exists, but if others don't hear it as having a nasal tone then the problem comes back to the way the player is hearing the note.
If others hear the note as normal on the instrument but nasal on the recording, then look for the problem in the recording/playback apparatus.
If others are hearing a normal G in both conditions, then the problem lies with the players perception of the note. If that turns out to be the case, possibly a hearing check might be in order.
When I listen to recordings of myself playing they are not what I hear when I play, but I know I have a hearing deficiency (Too long around jet engines as a young man).
Tony F.
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Author: clarnibass
Date: 2012-08-17 07:30
Hard to say but the recording device and/or its microphone sounds most likely. Can you post an example? If you don't have a way to upload it you can email me the file and I'll post it if you want.
>> we can ALWAYS eliminate the player... <<
Don't stop after just one...
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Author: Luuk ★2017
Date: 2012-08-17 12:02
Don't forget the reproducing equipment, including ear phones or speakers.
Regards,
Luuk
Philips Symphonic Band
The Netherlands
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Author: vjoet
Date: 2012-08-17 13:51
Sunday afternoon I'll be with a couple fine clarinetists whom I respect. I'll seek their evaluation if the nasal quality exists or not, both in person and on the recorder. That will go a long way in helping to diagnose things.
If they detect it but don't have the solution (one of them is a FINE tech), I'll post a sample on the download page of my website (not musically related).
Vann Joe
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Author: Tony F
Date: 2012-08-20 14:07
Hi,
What was the result of your meeting with your friends? I'd be interested to know what their view of the problem was. It's intriguing and I'd like to know their ideas.
Regards,
Tony F.
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Author: vjoet
Date: 2012-08-20 23:26
Yesterday we played trios for over 3 hours. At the start I asked them to judge my tone quality, and as I played some, recorded it. In playing back the recording they both said, "You don't sound anything like that, and there is no nasal quality at all." One said the recorder isn't picking up any of the overtones, and they both played and listened to themselves on playback, and again concluded it was the digital recorder.
I'll still use it on occasion to judge phrasing, but not tone quality.
It was all the recorder that got me all worked up.
Thanks for the input, guys.
Vann Joe
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Author: Tony F
Date: 2012-08-21 00:22
A very satisfactory ending to the problem. Now you know you have one less thing to worry about.
Tony F.
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