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Re: Marigaux, Rigoutat, Covey, etc...

Author: cjwright
Date: 2010-03-19 19:00

It's worth repeating that this entire "generalization" process is extremely subjective to how thick/thin your reeds are and how they are balanced, how hard you blow, how much you cover with your embouchure, what your tonal concept is, etc.

Having said that, I can speak for myself, a very "healthy blower" who doesn't cover much with the mouth and plays on lighter reeds with very refined tips and extremely thin corners,

I find the Marigaux 901's are beautiful instruments with a nice scale, very even legato and nice slurring intervals (particularly slurring 5ths or bigger intervals downward without "clunking" on the bottom note like Lorees tend to do). What I dislike about Marigauxs is that I always feel too contained within the color spectrum of the tone. I feel this way about Loree AK models, but moreso with the Marigauxs. More specifically, I can get "clarity" as Susan discussed, but I can't get purity without a constant presence of lots of lower overtones. This is great for someone who wants nothing but that dark tone, but for my playing I strive for a greater color spectrum. I'm not saying that it's not possible to get, but for my scrape, and reedmaking structure I am unable to get it. I WILL say that Marigauxs are probably the friendliest oboes when it comes to less than stellar reeds. One of the girls in the ASU studio has a very fine Marigaux, and I was discussing her instrument with my professor Martin Schuring, and we were amazed that you can put a raucous crowing reed in her instrument and it really refines the vibrations on its own. I think this is the greatest advantage and disadvantage of Marigaux, and is also the reason why everyone agrees that it is a "warmer, creamier, smoother" sound.

Laubins are also beautiful instruments and function in a different manner. Where as Lorees are built to amplify vibrations and "shoot them out" of the instrument, Laubins are designed to stifle certain vibrations. The bore has this effect, and even the skin pads have a certain vibration absorption quality that cork pads don't. (If you ever play a Grenadilla Laubin with skin pads next to a Grenadilla Laubin with cork pads, it's an entirely different feeling.) For players who need a sense of "containment" in their playing, Laubins can really refine the sound and hold in the "rough edges". For me, I have to work harder to get equal volume, which includes blowing faster speed and blowing harder more constantly than I would on a Loree. I find that my tone on Laubins is darker and covered up close, but my sound loses a lot of the overtones from 50 feet or further, where my tone sounds small and tinny. I also find that when playing on Laubins, I feel like I'm always playing into a blanket which I can't get "clarity" or "singing quality" in my tone, so I blow harder and harder to get it, and usually my tone distorts and pitch gets nasty before I ever get that quality. Maybe if I played on thicker heavier reeds I could achieve this, but not for my setup now, and I doubt I'll change my reeds enough to get to that point.

I recently played a Rigoutat J instrument which my friend has from Nora Post, and it is a beautiful instrument with a beautifully fine scale, and the same "creamy-ness" that Laubin has. You still have to blow harder like a Laubin to "get out from under the blanket", but it seemed to have a tad more flexibility.

As for the Hiniker, it is indeed more like a Laubin in the sense that it also has a dampening effect. Probably 50+ people have tried my oboe, and the first thing out of 48 of those people's mouths is "wow, that is REALLY even." What they specifically mean is the tone from note to note is even and the scale is also pretty good too (although that's rather subjective). The tone is Laubin-ish and it requires a lot of blowing as well, but I no longer use the original Hiniker bell on it but rather a Loree GV bell reamed out a LOT by David Weber. The bell gives me enough flexibility to get clarity and singing in the sound without overblowing, and amplifies the tone enough so that I don't feel like I need to blow the house down. Yes, I could get more flexibility out of a Loree in tonal color and in my airspeed, but I think every instrument gives up something, so the Hiniker fits me well and is a happy medium.

One last note: this past Monday a well-known Bay Area freelancer came to David's shop with his two Laubin oboes - a 30 year old Rosewood with cork pads and a 3 year old Grenadilla with skin pads. His mission was basically to find a better solution to his equipment than he has, which was that he is playing his Grenadilla with a Loree AK PI bell reamed out by David. David, I, and Fred Capps sat there for hours listening to him play his instruments with 5 new Weber Reeds prototype bells which are currently in the design phase, plus an old Cabart bell, and we matched both instruments with prototype bells that made ridiculously huge differences. All five of the bells changed the entire tuning of the scale (some for better, some for worse), response of the sound (some more responsive, others more resistance), amount of cover and clarity, and even feel (one bell made his Laubins feel like a Loree!)

Different bells are designed to do different things. Loree, Covey, old Kohlerts, and the new Howarth bells project/amplify vibrations. Laubin and Fossati dampen vibrations. It's always worth switching bells around to see if there's a positive or negative effect. Even switching one AK bell to another AK bell can really change an instrument.

Cooper

Edit: The two instruments I would like to own are both Lorees. A few years ago Lou Rosenblatt had surgery on his neck to remove cancer and they cut a nerve where he couldn't play again. He sold his Royal that he owned, (Maybe a O or a P?). It had been heavily modified in the bottom joint and bell to open up the bore by him and John Symer, and there had been major undercutting done in some of the toneholes, in fact so much done that in the first right finger tone hole, it cut into the tenon socket! But man, that was one of the best instruments I ever played. I couldn't come up with funds, and my student bought it. Another instrument I found in Hannah's house (of Hannah's oboes). It was an old DD in bad shape, which she almost didn't show me because she thought it was too old. I find it peculiar, bought it, and David Weber promptly found it interesting enough that he asked me for the instrument, so I gave it to him. He repadded the whole thing, bore adjusted it, and then he sold it because he needed money back. My high school student bought that horn. We took it back to Hannah and played the DD next to my Hiniker in a blind test and without hesitation Hannah picked the DD out as being the better instrument! So much for "old, blown out crap".

Blog, An Oboe In Paradise
Solo Oboe, Thailand Philharmonic Orchestra

Post Edited (2010-03-19 19:21)

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