Instrument stands for doublers: mini-reviews and a wish list

ByBret Pimentel

Recently I have been getting a bit of pit work from a nearby community theater. They like to do month-long runs of their shows, which means that the musical director often hires two or more people for each seat in the orchestra, so that they can trade off playing the show according to their availability. One little perk of this method is that often the woodwind player who does the first show leaves his or her instrument stands in the pit for the other doubler(s) to use, so I’ve gotten to try out a variety of stands lately in a real-life situation.

I have, of course, a number of stands of my own, most of which do a basically satisfactory job, but none of which I’m overwhelmingly enamored with.

My main workhorse stand is by Belmonte, and looks something like this. Mine is a few years old and it looks like there may have been a few minor design changes. It holds an alto and a tenor saxophone (or two altos or two tenors—the bell rests adjust to alto or tenor positions), plus a flute and clarinet (or two flutes, or two clarinets).

I like it because:

  • It’s relatively cheap.
  • It folds up, sort of, and you can take all the instrument pegs out for even more compact storage/transport.
  • It’s fairly stable.
  • When my old one wore out, I called the company and they sent me a new one with no hassle. I didn’t even have to ship them the old one.

I hate it because:

  • It’s not tremendously sturdy; the hinges tend to get a little loose after a while.
  • It has the typical “combo flute/clarinet peg” problems. My clarinet sometimes gets wedged onto the base of the peg, and in some cases I grab the upper joints of the clarinet, leaving the lower joint and bell still on the stand. Plus, the upright is too narrow to hold my flute without wobbling. There isn’t any chance of it falling over or anything, but I’d like it to fit the bore of my flute more closely.
  • It won’t fold up right with both saxophone pegs installed. You have to take one out, then fold it up, then try to stick the peg back in.

I have the Belmonte baritone saxophone stand, too, and like it pretty well, though I suspect it will similarly suffer from wear and tear.

I’m currently playing a gig at the theater and using someone else’s Belmonte stand that holds a single saxophone and has two flute/clarinet pegs:


I like it because:

  • It has a nice small footprint if you only need one saxophone, and the tripod-style legs are handy when you’ve got music stands, microphone stands, chairs, and cables running everywhere.
  • Fairly stable.

I hate it because:

  • The instruments are too close together. This contributes to the compactness of the stand, but I really need another couple of inches so that I can make quick switches without having to maneuver instruments into and out of such tight spaces.
  • Usual flute/clarinet peg problem; it would be nice to have a real clarinet peg and a real flute peg rather than the either/or peg.

But of course there is more to life than flute-clarinet-saxophone doubling. I invested in a K&M folding base that accommodates four pegs, and several pegs to go with it: piccolo, flute, oboe, English horn, and clarinet.

I like it because:

  • It’s totally modular, so you just buy the pegs you need.
  • It’s a pretty inexpensive way to get a quasi-custom setup for smaller woodwinds.
  • They make two different piccolo pegs, a narrower one for conical (wood/plastic) instruments, and a wider one for cylindrical (metal) instruments.

I hate it because:

  • It arranges the instruments in a square, so you end with some instruments farther away and have to reach through a forest of woodwinds to grab what you need.
  • I bought the narrow piccolo peg and broke it almost immediately. The upright part is nothing more than a black-painted piece of very thin dowel.
  • I’ve had some quality problems with the the hardware; my oboe peg is permanently stuck to the base, and the English horn peg hardware has become detached from the wood.

I also have the K&M bassoon/bass clarinet stand, the one with the big rubber bowl at the bottom, rather than the hard metal ashtray thing.

I like it because:

  • It’s very sturdy and stable.
  • It’s quite adjustable, and really does work quite well for either bassoon or any of the large clarinets.

I hate it because:

  • It’s huge.
  • I can’t seem to set it up without pinching a finger somewhere in all the moving parts.
  • It’s expensive, over $100 last I checked.

At a recent gig, I used one of these Hercules flute-piccolo-clarinet stands that belongs to a friend. Hercules makes a variety of stands, but this is the only one I’ve used personally.

I like it because:

  • It seems quite stable and pretty sturdy. Their saxophone stands seem to be well-regarded in this department, too.
  • It folds up nicely.
  • The Hercules stands all seem to be very reasonably priced.

I hate it because:

  • It has yellow trim. Not on the pegs, which might be useful in the dark, but on the base, where its only function is to call attention to itself (and perhaps provide a little free advertising).
  • It arranges the instruments in a triangle, so the best you can do is have two instruments toward you, and one farther away that you have to reach around or between to get to.
  • My flute feels really unstable on the skinny little peg.

Some other items I use: a Manhasset music stand shelf (works great on Manhasset music stands, won’t work at all on Wenger stands) for piccolo, mouthpiece caps, or reed paraphernalia; a drumstick caddy (basically a cup that clips onto a stand) for recorders, whistles, or piccolo; and several of those little plastic BG folding stands, which obviously are neither sturdy nor reliable, but which have the advantage of folding completely flat so they’re easy to carry in a clarinet or oboe case.

Haven’t tried them myself yet, but I’ve heard good things about these SaxRax stands, such as that they are ultra-stable and ultra-tough. They are also highly customizable depending on what parts you buy. And highly expensive! Maybe someday. Another downside: no double reed or piccolo pegs.

The Blayman stands seem to be the gold standard for heavy, solid stands for small woodwinds, but of course they are expensive, and their multi-peg bases tend to arrange the instruments in triangles or squares.

My wish list for a line of woodwind stands:

  • Solid, heavy construction. Lots of instrument stands seem to advertised as “lightweight,” but I think this is a case of selling a bug as a feature. I suppose it would be nice to carry feather-light stands between the car and the venue, but then again I’m probably already making two or more trips schlepping instruments anyway.
  • Modular design, so I can buy just the pegs that I want, and bring just the ones I need to the gig. This has the added advantage of making well-designed, instrument-specific pegs possible, even pegs designed for specific models of instruments.
  • Instruments arranged in a line (or curve, perhaps), rather than a polygon, and with a good balance of keeping the instruments far enough apart and keeping the stand’s footprint small.
  • Legs (perhaps removable?) that lift the stand off the floor by an inch or two, to allow for cables and other pit-floor clutter.
  • I like instrument pegs padded with something soft, for protection and for silence. Felt is my favorite where practical, but it seems too slippery to hold a saxophone by the bell.
  • How about pegs I can see in the dark? I think a white or even glow-in-the-dark dot at the tip of each peg would be subtle enough to honor the traditional all-black pit look, but aid tremendously in getting an instrument onto the stand quickly in low light.
  • Perhaps peg extensions, so that I can decide how high my instruments are? Some piccolo stands are built this way, with a piccolo peg atop a taller riser, so you don’t have to reach down to the floor.
  • Relatively inexpensive would be nice, too, as long as I’m dreaming.

Is that too much to ask?

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  • Saxophone altissimo books: Raschèr vs. Rousseau

    ByBret Pimentel

    My university saxophone students are anxious to tackle the altissimo register, and it’s not at all uncommon for them to show up to their first lessons clutching the Sigurd Raschèr Top-Tones for the Saxophone book and wearing a hopeful expression. I also see the Raschèr book frequently and glibly recommended on online forums. With the greatest respect for Raschèr, I think this is a mistake.

    Don’t get me wrong: the Raschèr book is a classic and contains a great deal of wisdom. It is a must-have for the well-read saxophonist. But I think most saxophonists would do better to start with Eugene Rousseau’s Saxophone High Tones, and have the Raschèr on hand for supplementary exercises and instruction.

    Get this one first
    Get this one first
    Use this one as a supplement
    Use this one as a supplement

    I’m going to make the following point first, not because I think it’s necessarily the most important, but because it’s the one that will click with those of you who are hoping to “learn altissimo” in an afternoon by looking at a fingering chart: Rousseau’s fingering charts are much better. They are better suited to “modern” (Mark VI and beyond) instruments and more complete (in the sense of providing many more options for each note, though Raschèr’s chart does go a little higher). Rousseau also provides separate fingering charts for soprano, alto, tenor, and baritone, while Raschèr provides only one chart, which he indicates in the first-edition foreword is intended for “E-flat saxophones”—altos, that is. (I do have a few issues with the visual layout of Rousseau’s charts, and Raschèr’s too, but that’s another rant.) Read More “Saxophone altissimo books: Raschèr vs. Rousseau”

  • Review: The Woodwind Player’s Cookbook

    ByBret Pimentel

    I’ve been reading The Woodwind Player’s Cookbook, published last year by Meredith Music and edited by Charles West. It’s a collection of 57 pedagogical essays by a pretty impressive roster of woodwind folks. You can download the table of contents here to see the authors and titles.

    Most of the articles deal with technique fundamentals on specific instruments, which should make this book valuable to school band directors, but it also works quite well as a handbook for woodwind doublers; in fact, there are several articles that deal specifically with doubling, by Mike Duva, James Nesbit, Elsie Parker, and Albert Regni. Read More “Review: The Woodwind Player’s Cookbook”

  • Review: ClariMate digital clarinet mute by Buffet-Crampon

    ByBret Pimentel

    Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases, at no cost to you.

    Bottom line: the ClariMate is an interesting gadget with potential for various uses, but it’s a little rough around the edges. Consider buying one now as a tech toy if you’re an early-adopter type, or wait for a new-and-improved iteration if you need something that just works.

    I recently got my hands on the “ClariMate,” a new electronic device from the venerable Buffet-Crampon, clarinet maker of choice for most Boehm-system players worldwide. “Play anywhere, anytime,” its marketing materials proclaim, “the gateway to silent practice and digital music.” It’s a surprising and intriguing offering from a company more associated with tradition and history than innovation.

    Players of electric keyboards and guitars have long had the option of using headphones, and Yamaha’s “Silent Brass” digital practice mutes were introduced in the 1990s. But woodwinds are much more complicated to silence, since sound waves don’t just emanate from the instrument’s end—they come from the instruments’ many toneholes. Enterprising folks have marketed a number of questionable solutions, ranging from pieces of foam stuffed inside the instrument to molded containers that completely encase it.

    Buffet is betting on a more sophisticated approach. The ClariMate plugs into your clarinet’s barrel on one end and accepts your mouthpiece on the other, and does some electronic trickery in between. Buffet’s sales pitch is that you can play on your own clarinet silently, without substantially changing the instrument’s feel and with a convincing clarinet sound in your earphones. Does it fulfill this promise?

    Yes, kind of. But it’s a new technology with a lot of real-world variables to deal with, and it’s marketed to some of the most sensitive and finicky customers there are: musicians.

    So, at a current price of $425 USD, as much as a handmade mouthpiece, is it worth it? Let’s take a closer look.

    What’s in the ClariMate box

    • The ClariMate unit, a black plastic thing with buttons and lights. The tube part adds about 1½” (38mm) of length to your clarinet. The perpendicular part with the buttons is about 2″×2½” (51mm×64mm). The unit weighs about 1½ oz (45g).

    • A nice black nylon carrying case, about 6″×6″×3″ (15cm×15cm×7.5cm).

    • Two “active reeds,” like plastic clarinet reeds with some additional attached mechanism that fits inside your mouthpiece

    • Some spare O-rings for the ClariMate’s tenon, where it connects to your barrel

    • A few rubbery plugs that can be inserted into the end of the flexible tube, for customizing the blowing resistance to your liking

    • A fabric-jacketed USB cable, for charging the ClariMate and for connecting to a computer

    • A flexible tube that connects to the ClariMate and dangles inside the clarinet

    ClariMate and accessories

    ClariMate device in closeup

    ClariMate installed on clarinet

    What the ClariMate sounds like

    There are a couple of questions to address here: what does the ClariMate sound like in your earphones, and what does it sound like to someone else in the room?

    The ClariMate does effectively silence your clarinet (almost), since the “active reed” assembly does not vibrate. Instead, the ClariMate detects what pitch your clarinet would be producing, based on the fingering you’re using, and replaces that with an electronic clarinet sound in your earphones.

    The electronic clarinet sound is a garden-variety synthesized clarinet, like the one from your electric keyboard or music notation software. You wouldn’t mistake it for a real instrument, but it’s recognizable as a clarinet. A contact at Buffet tells me an improved, acoustically-modeled sound is already in the works for a future software release (which will be installable on already-purchased ClariMates).

    Here’s a short demonstration. I play two excerpts from the Rose 32 Etudes, first on “real” clarinet and then with the ClariMate (with the Windows app). The final part of the video shows the sound in the room (which is virtually silent).

    The ClariMate unit does produce a very quiet but audible hum (Buffet calls it the “chirp”), which changes as you open and close toneholes. Here’s an up-close recording of what it sounds like. I’ve got the microphone right at the bell, and I’m playing some notes down to low E. The thumps are the pads closing, and should give you an idea of how much I boosted the recording volume.

    In reality the chirp is quiet enough to be masked by typical room sounds like air conditioning.

    Connections

    The ClariMate can be used in “standalone” mode, in which you just plug in some wired earphones (not included) and play. It can also connect to computer apps via USB cable or smartphone/tablet apps via Bluetooth for additional features.

    It can’t be used with Bluetooth earphones due to latency, a delay between when you play the note and when you would hear it in the earphones. The technological issue here is real and probably currently unavoidable at this price point, but it’s a shame to see this device hit the market just when many people are discarding their wired earphones and living in their Bluetooth ones.

    The ClariMate website suggests the USB mode can be used for MIDI, but the user manual doesn’t provide any information about this, and Windows did not detect my ClariMate as a MIDI device. A Buffet representative confirms that although this functionality is mentioned on the website, MIDI features are “not publicly available yet.”

    Operating the ClariMate unit

    The ClariMate has four buttons and four LED lights. Two of the buttons operate as simple volume-up and volume-down buttons, but you have to use an app to get any visual feedback on how much of the available volume you’re using.

    There’s also a power button for starting the unit in standalone mode, or you can turn the power on while holding any of the other three buttons to start in USB, Bluetooth, or reed calibration mode. I find this a little fussy and non-intuitive; you have to read the manual to figure out how to turn the device on correctly. (Although I will allow that a clarinetist ought to be able to handle pressing more than one button at a time.)

    Playing the ClariMate

    Playing a clarinet with the ClariMate feels pretty natural to my embouchure. The non-vibration of the reed, which feels shiny-smooth but otherwise pretty reed-like, is different but not difficult to deal with.

    The latency of the note tracking is slight and mostly manageable, but noticeable to an experienced clarinetist.

    A contact at Buffet explained that the ClariMate requires a fair amount of finger precision, maybe even more than actually playing the clarinet, in order to correctly recognize the pitches you want. This was a purposeful choice, as the ClariMate team wanted to make sure the device was useful as a practice aid, and not something that would allow you to develop bad playing habits. I found the ClariMate mostly identified my intended pitches without difficulty.

    Failure to detect the intended notes can be due to imprecise finger placement, or due to differences between your clarinet and barrel and those used in developing the ClariMate (apparently a Buffet E11). This can be fixed by “training” the ClariMate to recognize your individual instrument’s quirks. My Buffet Festival B-flat mostly worked pretty well without any training for playing simple things, but I did do a full training regimen, which took about 5 minutes, to get the device to respond well to faster passages and short staccato notes. The training consists of the app showing you a sequence of notes, which you play on your instrument.

    You can adjust the ClariMate’s breath sensor “threshold” to match your accustomed reed response (in other words, will the ClariMate start playing with the slightest breath, or will there be a bit of cushion to blow against?).

    The “active reed” has a simple non-electronic device that sits inside the mouthpiece to detect pressure on the reed. As I understand it, this pressure is supposed to affect pitch, but I was unable to get the reed properly calibrated, so I wasn’t able to test this. I got an error message from the apps over and over during the calibration process. A Buffet representative kindly walked me through several potential solutions, including trying ligatures other than the one I usually use, but we were unable to solve the problem.

    the "active reed"

    ClariMate "active reed," installed

    I’m not convinced that mapping volume to breath pressure and pitch to reed pressure accurately reflects real clarinet playing. Intentional adjustments to pitch on the clarinet are best accomplished with voicing rather than changing the pressure on the reed. Pressure on the reed is, however, tied to volume in “real” clarinet playing, and breath support should generally remain constant. In this way, the tone-production aspects of the ClariMate may not be a direct match to real-world clarinet playing, though they will be familiar to players of electronic wind controllers.

    The extra length and weight added to the instrument by installing the ClariMate is not bothersome. It’s not much more than the difference between playing a B-flat clarinet and an A clarinet.

    Use cases

    Buffet’s primary push for the ClariMate seems to be as a device for practicing silently. After fully “training” the device to recognize notes on my instrument, the note tracking is probably good enough for most practice applications, but still has a just-noticeable lag that would be problematic for artist-level playing.

    And, of course, the tone production aspects of practicing (tone, intonation, response) are lost or substantially changed when using the ClariMate. This may limit its usefulness to developing players.

    Buffet’s marketing materials also suggest the device can be used for digital music-making. It does at least theoretically provide a way for a clarinetist to control MIDI devices or other electronics using their own instrument, pending future software releases.

    A Buffet representative described their conception of the ClariMate-plus-clarinet as wind controller as a “Reversible Hybrid Instrument (RHI).” I do think the addition of electronics to a woodwind instrument suggests some future possibilities for digitally-augmented performance, perhaps blending electronic sounds with live instrument sounds. But this isn’t possible with the ClariMate, which prevents the clarinet from producing its natural sound.

    And if you want to play a wind-controlled synthesizer, then I still think the best way is to make the effort and learn to play a purpose-built one, my favorite being the Akai EWI series. Some other instrument makers (Roland, Yamaha) have introduced digital saxophone-style instruments, which are easy for saxophonists to play out of the box but which fully embrace the problematic aspects of saxophones, like palm keys and pinky rollers.

    Digital saxophones at least have the ability to expand their tessitura with relatively intuitive solutions like additional octave keys, but this would be more complicated on the clarinet (whose registers aren’t an octave apart). The ClariMate brings to the table the possibility for clarinetists to play an electronic instrument without learning new fingerings or significantly new tone production techniques, but, like the digital saxophones, brings the limitations of an “acoustic” instrument into the digital world.

    The apps are able to provide some real-time visualization of aspects of your playing, such as breath pressure and reed pressure, and there is potential for these, used judiciously, to become useful diagnostic or pedagogical tools.

    Reliability

    My ClariMate worked upon first opening the box, but I quickly ran into some issues that made the device inoperable. With assistance from Buffet’s support staff, I was able to resolve these. An ongoing problem is that I am unable to complete the reed calibration process, getting a persistent error message in the apps. That means I can’t alter pitch by applying pressure to the reed.

    I experimented with the Windows and Android apps. There are also apps for Apple devices. (As a Linux user, I’m experiencing the familiar disappointment that my preferred platform isn’t supported.) The apps feel buggy and unreliable—I find myself often restarting them and the device to try to solve various technical issues. My conversations with Buffet suggest that they are hopeful about frequent and significant software improvements, including updated firmware that you install on the device itself to improve its future functionality. (Long-term software development will no doubt depend on the financial success of the ClariMate project.)

    It’s worth bearing in mind that this is in some ways a whole new class of device, so some birthing pains are to be expected. If you enjoy tinkering with the newest gadgets and have the patience or tech savvy to work around some bugs while waiting hopefully for software updates, then I think the ClariMate is usable. If you are a more reluctant tech user, it may be wise to wait for the ClariMate’s software and/or hardware to mature more fully.

    How the ClariMate works

    I’m not a scientist or engineer, but here’s what I can gather:

    The ClariMate uses an air pressure sensor to detect how hard you’re blowing, and translates that into volume (or silence if it detects you aren’t blowing).

    The reed bite sensor works by way of a small mirror, a light, and a light sensor. The light shines on the mirror (part of the “active reed” assembly) and reflects back to the sensor. Biting on the reed moves the mirror and affects how much light is reflected.

    The ClariMate unit produces a quiet hum (the “chirp”) inside the bore of the instrument. Opening and closing toneholes affects the pitch of the chirp. A microphone detects the pitch of the chirp, compares it to a stored database of pitches, and plays back the corresponding note from the electronic clarinet sound.

    As a side note, the pitch of the chirp isn’t necessarily the same as the pitch of the note that is produced in the earphones. You can hear it change, and the device can match that pitch to the intended note, but you can’t necessarily hear the tune you’re playing just from the chirp.

    Also, the ClariMate doesn’t directly detect your fingerings—for example, it can’t tell if you are playing low E with the left or right hand pinky. But it can recognize some alternate fingerings that produce detectably different chirp pitches.

    The flexible tube allows for drainage of condensation, and also directs your breath out the instrument’s bell rather than letting it linger inside the instrument’s bore, where it would affect bore temperature and interfere with the ClariMate’s pitch detection.

    Additional observations

    The name “ClariMate” is cute but fails to describe the product in a useful way. I imagine “ClariMute” must also have been discussed, but another product with that name already exists. Here’s how the packaging justifies the name:

    The box reads: Mute: Play silently Acoustic: Hear your instrument digitally Technology: Use your clarinet for digital projects Easy-to-use: Switch from acoustic to digital and back again

    I have heard rumors that the ClariMate has been in development for 10 years. If that’s true, it’s odd that the release of the product feels like it was kind of rushed. There are some rough edges on the technology, and also on the product release. The demonstration video on the product website failed to actually demonstrate the product being used. It didn’t include any audio of the instrument’s sound in the earphones or in the room, the two things that I wanted and expected to hear in a media clip. (I’ve hopefully helped rectify that with this review.)

    I was provided by Buffet-Crampon with a ClariMate unit at no charge, with the possibility but not the promise of a review. I have done my best to keep my review unbiased. I use some other Buffet products but have no official relationship with the brand.

  • Review: D’Addario Evolution clarinet mouthpieces

    ByBret Pimentel

    Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases, at no cost to you.

    D’Addario was kind enough to send me a couple of their new(ish) Reserve Evolution clarinet mouthpieces to try out.

    The Evolution currently comes in a single opening/facing, but the two Evolution mouthpieces I received are different in appearance: one is the standard black, and the other is what’s called “marble” on D’Addario’s website, or “sandstone marble” on the box. I usually don’t care to have equipment that calls too much attention to itself, but this is pretty cool and subtle enough not to be gaudy on stage.

    I can’t definitively say that there is a difference in how the marble/non-marble play or sound. For the two I have in hand, the marble is possibly very (very) slightly more dark/muted, and the non-marble has very slightly more brightness/presence. But this doesn’t match my experience trying the mouthpieces back-to-back at the ICA conference (“ClarinetFest®”) over the summer. In any case, if there’s a difference, it’s trivially small, and I think you can pick the one that you think looks nicest.

    As I’ve pointed out in my reviews of D’Addario’s other clarinet and saxophone mouthpieces, these are made with very, very high consistency, which finally brings mouthpieces into the online shopping age: you can just order one from wherever you find the lowest price, and count on it to play just as well as any other. No need to order a bunch of them, put a deposit on your credit card, ship back the ones you don’t want, pay a restocking/sanitation fee, etc. And if you lose or break yours, you can get a replacement quickly and probably not notice any difference. They are great-playing, affordable mouthpieces, but the consistency is the unique, killer feature. I’ve personally adopted each new clarinet and saxophone mouthpiece as it has hit the market.

    (I don’t have a formal relationship, endorsement deal, etc. with D’Addario. They do sometimes send me products to try, presumably with the hope that I will review them favorably, but there’s no advance agreement. And I think that the consistent quality is a significant development in the mouthpiece market, and worth comment.)

    What I’m looking for in a mouthpiece is a good balance between response and stability. To some extent these may be two sides of the same coin. A very responsive mouthpiece “speaks” immediately, even on resistant notes or at softer volume. But sometimes the tone and/or pitch are too flexible, and keeping them in check takes a lot of work. A very stable mouthpiece has consistent tone and pitch, but may take more work to get notes to respond as desired.

    The particular quality of tone is my third consideration. I don’t make this my first priority for a few reasons. One is that a mouthpiece that strikes a good responsive/stable balance is already likely to have an appropriate, middle-of-the-road, versatile tone. (Often, within that middle-of-the-road zone, more “responsive” mouthpieces tend toward “brightness,” “presence,” or “liveliness,” while more “stable” mouthpieces lean toward “darkness,” “warmth,” or a “covered” sound.) Another reason is that tone quality is one of the more malleable aspects of a mouthpiece’s playing characteristics. If it functions well on the response/stability axis, then with a little time I will probably adapt my embouchure in minute ways (even without realizing it) to find the tone I want.

    For the last seven years I have been using D’Daddario’s Reserve X5 clarinet mouthpiece, so I’m using that as my frame of reference. The Reserve and Evolution mouthpieces are both good, solid choices, and I can’t really say broadly that one is better than the other. But they have some differences in response, stability, and tone, which I’ll outline here in case it helps you pick one that best suits your preference.

    Basically I find the Reserve to lean slightly toward responsiveness, with the expected tinge of brightness/presence, and the Evolution to tend more stable, with the darker/more covered sound. It’s subtle.

    (Besides the mouthpieces, D’Addario also makes Reserve and Evolution reeds, which I find to have those same characteristics: Reserve = more responsive, Evolution = more stable. A D’Addario representative tells me the similarly named mouthpieces and reeds are “not meant to be exclusively paired together.”)

    The following audio clips are all played using the same reed, a D’Addario Reserve 3.5. It’s just a little softer than I prefer for the X5, which accounts for some of the responsiveness and brightness but not all of it. Using a 3.5+ brings the sound and response just slightly closer to the Evolutions.

    Evolution (black)

    Evolution (marble)

    Reserve X5

    These photos are of the packaging for the X5 and Evolution mouthpieces. The measurements, oddly, are mostly in inches. (The X5 packaging is several years old, from when these were still sold as “Rico Reserve;” I don’t know if the box otherwise still looks the same.) The side view diagrams seem to indicate that both have a tip opening of ~.042 inches, which seems like a possible typo. Assuming the openings are precisely 1.05mm and 1.08mm (as also indicated on the packaging), these might be better expressed as .041 and .043.

    I like both the Reserve X5 (my current favorite of the Reserve options) and the Evolution, and currently they are both living in my clarinet case. If forced to choose, I think at the moment I would fall back on the X5, because responsiveness feels important to me right now. But I can easily see myself switching to the Evolution at some point, perhaps depending on repertoire and performance situation.

    In any case, the Evolution is another strong addition to D’Addario’s line of mouthpieces, and worth checking out.

  • |

    Anatomy of a bad bamboo flute

    ByBret Pimentel

    Bamboo flutes and other “world”-type woodwinds of true musician quality can be difficult to find, and if you’re not experienced with them it can be nearly impossible to tell if an online seller’s wares are genuinely playable or more like souvenir items. I’m going to share an experience of mine in which I gambled and got burned, in case it is instructive to anyone out there.

    Recently I needed a bamboo flute in a specific and unusual key (high B-flat) on very short notice for a gig (a performance of the Duke Ellington Nutcracker Suite). My favorite trusted flutemakers don’t currently make flutes in that key, so I placed an order with a flutemaker that I hadn’t bought from before. (I won’t identify the flutemaker here, but I will say that he and his staff were very nice to me. When there was a totally-understandable wrinkle in getting the flute shipped on time, they even overnighted it plus threw in a very nice flute bag at no extra charge.)

    Ability to ship quickly was certainly a factor in my choice of vendors, but I was also reassured by the fact that the maker sells flutes in three grades: student, intermediate, and professional. I ponied up the money for a professional flute, and expressed to the flutemaker my need for excellent intonation and a strong high register.

    Here is what I received:

    cute, right?
    cute, right?

    Now, the proof of a flute is in the playing, and there’s no way to know for sure if it’s any good without giving it a try. But here are some immediate visual warning signs:

    • Uh-oh
      uh-oh

      The embouchure hole is strangely shaped. I don’t know for sure what the flutemaker intended, but round-ish is pretty standard. Since bamboo is an irregular material, a certain amount of air noise (vibrational inefficiency) is to be expected, but this flute is very airy, and I suspect the oddly-shaped and roughly-finished embouchure hole is a contributor to this.

    • This is an extremely wide-bored flute. Often for flute-like instruments we see a length-to-diameter ratio of something around 30:1, but this one is closer to 15:1. To oversimplify the ramifications of this a bit, a wider-bore flute (a smaller ratio) will generally tend to be stronger in the low register and weaker in the high register. For this gig, I needed a flute that could play just to the second octave above the fundamental note—not an unreasonable demand for any common variety of bamboo transverse flute. I couldn’t get this flute to do it. A smaller-diameter bamboo would improve this flute’s upper range.
    • The finger holes are fairly large, and about the same size. Generally, similarly-sized holes leads to more even tone across the instrument’s scale, but also means that the right hand index and middle finger holes are placed very close together for a simple-system major-scale flute, and on this one the holes are uncomfortably close for me. Larger holes decrease the likelihood of finding usable cross-fingerings; I needed one good cross-fingering for this gig, and couldn’t find one that worked—couldn’t even “lip” the chromatic note into tune. A well-designed flute strikes a balance between large and small holes, and similarly- and differently-sized holes.
    • The second octave is quite noticeably flat. This is a common problem of bamboo flutes (or any cylindrical-bore flutes), but this one is particularly difficult to wrangle into tune. Really excellent bamboo flutes are sometimes made from bamboo carefully selected to have just a bit of taper in the embouchure-hole end, like a concert flute’s headjoint, or have some bore work done to create an internal taper; this helps to bring the upper register into tune with the lower.

    When I realized that the flute wasn’t going to be usable, I packed my piccolo and a B-flat pennywhistle as possible alternatives. As it turned out, we didn’t end up playing the movement in question, so I was off the hook.

    Shop smart!

  • Low reed stand showdown: K&M vs. Hercules

    ByBret Pimentel

    Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases, at no cost to you.

    I’ve had a König & Meyer bassoon/bass clarinet stand for years now, and recently picked up the Hercules version and tried it out on some gigs. I was hoping to form a strong opinion and make a nice clear recommendation here between the two. But the bottom line is that both are really quite usable.

    left: Hercules; right: K&M

    The exact model of K&M stand that I have doesn’t seem to be in production anymore. There is a newer one with a black finish (nice for onstage use) and slightly different hardware. I would be interested to hear if anyone is aware of any significant difference between the older and newer models.

    The big question of course is stability. I spent some time knocking both of these around to see what it would take to tip them over, and based on that non-scientific approach they seemed about equal. (No instruments were harmed.)

    I don’t have any concerns about either stand scratching my instruments. The K&M has a rubbery cup for the bottom of the instrument to sit in, and a felt-covered brace at the top. The Hercules has a harder (but not hard) plastic cup and a foam-covered brace.

    The K&M’s large, soft, and somewhat grippy cup is a nice feature for quick instrument switches. The Hercules’s I wouldn’t trust quite as much—I would need an extra moment to be sure the instrument is secure. The Hercules has room to add a couple of additional instrument pegs, which is a nice feature for doublers.

    Note also that the Hercules’s cup can be rotated 180° from the way I have it oriented, if desired. It is mounted on a leg that is adjustable, which I suppose you could use to change the angle of the instrument on the stand. I like it at full extension for maximum stability at the base.

    For quick switches, I like to be able to play bass clarinet with its peg still in the stand if needed. Both stands accommodate this without any trouble.

    Upper braces on both stands are height-adjustable to about the same height. At around full extension the braces are out of the way of keys on the bassoon’s long joint (the bell key is on the side where the braces don’t touch it). Neither quite adjusts as high as I would like for a low C bass clarinet (with the peg extended a little), so unfortunately for me the left index A and A-flat keys rest against the brace.

    Both stands fold up, but neither is tiny. The Hercules is more portable if you remove the cup, but that means fussing with a wing nut and then having one extra piece to carry around (or lose).

    The Hercules does win on price, at about 60% of what the K&M costs.

    Overall, I guess I lean toward the Hercules a little for bass clarinet, mostly because I could add, say, pegs for B-flat and E-flat clarinets and be ready for a utility clarinet gig. And I like the K&M slightly better for bassoon because its larger, softer cup makes a better target during a quick instrument switch. If you’re still torn, the Hercules’s lower price point may be a good tiebreaker.

7 Comments

  1. I’ve always been a fan of the K&M individual instrument stands. I used to have a difficult time locating them in the dark during a show until I put a small ring of neon electrical tape on each of them.

    I like the fact that they’re each small and portable, and that I can position them wherever I want, in any number of possible configurations. I also like that I can use their clarinet stand for oboe or english horn.

    I agree with your comment on the K&M bass clarinet stand. It’s HUGE, and I really wish it was black.

    Still looking for that perfect bassoon stand…

    Reply

  2. I see almost 3 years have passed since this item was submitted. I am now trying to find a combi stand for 2 clarinets and a flute and came across this very useful item. Thanks. There is still no decent stand out there as far as I can find.

    Reply

    1. Hi Marilyn—thanks for stopping by. Something like the K&M base or one of the Blayman bases should work well, since you buy the pegs separately and can choose whatever you need.

      Reply

  3. I recently played in an extremely dark pit, where the pegs were all but impossible to find for quick switches after looking at my more brightly lit stand. I used glow in the dark spray paint on the tips of the pegs, and it made them much more visible, both due to the slight glow as well as the fact that the translucent paint has a slight white tinge. And, the paint did NOT come off inside my instruments at all, as I had feared it might. It seemed to work equally well on wood and plastic, as well as on one peg I have that is some sort of rubberized material.

    Reply

  4. I honestly prefer separate stands for all my instruments rather than combi-stands!
    I own two hercules tenor/alto stands, a hercules bari stand, a K&M picc stand (which screws to a music stand), K&M compact flute stand, unbranded clarinet stand (which packs into the bell), hercules soprano sax stand and my next purchase will be a bass clarinet stand (probably the hercules) once I’ve picked up my instrument.
    This means I have total control of where I put my instruments, with multiple options depending on the doubling gig. I can also adapt to different sizes of pits – it’s easier to fit myself around other stands/chairs/instrument stands etc.

    Reply

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