Untitled Document
     
Advertisement Click to advertise with us!
     

Buffet B12, Equivalent or Similar help?

That I think would be the Vito 7214. I have one, it plays nice and might play nicer yet if I can isolate the final few leaks......and replace that tone hole I melted...

:-/
 
I checked, mine is the V7212, since it is minus the bell ring.
 
  • Like
Reactions: JfW
Some interesting points in this thread for a wannabe clarineter like me! Plastic preferable to wood, for similar reasons to those attached to recorders!
 
Did I ever tell you guys how scared I am of owning a wooden instrument? The chances of them cracking are waaay to great. You have to keep them dry, but not too dry. They have to be played-in properly, but then eventually--how long of course depends on how many hours a day you play them--they have to be replaced b/c they get "blown out". (That blown out comment refers to smaller clarinets especially.) Oh, and of course you shouldn't play them outside. All in all, give me something indestructible like my saxophone made of brass any day...

Clarinet purists will disagree, but these were primarily the reasons I stuck with non-wooden materials for my clarinets.
I will add my thoughts on to what you said; one agreeing and one disagreeing.
I will say that my Opinion (as there's no proven facts either way) is that Clarinets/Oboes being blown out is simply them needing repair, whether that be better padding, or more major things like key swedging. I will say my Selmer has never cracked, and I've never oiled it...
However I do agree with you that a non-wood clarinet is fine. It's a woodwind, so most of the sound is coming from the player and the mouthpiece, so what tone comes from body material, if any, doesn't matter as much as those, in my opinion.
 
I can think of no logic to the "blown out" idea. I think this was a holdover myth from when clarinets were made of boxwood, which from what I understand would develop an oval shape over time

Everything else is just a need for service. could be anything from a leaking joint, an unfixed crack, deposits around tone holes...

I could really use a few "blown out" R-13s, though.
 
I had never heard of the term "blown out", until I took a used, wooden clarinet that I picked up for $50 to my tech. He is an English horn player. He told me me that it was "blown out", in addition to the obvious stuff I saw wrong with the instrument that needed work. (Pads, as well as a minor crack.)

Since I didn't know what it meant, I asked him to explain it to me. He did explain, and was even able to show me the change in the bore's shape caused by the years of playing, and most likely lack of proper attention. When you compare the wooden clarinet I have to another clarinet, it is easy to see the difference.

Certainly not all wooden clarinets will suffer this fate. (For example, my late 1800's C. Jeuffroy (Noblet) Albert system is A-OK.) It all comes down to how much they are played, and how they are looked after. However, those that get "blown out", can have their intonation and tone affected by changes in to the bore.

Should I ever get around to it, I now have another potential lamp project. It's too bad really. I would have liked to play the mid-century Richard Keilwerth clarinet. It is like the kid sister to my bass.
 
As far as "blown out" goes, I've heard a few references to it and realized that I wouldn't care much, even if I was still a clarinet player: if I was to buy a wooden horn, it wouldn't be 50+ years old or something like that.

IIRC, somebody said that a treatment for "blown out horn syndrome" (BOHS?) is to remove the keys and soak the horn in oil for a day or so. (If anyone wants to Google that for me, please do.) I would then assume that you're replacing bad pads, corks, and felts ... so, an overhaul, like TrueTone mentions.

My wife generally pulls out her 1981 Signet once a year for playing at school functions. I've never seen her use bore oil on it and the horn generally gets stashed back in a storage place, which has AC, but I doubt it's humidity controlled. And I'm in Phoenix, AZ.
 
I'm wondering if we see it more here b/c of our climate?
 
I don't know.

Waaaaaay back in high school, I was in marching bands in both Plattsburgh, NY and Buffalo, NY. I think Plattsburgh would be slightly colder than BC, but I only played 2 years of marching. I don't remember having any real problems on clarinet, but my horns were relatively new, not ones that had been sitting around for years in someone's attic or basement for years.

I've also played metal clarinets, both Bb soprano and Bb contrabass (no, I didn't march with the contra). I would *think* that they could be superior to any other material, other than the fact that metal expands when it gets warm. I don't know at what temperatures make a significant difference. I'm just thinking "superior" because the bore has no flaws, like you get in wooden instruments. I also see Toby's mentioned having to smooth out the interior of tárogatós.

I'm just conjecturing, tho :D
 
Reference links:
https://forum.saxontheweb.net/archive/index.php/t-197144.html
http://www.naylors-woodwind-repair.com/lifeeverlasting.htm
http://www.naylors-woodwind-repair.com/Grenadilla.htm
http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/read.html?f=1&i=294656&t=294505

Larry R. Naylor is the guy that did the experiments regarding immersing clarinets in vegetable-based oil. Mr. Naylor says very specifically that he does not have any records indicating how many instruments he worked on were "improved" by doing this. However, he does mention a clarinet that was otherwise well overhauled that was improved after the immersion. Mr. Naylor also talks about the bore changing shape, like JfW mentions.

The woodwind.org (sneezy.org) thread is mostly against the idea that immersion helps in any significant way. Being the most charitable, it's a case of, "Can't hurt. Might help."

FWIW, this does sound a little like cryogenic treatment of saxophones, which was a hot topic a few years back. In the case of cryo, though, it's, "Might hurt your finish. Might help the horn play better."

Cryo isn't something intended to fix something that's broken. The oil immersion thing is. That scares me a little bit and makes me want to check out more plastic, rubber, or metal horns if I was looking at something more than, say, 20 years old. (Again, it doesn't make a difference to me, as it's probable that I'll never play another clarinet, but I'd definitely like to point other folks to this thread.)
 
I've never bought into the cryo thing, but there was a shop in Chicago years ago that used to do it for brass instruments exclusively. They had endorsements from some of the CSO guys including one of the tuba players (now that's a big cryo tank!).

A couple of my trumpet buddies had it done and swore their horns were much more resonant with a bigger sound. Confirmation bias? Maybe the disassembly / re-assembly, re-fitting of the valves had a bigger impact? Maybe after dropping a bunch of money, they just "felt" it had to be better.
 
BTW, when I was talking climate, I wasn't referring to cold. Here on the West Coast, we have an unusual climate for Canada. We are the only part of the country that is a rain forest. We very seldom have snow. Our winters are characterized by lots of rain, and above freezing temps.
 
BTW, when I was talking climate, I wasn't referring to cold. Here on the West Coast, we have an unusual climate for Canada. We are the only part of the country that is a rain forest. We very seldom have snow. Our winters are characterized by lots of rain, and above freezing temps.
Makes me want to visit even more. No place in the US I've lived is like that.
 
Back
Top Bottom