Untitled Document
     
Advertisement Click to advertise with us!
     

the Click Barrel

Steve

Clarinet CE/Moderator
Staff member
CE/Moderator
Thought I would provide some pictures of the Click Barrel

BELOW: The one and only Click Barrel !!
picture.php
picture.php


BELOW: To the left one can clearly see the finger mechanism to extend the barrel. The barrel does work much smoother when it is installed versus in-hand. It extends from 63mm to 67mm
picture.php


BELOW: Here is the barrel fully extended. Notice the slotted section extended versus the picture above.
picture.php


BELOW: Here you can see the inner fixed sleeve and the outer extending sleeve
picture.php


BELOW: you can see the outer sleeve extended from the inner fixed sleeve
picture.php


Below: Don't forget to read the instructions.
picture.php


Most, if not all of my barrels work much better on the clarinet :)
 
Last edited:
I'm of the opinion that if you like the tone of it, it's a great investment, and well worth the money for one, especially if you perform with many different groups. I prefer Clark Fobes brand material, and while I've never tried a click barrel, I fell in love with the Fobes barrel when I first played it.
 
Is the Fobes adjustable?
 
Is the Fobes adjustable?

Sorry unfortunately no. So I have 3 Fobes barrels 64mm 65mm and 66mm and the tenon ring things as well which are .5 mm. A little advert for Fobes, because I like his products and want him to stay in business. I think they sweetened my throat tones, pinky tones, and highs. A lot of people have success with other barrels too, don't get me wrong, but I am enjoying my current setup with the Fobes.

The barrels are "ringless", meaning there's no metal rings around the edges. I like that, except the barrel stick out further from the top joint then the original barrel. It kinda looks like Ricardo Morales' setup, since he has the backun barren and bell as well.

You know, if backun is making a barrel and bell, he might as well keep going and make the whole darn thing. Since everyone replaces the mouthpiece to start, there's really not much left of the original clarinet you purchased.
 
I have barrels from 63 to 67 for by Buffet with various internals .. Moennig, Chadash, cylindrical. Plus others. But the Click is a nice alternative but I find the bore to be best designed for the Selmer CT.

I only posted this because in the other thread there was some interest in what they looked like and how they worked.
 
A quick search seems to show that the original click barrels have been discontinued. I think I read that on the Clarinet BB a while ago. I did find these two from RS Berkeley:

http://www.amazon.com/Liberty-Barrel-RSBAB-01-Adjustable-Clarinet/dp/B005HO1XB4/ref=pd_cp_MI_0

http://www.amazon.com/Freedom-Barrel-FACB-01-Adjustable-Clarinet/dp/B005HO1IQY

The both appear to be made of metal. I wonder what that does to the sound. :wink:

Edit - OK, why did my "wink" emoticon show up as a URL?

"Precision manufactured from aerospace grade materials" for the Liberty.
"Made from aluminum alloy" for the Freedom.

Quite an adjustment range on these. It doesn't say anything about the shape of the bore.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
They are 100% plastic.
No rust, no oxidation. As a single use/main barrel I wouldn't use one. But as a space saving gig saver I wouldn't be without one. I don't want to carry around 7 different barrels and an assortment of shims with me. I like carrying my main barrel, my alternate and a click. No need for more.

Tonight I'm taking my click and a vintage adjustable barrel to rehearsal to see how they compare tonally.
 
I got really lucky that all those barrels fit in my case in the same space as a box of reeds. So they're fine. Unfortunately my selmer reed case with the glass inside doesn't fit in the case cause it's too tall, so I leave an extra box of reeds in the clarinet case just in case.
 
You know, if backun is making a barrel and bell, he might as well keep going and make

There's a world of difference (and complexity) between a clarinet barrel or bell (and mouthpiece, for that matter) and the "rest of the instrument" that lies between. With a decent lathe (a metalworking lathe - the standard wood ones don't offer enough precision) and some good billets of wood or hard rubber, you can crank out either a bell or a barrel with little trouble. (Indeed, the rings are probably more complicated to have fabricated than the wood/hard rubber body.)

(As an exercise in high school, I took off the measurements of my Selmer Series 9 bell and attempted to turn one in hard maple on the metal lathe. Things went fine until I started to thin down the exterior of the bell from the rough cut - the wood then split along a branch socket buried in the inner mass of the wood. Game over, man - besides, I had no way to do the rings in anything other than carbon steel.)

Mouthpieces are another leap up in complexity, with asymmetric surfaces that take a little doing to get right, and the actual "instrument" (I was once told that all Selmer (Paris) shipped to the US were the two body joints) something far beyond that. Even a simple manufacturing setup involves the lathe, various boring instruments (and no, I am not talking about flutes here - I mean stuff like boring bars), location sleeves and fly cutters, to say nothing of the keywork. Much, much more complicated. Go to computer controlled machining and the complexity climbs even higher.

That's not to say that Backun could not have caused this to happen - there are a lot of Chinese folks out there just itching to do our bidding for dollars. But, it's probably far more of a burden than he (and most others) would care to take on.

Besides, there's the massive stocks of white cotton gloves that would have to be bought...
 
Back
Top Bottom