What Kind of Clarinet Should I Get?

[pete]

You should, of course, read http://www.woodwindforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2547.

While there are a lot of cheap clarinets on the market, there is no guarantee that cheap = good.

As an introduction, modern clarinets are made of wood (a few different kinds), plastic or metal. The metal horns that are currently available are either expensive professional horns or really low quality instruments, with no in-between. Avoid these. Plastic clarinets are your standard cheap student horns: we'll get to those in a few seconds. Wood is generally reserved for intermediate and professional clarinets.

Additionally, you want a Bb clarinet. There are approximately a dozen other members of the clarinet family.

But we're talking inexpensive beginner horns.

First, it's very hard to go wrong with Yamaha. A new YCL (stands for "Yamaha Clarinet")-250 sells for around $700 US. However, you can sometimes get older, warrantied and overhauled Yamaha student clarinets for under $250 (again, see http://www.woodwindforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2547 for some ideas of where to buy an overhauled, warrantied horn).

Let's simplify the Yamaha model names, though. First, remember that it'll be in the form of "YCL" for "Yamaha Clarinet" and then a number. Here's what those numbers mean:

2x or 2xx: Plastic student horn, where "x" is any number.
3x (generally 32 or 34): Wooden intermediate model.
450: Wooden intermediate model; replacement for the YCL-32.
6x or 6xx: Wooden standard professional models.
7x or 7xx: Wooden custom professional models.
CSx or CSxx: Wooden custom-built professional models, where "x" is any letter.
SEx or SExx: Wooden custom-built professional models, where "x" is any letter.

The idea is that if you walk into a store to buy a Yamaha clarinet and have a choice between, say, a YCL-20 and a YCL-34 and the 34 is slightly more expensive, get the 34: it's a better horn.

Again, if you're going to buy used, you want to get a recent clarinet that is fully overhauled and preferably with a warranty. If you're getting a wooden clarinet, if the ad says that it has cracks or pins, or has been cracked and repaired, SKIP IT.

===========

Buffet also makes some really decent student clarinets. The Buffet B12 (NOT the B10) is a fairly decent horn that has been described as a plastic version of Buffet's flagship R13 professional horn. Yes, they're $600 new, but under $250 for a warrantied, overhauled instrument.

Buffet's model chart is much more complex than Yamaha's. I'll try to simplify it.

B10: Plastic student model. Don't get this one (someone will ask "why": the keywork's plastic and it's an A=442hz horn).
B12: Plastic student model.
E11: Intermediate wood clarinet.
L-Series "Limite" Advanced intermediate horn made out of blackwood.
C-Series "Conservatoire": Advanced intermediate grenadilla wood clarinet.
R13: Professional wood clarinet.
R13 Prestige: A step higher than the R13 (additional keywork)
RC (Robert Carree): Essentially a custom professional wood clarinet.
RC Prestige: Essentially a custom professional wood clarinet.
Vintage: Essentially a custom professional wood clarinet (for those saxophonists out there, it's essentially a "Reference" version of a 1950's R13, per http://www.buffet-crampon.com/en/instruments.php?mode=productDetails&pid=95).
Festival: Essentially a custom professional M'pingo wood clarinet.
Tosca: The highest-end Buffet clarinet. Grenadilla wood. Non-R13 bore. Full Boehm keywork.
Greenline: This isn't a selection of models, but how some models are made. It's a resin of grenadilla wood.

Buffet also had a line of clarinets under the Evette (and earlier, Evette-Schaeffer) name. These are fairly old horns.

So, if you step into a dealership and you see a B12 for $244 and a C-Series for a couple dollars more, get the C-Series.

Again, if you're going to buy used, you want to get a recent clarinet that is fully overhauled and preferably with a warranty. If you're getting a wooden clarinet, if the ad says that it has cracks or pins, or has been cracked and repaired, SKIP IT.

============

I do not recommend any other make student clarinets than Yamaha or Buffet. Someone else may have a different opinion ....

[tictactux]

Before you buy, you should check what key plating your instrument has or rather should have: An increasing number of people suffers from nickel allergies, and the vast number of clarinets sold in the U.S. comes with nickel-plated keys (quite unlike in Europe where the standard appears to be silver-plated).

[pete]

Before you buy, you should check what key plating your instrument has or rather should have: An increasing number of people suffers from nickel allergies, and the vast number of clarinets sold in the U.S. comes with nickel-plated keys (quite unlike in Europe where the standard appears to be silver-plated).
Good point.

In my examples, the Buffet B12 has nickel plated keywork, the E11 has silver plated. For the Yamaha, the student models have nickel-plated keywork and the intermediate models can have either silver or nickel -- and it's easy to tell them apart: the models that have an "N" in their name (e.g. YCL-450N) have nickel plated keywork.

[Tammi]

The E11 was offered with nickel keywork, as were some E12s' and E13s'.


Selmer USA has improved a great deal since the days of the Bundy and Signet lines and has a few beginner/intermediate clarinets that are worth looking into.
Although the Signet Special and Soloists were/are pretty good, and those old Bundys... They have to be the 'Timex' of beginner clarinets.
The Omega is about as close to a pro clarinet as you're going to get without the pro price.

Those are the ones I have personal experience with.

[pete]

The E11 was offered with nickel keywork, as were some E12s' and E13s'.
E11. Keywork: forged keys, copper plated then silver plated according to the Buffet Crampon method.
E13. Silver plated keywork.
However, I can accept that some older/original E11/12/13's had nickel keywork. (Also note that the current E13 is an A=442 instrument.)

Selmer USA has improved a great deal since the days of the Bundy and Signet lines and has a few beginner/intermediate clarinets that are worth looking into.

Although the Signet Special and [Signet] Soloists were/are pretty good, and those old Bundys... They have to be the 'Timex' of beginner clarinets.

The Omega is about as close to a pro clarinet as you're going to get without the pro price.

Those are the ones I have personal experience with.
The main reason why I don't try to talk about some of the more "vintage" clarinets is because I then have to talk about serial number ranges. Hey, the Marigaux I bought from you is a perfectly good horn and easily as good as or better than a YCL-20.

In other words, trying to simplify, a bit.

[pete]

I got a PM on this, so I thought I'd share:

Remember that we're trying to write out threads for beginners. I've tried to make it abundantly clear in http://www.woodwindforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2547 that the main reason NOT to buy a used horn is because a beginner/beginner's parent will probably not know how to determine if the horn he's looking at is junk.

That being said, if you can list common new horns or common used horns that you can find with a a full OVERHAUL and WARRANTY, that's helpful. Or, if you'd prefer, if you could look at a place that sells WARRANTIED, OVERHAULED horns, like http://www.musicremasters.com (http://www.musicremasters.com/), and talk about those horns, that would be extremely helpful. (It's especially helpful if you can go to http://www.woodwindforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2547 and list places you know that sell OVERHAULED, WARRANTIED used instruments.)

All that being said, if I was a beginner (or the parent of a beginner), a $250 B12/YCL-20 is worth more to me than a $350 Signet Soloist (not picking on Tammi; just using that as an example because it's mentioned in the thread) because I won't be able to tell much difference. And, if I decided I wanted to buy new, instead ... the Signet Soloist isn't out there anymore. The B12 is. The YCL-20 morphed into the YCL-250.

Additionally, think like a beginner or beginner's parent: if horn A is $250 and horn B is $350, is horn B really worth it, especially if I (or my kid) decide to stop taking lessons in 6 months?

It's partially my fault. I should have explained all this clearer when I opened the section.

[Tammi]

I wasn't recommending the Signet line, only saying that Selmer USA has improved the quality of their clarinets since these were in production, and that the newer student/intermediate offerings were worth taking a look at.
I'm sorry if I've made another mistake.

[SOTSDO]

Everybody makes mistakes, Tammi. One more from you just makes the rest of us look good, so we want you to stay around for the contrast....

I think that there is a danger of "over-thinking" all of this, and going to much more effort might end up making it more confusing and frustrating. The concept of viewing this from the perspective of a "know-nothing" parent rather than from that of a musician (even one who makes two whole mistakes like Tammi) is key here - first and foremost, the task of the guide should be to "demystify" the maze of instrument brands and models.

After all, the permutations of "what to buy" have increased geometrically, both by the proliferation of "models" and by the buying options that are now offered by eBay and such alternative methods as Craig's List.

Like it or not, we (or you) cannot be the ultimate guide to buying a clarinet on a service like eBay. Face it, eBay doesn't do a good job with its own procedures and processes, much less the millions (literally) of permutations of Chinese horns and Czech horns and Japanese horns and Indian horns that are listed there for sale on a daily basis.

Mind you, I don't want a single person on the face of the planet to be saddled with a Selman clarinet, but a single voice in the darkness cannot overcome all of the flashing lights and other visual tricks seen in the ads of the people that sell that dreck. It'd be like bailing the Titanic with a teaspoon - possible, but not practical.

(Getting down to the level that acknowledges the difference between early Bundy and late Bundy would be a authoring tour de force, but would ultimately cause as many questions as it would solve.

If it were me that was doing this (and it isn't - I'm far too lazy to put out so much effort), I would:

• Lose the listings of model names and numbers, and just point out that all of the major makers (who I would limit to Yamaha, Selmer, Leblanc, Buffet and (as a nod to what is out there in quantity) Boosey-Hawkes) have made introductory, intermediate and professional models

Then, I would add:

• There have been other makers throughout the years who have produced horns of comparable quality but who have now passed from the scene; and

• That the recent development of instruments made in primitive workshops in the Far East have flooded the market and made life a living hell for teachers and instrument repairmen alike.

Putting it in a "non-interactive form" like a list, table or whatever will turn off a good portion of the readership, many if not most of which come from the "post-reading" generation. Only if you could put forth the effort to render it in an interactive form (i.e., as a series of links that would cut down the length of the material to be read through) would most of these "post reading" folks bother to run through the non-relevant stuff to get to the particular Yamaha model for which they are looking.

True, taking this approach may mean that some unfortunate folks are going to be missing out on the occasional wonderful Marigaux instrument. But, if you try to cover everything, you will end up not covering everything well...and certainly not well enough (in the eyes of the intended user) to guide a buying decision of such (apparent) magnitude.

(I say "apparent" because the difference between a $400 instrument and a $600 instrument is only significant if you don't consider the $1,000 to $3,000 buying decisions that people are making about flat screen televisions and cruises on a yearly basis. That $200 difference pertaining to their children's education is only so much noise (the cocktails for one week) when considered in terms of a Caribbean cruise that the child's parents make take on a yearly basis. But, there's no accounting for taste...)

I'm just sayin'...