Expert: Rebecca - 11/17/2007

Question
I have heard that the Buffet R13 clarinets made i the 60's and early seventies are made of better quality wood than the current models and are highly sought after. Is this true?

Answer
Hi Ernest,

Clarinets do not improve with age and so a new clarinet is going to be better, in general, than an old one. But you're right, some old clarinets are better than others. I've been told by reputable repair people that the R13s from the late 60s (and maybe early 70s, I can't remember) are better than the rest. It likely has something to do with the quality of the wood and the mechanism (the clarinets from this period benefited from advanced design and also were made from old-growth wood, which was soon replaced by new-growth grnadilla..not sure what the differences might be in the area of mechanism). From what I've heard (from what I recall) it also has do with the design of the bore.  

The R13 has been tweaked over the years in the quest to make an instrument that is technically easy to play (placement of keys and mechanism), pleasant sounding (bore shape and other factors), and in tune (placement of keys and bore shape).  These three areas are interrelated and must all be compromised to some extent.

*Warning: proceed with caution, as the following paragraphs are murky due to my not-entirely-reliable memory and the fact that the subject itself is fairly subjective.

From what I have been told and now still recall, after the late 60s/early 70s, Buffet chose to compromise sound in favor of intonation to a greater degree. Which means that the bore (the inside of the clarinet) became narrower and was given more of an hourglass shape to it, creating a less flexible but more reliable pitch basis.

This change was good for musicians with weak ears, because if they placed their fingers in the right spots and blew properly, they would be closer to "in tune" than on a previous version of the R13. But for musicians with reliable ears, this change potentially limited their possibilities for nuances tones, made the sound smaller than before, and limited flexibility (the ability to bend the pitch).

The thing is that with the newer design (and with the older design, as well, because it too had some hourglass shaping) over time the hourglass shape sort of disappears as the cleaning cloth is pulled and the air is blown through the instrument. So intonation becomes less reliable over the years (and more bendable/fexible). This opening up of the sound can be good and bad (especially bad for clarinetists who cannot hear pitch nuances very well).

So if you compare a blown-out R13 from after say, 1973, and compare it to a blown-out R13 between say, 1960-1973 (the design improved substantially, I think, somewhere around 1960), it is likely that you will prefer the latter clarinet. Whether this is due more to the wood quality or the design, I don't know.

Add to this the fact that the R13 is notoriously inconsistent, meaning that they vary hugely from one to the next. Some view this to be a bad thing, but others think it has been the company's saving grace. It means that if I try 20 Buffets, chances are that I'll find one that is pretty well suited to me. Whereas if I try 1 Selmer and I don't like it, then I probably won't like the next 19 that I try, either.

Which means that it's entirely possible that you might find your perfect fit in a blown-out clarinet from 1980 over a clarinet from 1969.

Hoping that I've helped more than confused,

Rebecca