Author: Gordon (NZ)
Date: 2014-05-17 15:57
I would not trust a leak light for clarinets, even with brown leather pads.
I know from using a leak light on saxes, that if there is not a lot of light available to escape past a pad, then I miss small leaks.
Small leaks matter.
By the time a light in a black, light-absorbing bore travels a significant distance up a black, light-absorbing tone hole, there is very little light left bouncing around to change direction and slip between a tone hole and a pad. Not enough for reliable leak detection.
As for translucent pads, there is too much light already diffusing past the pad to definitively detect small leaks which have a fraction more light slipping past. EVen with a shiny bore and shallow tone holes, as on a flute, very few if any top technicians would would use light for detecting small leaks.
What I don't like about synthetic pads in general, for normally-open pads, is that the surface remains microscopically bubbly, i.e. irregular - more irregular than traditional fel/membrane pads. When the pad is closed, these bubbles must be squashed flat before a reliable seal is effected. So the player has to press keys harder. This especially shows up for the larger tone holes that have a larger contact area with the pad, hence require more force to squash the bubbles.
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The Clarinet BBoard
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