 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2020-08-05 01:16
For those of you playing Yamaha CSG I have stumbled on an interesting option. There are a few Chinese manufacturers posting on Ebay with Bb clarinet barrels of really odd lengths. I'm not sure why Chinese clarinets would need 50mm or 55mm length Bb clarinet barrels but since I was looking for 50mm I am only grateful.
I received mine this morning after about three weeks of post through SpeedPak (whatever that is). The barrel is very well made and finished. I do not have extraordinarily accurate calipers so all I can say about the internal dimensions is that the sockets fit the CSG and mouthpiece great (and completely on.....if needed). The bore also "looks" to be a good match for the instrument.
As for playing, the barrel achieves the tuning that I needed (I need to compensate for some particular lowness of pitch which is why I ordered to 50mm) and it sounds rich and resonant. I have two other third party barrel options and this one plays at least equally as well as both of those.
And for 50 bucks.......you can't beat this with a stick!
I will post the link in a response because it gets a little funky and causes the text box to go crazy wide.
.....................Paul Aviles
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2020-08-05 03:17
I assume a serious question.
Before receipt I imagined that poor milling could have left the wood really rough (particularly on the inside). I have a Freres clarinet barrel from some years ago (when their prices were well undervalue. Now they are .......I think.....overvalued) that looks more like what I was expecting in terms of being rough looking. Fortunately even with the myriad of rough areas in the sockets and the bore.......the Freres plays fine.
The "Excellence" barrel looks like a fine custom piece by comparison.
...............Paul Aviles
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Author: RKing
Date: 2020-08-05 19:46
Paul,
Thanks for the info and the link. I have a nice Yamaha 255 "Plastic Fantastic" that I use for outdoor concerts. It plays very well, but it has always played a bit flat and I never could find any alternative to its 62mm barrel. I finally chucked the barrel into a lathe and trimmed it to about 61mm to get it to tune.
So I ordered a 60mm barrel from these guys and will see how it works.
Cheers,
Ron
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Author: Monsterchef
Date: 2020-08-07 05:14
Interesting. Have you measured its inside diameter? Is there tapering?
Post Edited (2020-08-07 05:18)
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Author: Paul Aviles
Date: 2020-08-07 06:29
well..............
I don't have access to accurate measuring devices. I have taken the barrel and rotated it front to back, looking through toward various light sources and tried to see if it was obvious that I could see more or less interior volume from a given side. It appears to be the same, so I would guess that it is a perfect cylindrical shape. Even if this is less than ideal (for an acoustic model) the bore seems pretty close to that of the mouthpiece (internally....eyeballing it) and seems very close to the top of the upper joint as well (eyeballing that too).
So I did a longer test against the Freres today (my favorite sonically) and found the sounds to be very close. Perhaps the "Excellence" (or "Classical" hard to know the name of this barrel from China) has a nominally less vibrant sound but it is a bit more "focused" for lack of a better description.
Anyway, I have the flexibility to go higher in pitch when/if the situation calls for it rather than being left in the dirt stuck on "A=440" if the ensemble dejour has other ideas (if you know what I mean.........and I think you do). So the Chinese barrel wins by default.
..............Paul Aviles
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