The switch: Bb soprano to Bb bass clarinet.

Cost is the number one obstacle to bass clarinet playing. Iffen you don't have access to a loaner horn, you're stuck with purchasing one. Used horns almost always have issues; new ones (even at the low end) are a significant purchase in most budgets.

No way around it, unless you marry someone who happens to own one...
 
As mentioned, I've bought a few baritone saxophones in my life, and a couple when I was in high school (I didn't own both at the same time, tho) -- and those are generally more expensive than most bass clarinets. The way I bought my horns was sorta ... accidental: I bought bari #1 relatively inexpensively and with a lot of cash from savings -- I had several different odd jobs. Bari #2 required me to sell bari #1 and a few other horns I had, some of which were just given to me.

My essential reasoning behind buying a bari was that I knew that I was going to go to college for music by the time I was a sophomore and I knew I needed a decent horn for it -- and I knew my mom wasn't financially able to help. Additionally, I was serious enough to want a horn that wasn't junky.

The "given to me" part might require explanation: it you're in music long enough, eventually you'll meet folks that will say something like, "Hey! You play X, don't you? I have one of those in my closet/attic/cellar. You want it?" The horns I got this way were a Pan American metal soprano clarinet, a early 1920's Wurlitzer alto (Conn stencil, IIRC), a Conn stencil C melody, and a Conn New Wonder tenor. The only one that was worth more than the cost of fixing it up was the tenor, but the combination of them = a decent chunk of change.

I was also given, later, some percussion equipment, including a concert bass drum, and a Selmer Centered Tone clarinet, all of which I eventually got repaired and then donated to a worthy cause.
 
Unspoken there as well is (generally speaking), most who purchase the larger horns do so through an extremely limited selection process. In most cases, you only get to experience them through occasionally trying someone else's horn, or through playing school horns.

In my case, I had had extensive experience with "professional grade" Leblanc bass clarinets when I made the decision to purchase my bass. (I also had quite a bit of time on various student level horns of the Vito and Bundy persuasion, along with almost as much time with Kohler "semi-pro" horns.) But, at that point in my life, I had never laid hands upon, much less played, a modern Buffet bass. (I grew up playing a Buffet Albert bass, but my parents traded it away when we bought my first Boehm soprano.)

When I was ready to buy, I looked in vain for someone who would offer me up a selection of Buffet bass horns (with extended range) to test. Whether from a lack of trust ("This twenty two year old guy is going to buy a thousand dollar bass clarinet? Yeah, right sure...") or from a lack of anyone having enough cred with the powers-that-were with Buffet, I don't know, but the end result was that all I had to choose from was the best that Kenosha had to offer and Selmer. As the closest thing I had to a mentor (the bass player from the local symphonic organization) was a strong Selmer partisan as well, the decision was more or less pre-determined.

It was much the same with my first lift of saxophones, as (at the time) there was really only one brand to purchase, that being Selmer. That said, I would have had significant troubles scaring up a single Couf, Leblanc, Buffet or Yanigisawa baritone to test-play (I don't think that there was such a thing as a Yahama at that point), much less a selection of them from which to choose that one special horn as I did with my Bb and A soprano clarinets.

THis in turn leads to my next contention, that being that many "preferences" when it comes to larger instruments and fingering systems are actually pre-determined by purchasing decisions that (once made) the player has to live with, one way or another.
 
SOTSDO said:
Unspoken there as well is (generally speaking), most who purchase the larger horns do so through an extremely limited selection process. In most cases, you only get to experience them through occasionally trying someone else's horn, or through playing school horns.
Click to expand...
Here is how I bought mine. After renting a Vito for a year we (i.e. my parents) bought a good bass clarinet. I think I was about 16. In my country it was (and still is) special order only. The only one I've tried was my teacher's old Buffet. What we did, through a friend, was to have a very good bass clarinet player in Paris go to a local (to him) store and try a bass clarinet, which we ordered from a store in Paris. He verified that the one they ship is good. They shipped it to here.

After some years I changed to a different bass clarinet (same model). I flew myself to Woodwind & Brasswind and tried about seven of this model. I also tried several from other models. Until this happened I also got to try some other bass clarinets from other local players.
 
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