Author: Bob Bernardo
Date: 2017-04-22 23:02
RLarm
Yes it does concern me about the DEAD sound. But clarinet players are SMART. I strongly believe this is just a setback. This was caused by the manufactures building clarinets with bigger bores and mouthpiece makers and even refacers going the wrong way. We as players love that WARM sounds not the DEAD sound.
Players want the 1960's vintage era Buffet clarinet sound. Well Yamaha is really close is some ways if not dead on with the CSG111's, the German horns, but these old Buffet 1960s had their issues. They are surely overrated. Finding a great 1960's horn was and is pretty hard, so I really like how close the CSVR's are. In so many ways they are better than the Buffets from that era. The Yamaha pro line upper registers are just so clean, and the horns are so in tune. For example, playing the Copland Concerto scares me on the Buffets, regardless of the year. The upper register notes can bring fear into me. Are you gonna hit the high F or will that dang F turn into an A? On the Yamaha's I can attack the notes without fear. Same with the Selmer Signatures. It's not the mouthpiece nor the reed, this is the instruments design flaws.
So you don't have to spend $19,000 to find that sound and be very disappointed. The $19,500 set of horns do not have this WARM sound. They are dead. Yamaha has it. You have to find the right mouthpiece to match the Yamaha horn. These $19,000 bores are too big, thus DEAD... You can buy a set of Yamaha's at the ClarinetFest from about $5000. This is a set, maybe less? I'm not sure. Depends of what horn or set of horns you buy. You can go to the ClarinetFest, go to Disneyworld for a week, have breakfast in bed for 2 weeks, eat steak dinners for a year, buy a 5 year supply of Steuer reeds, buy 5 Chedeville mouthpieces, and still have money left over, because you didn't buy those crappy $19,000 horns or the Tosca horns and you will sound so much better. You may even have enough money let over to go to next years ClarinetFest in Europe. You were smart and didn't fall into the DEAD ZONE trap!
The worst mouthpieces to buy for these horns are the Vandoren M series and the Zinner's. You want to fill the halls with rich warm sounds. Go test out horns and you will agree with me. Then soon Buffet and Backun will realize we all know what we want and reality will set in and they will realize they need to go back to the drawing board. At the same time Yamaha keeps getting better and better, very soon to perhaps greatness? The best clarinets ever made? Each one will be perfect? Time will tell. They sparked my interest! Buffet can't even seal a pad anymore. EVERY new Buffet horn leaks and plays out of tune. Why do we put up with this?
I've said enough...
Designer of - Vintage 1940 Cicero Mouthpieces and the La Vecchia mouthpieces
Yamaha Artist 2015
Post Edited (2017-04-23 05:31)
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