Ridenour

[Carl H.]

Figured I'd start this thread now and later go find the review I posted on SOTW and paraphrase and update it here.

ergonomics+ Ergonomic register - Adjustable thumb rest+/-
fit/finish +/-
material+
tone+
stock barrel , replacement 61mm buffet +


Value - purchased second hand for CHEAP!! +++

I took it to rehearsal tonight and it carried itself well.

The ergonomic register key works wonderfully for its intended function, but it took a bit to keep from accidentally hitting it when jumping down to F. With some time and a bit of familiarity it turned into a non-issue. The rest of the keywork felt pretty nice and I particularly liked the feel of the LH C/F. It is exactly where it should be and I may have my other horns altered to this position.

The upper section was padded in cork except for the two pads on the rings which I think were pressed felt type pads and the octave key which was kid skin.The lower section appeared to be all pressed felt type pads, but I'm not entirely sure I am identifying them correctly. I didn't give them a good looking at because I was too busy playing and getting home to further examine them. The keywork felt substantial but was not heavy or sluggish. I flubbed a few things due to the different timing of the keywork, but this too faded as the night went on. Rumors of soft keywork may or may not be true, but this clarinet felt solid in the hand and action was precise and even quiet with the cork pads.

Tone was pretty good too. Bb was stuffy but not too bad. Side Eb was noticeably stuffy and I don't recall if that was the case for Bb. I was playing it during a rehearsal and didn't have any sustained Bb's to check for stuffyness. It doesn't have the body to its sound that my Buffet has, but my buffet was tweaked by a pro and has resonators on the lower large pads.

Intonation was fair. I had a tuner with a clip on pickup running all night and when playing the stock barrel it was pretty centered. Some notes were a bit high, some a bit low but it was all manageable without much fuss. With the stock barrel it played right up to 440 but couldn't be pushed any higher. I put my Moennig 65mm A barrel on it and couldn't play up to pitch. Visually it looked about 2 MM longer than the stock barrel. I use a click barrel for a while to take it up to where the horn section went and was able to sustain their higher pitch center, but it generally threw off the intonation of the horn noticeably as I used it at its shortest 2 settings.

Cosmetically it isn't wood and doesn't make any attempt to look like wood either. The HR has a brushed matte look to it and the rings and keys are very bright and shiny. Where I had the Pickup clipped on the bell did mar the finish a bit. Nothing significant, but I suspect the matte finish will develop shiny areas where it is frequently handled.

The lower bore seems a bit on the small side as when I placed it on my Hamilton peg it jammed on a bit. Not too tightly, but enough that I had to twist the clarinet when lifting it off the stand to free it, or pick up the whole stand with it. The bell, on the other hand, is quite a bit larger than the Buffet and had to be pushed in to the bell spot in my pro-tec double case.

For what I paid for it it was clearly worth every cent and I'd do it again if the opportunity arose. The one on ebay didn't sell at approximately what I paid to have my Buffet A overhauled a few years back. I suspect it has to do with the unfamiliarity of the product as I suspect it plays every bit as nicely as Tom said it does. If I needed one, I'd think long and hard about his ebay offering, but there is nothing inherently wrong with it in stock form, in fact it is a decent instrument at a student price.


I still have not tried the thumb saddle, but I may order one soon. My Yamaha thumb rest pad was pretty loose on the stock adjustable thumb rest.

I should mention I paid $110 plus shipping for mine! Quite a deal!! I'm quite happy with my Buffet, but for the price, I HAD to get it.

I have since decided I do not care for the ergonomic register key. It just doesn't feel right on a clarinet, but a doubler/dabbler might like it.

I picked up a Ridenour thumb saddle. It was also loose and wobbly on the adjustable thumb rest. I added some felt to the underside of it so it made contact with the instrument evenly and didn't move around so much. Quite comfortable, but again it doesn't feel right, to me, on a clarinet. Once more, a doubler might like it as it makes the instrument feel bigger by opening up the R hand.


Regarding my initial comments on intonation - I have since found out that my tuner reads high with the pickup, and have adjusted it. Some regulation took care of the stuffy notes and improved intonation, so a trip to a tech to get it setup properly would be a good call when purchasing one. The Buffet barrel fixed the overall intonation issues, but I have no idea what instrument a 61mm barrel is intended for. I had to open it up a bit to keep it from getting stuck on the rubber of the tenon, both the top and bottom.
I was very fortunate that Randy (Tenor Madness) had it in his parts bin.

 

[pete]

What "popular" horn(s) would you compare it to?

 

[Carl H.]

I've never played any other horn this new. My newest clarinet is 40 yrs old, so I can't honestly compare it to a Vito or Bundy or the like. I don't know how it would compare to any mid line horns either. I'd say, for a car analogy it is like a guy who is used to Maserati and Aston Martin driving a V8 Mustang. Not quite the same league, but still a respectable performer.

 

[pete]

A lot of folks on this forum probably have horns as old as yours. Remember, the pro clarinet I owned was a Selmer Centered Tone .

So, step down from "excellent" but still "not bad".

1. What kind of mouthpiece(s) did you use to test?
2. How's the intonation?

 

[Gandalfe]

For me it's all about the sound, keyworks and intonation. The rest is fru-fru.

 

[Carl H.]

1. What kind of mouthpiece(s) did you use to test?

Older Selmer HS*
NY Meyer, Jimmy Yan facing
Sumner 3
Pomarico Jazz **
Lakey studio, refaced to ?
Marigaux

I've been using the Sumner for the most part. I have a pair of them I use for playing in the local symphony. I rotate reeds through both of them with fair success. By the time they are too soft for the Sumner they are just right for the Lakey.

2. How's the intonation?

Quite good, once I replaced the original barrel. The original was much too long to be played in tune. I could bite (lipping didn't even come close) it up to about 438 but playing 440 or above was impossible. Short term I used my Click barrel to get it up to pitch. The shortest setting was about right, pitch was good, but tone... eechhh.

I have since been using a 61mm Buffet barrel and it sounds quite good and pitch is no longer an issue. Intonation within the instrument itself is still quite acceptable with nothing being noticeably out of tune.

Did I mention this is an A clarinet? It is. Tone wise it is acceptable. I have no issues choosing to play it. The tone of my buffet is better, but the Ridenour shouldn't crack, which is a concern up here in winter. I lost (I still have it, but it needs $$ thrown at it) my favorite clarinet due to cracking during a January run of Chicago. I do not want to buy another Buffet A anytime soon so the Ridenour is seeing some good playing time. I will have to keep an eye on the wooden barrel.

 

[Dave Dolson]

Carl: Are those mouthpieces made for A clarinets . . . or do A clarinet players use Bb mouthpieces? Sorry for such such an elementary question, but I don't know - never had an A clarinet.

I recently acquired a C clarinet (Albert) and it had a Bb mouthpiece with it. When I put my Bb mouthpiece on it, the horn played well and was in tune with itself AND my tuned piano.

I knew Claude Lakey and I have a few of his mouthpieces for clarinet and soprano. Claude told me he made his clarinet pieces to play sharp. Mine are a bit shorter than other Bb mouthpieces and my clarinet Lakeys DO play a bit sharp for me (a good thing). DAVE

 

[Carl H.]

As far as I know there is no such thing as an A clarinet mouthpiece. I've always used whatever piece gave the best performance, appropriate to the style.

I can use the Lakey for any style, but it has a bigger tip and greater flexibility that I like when playing in a woodwind section. Intonation takes too much effort. I prefer a more centered intonation in that environment Like I got from my HS* and now get from the Sumner.

I had the Lakey touched up and it lives in my tray pack tenor case and does nothing but bigband solo playing. It almost plays itself in that environment.

 

[SOTSDO]

My Ridenour experience is limited, that being with time spent (without a mouthpiece) fiddling around with a low C bass clarinet during our Hurricane Rita evacuation back in 2005. The Brook Mays pro shop up in Dallas had one, and proudly hauled it out for my inspection.

(I had my mouthpiece and reeds stored in our motel room, but did not bother getting it out for reasons listed below.)

Without a doubt, this was the worst finished piece of musical equipment ever to pass through my hands. Sloppy fit between the key posts, one key so "misaligned" as to be inoperative (and this was a new, fresh out of the box, instrument), and so much flex in the long keys as to be noisy and "sponge-like".

It may have been a bad example (it was the only one in stock), but a responsible retailer would have never allowed such a piece of dreck out on the showroom floor. True to form, they went belly up shortly thereafter.

Maybe things have improved, and maybe they haven't. But, based upon my single viewing I'm not planning to go out of my way to view them in the future.

 

[pete]

Terry, you need to open up more and tell us how you really feel.

 

[Carl H.]

So how much did you offer them for it terry?

 

[SOTSDO]

Don't get me wrong. One thing I want to see in the worst way is a good (as in acoustic and structural quality) bass clarinet that can equal the sort of quality that you can turn to in an inexpensive Yamaha.

However, this one example of the Ridenour bass that I was able to examine was (as far as the structural was concerned) poorly built - no other way to put it. Poor fit and finish throughout, and the one inoperative key (on the lower joint, I think but am not sure at this remove that it was the LH F/C) was so bound up and out of alignment that there was no way to shift it around and make it work.

And, this wasn't from careless handling, at least not at the B/M end. The horn I handled was literally fresh off of the truck. And it did not appear to be "physical" damage, as it showed no evidence of being "impacted upon" - just bad fit up at the plant.

Wrong dimensions on rods seemed to be a very prevalent problem on the thing. The posts seemed to be plumb/vertical everywhere that I looked, but the rods literally could be rattled between their posts. I've seen this on a lot of old horns, but never on a brand new, fresh out of the box, one, even Selmer USA or Vito products.

When I started out, I fully intended to return later in the week (we were evacuated for about six days, all told - sort of a mini-vacation in addition to the necessity part) with my mouthpiece to play the thing and give it a full evaluation. However, after feeling the spongy, rattling mess that was the actual horn, I decided that my time would be better spent driving down to Perani's Hockey World instead.

I've met Tom in the distant past, and I think that he even did a mouthpiece for me once, back in the early 1980's. He impressed me as a careful, thoughtful person at that time, and I had real troubles associating his name with a product like the bass clarinet I saw that day in Dallas. However, I figured that (given the obvious Chinese sourcing of the instrument) that it was a case of a good name associated with something produced and shipped by someone trading on that name.

Now, I know that there are some pretty emphatic proponents of the Ridenour clarinet (both soprano and bass), and I don't doubt that I may have missed the acoustic excellence that many have extolled at great length. However, no amount of tone, expression and "mouth feel" could have made up for the mechanical wreckage that I held in my hands on that hot afternoon in Dallas TX back in the day. And, while part of the problem could (charitably) be attributed to careless handling (the bound up F/C key for the left hand), there is no way that all of those rods were shortened by a careless longshoreman, or that the keywork was made so "spongy" by some hamhanded individual in the warehouse.

To be brutally fair, I also felt that the keywork on the modern Selmer bass (a regular one, to low Eb) was a touch too spring-like to suit me. Not as bad as the Ridenour, mind you, but still "wrong" compared to my Model 33. (I did play test that one, and the tone, response, etc. was just fine.)

 

[Carl H.]

Your experiences with the Ride. bass mirror my experiences with the Vito contrabass clarinet I was given to play some years ago. Sloppy, spongy, improper pad selection, poorly built neck and posts that met rods at a 30 degree angles. It was definitely the worst instrument of any type (including church timpani) I ever had the misfortune to play. I talked to a guy at Vito, and much of the problems I saw were news to him, but they were aware of the neck issue and have since changed it.

I'm hoping our experiences were the outliers and not the average of these instruments.

My specific Ride. has a lovely feel and no detectable slop in any of the keys. One key has a minor interference issue, which doesn't affect playability, but may, in the long term if not addressed, accelerate wear on that one key. I haven't found it significant enough that I have yet addressed it beyond mentioning it to my tech in an email.