Buffet R13 Bb Clarinet (silver-plated keys)

This is the one people name right before they say "...was my first professional clarinet."

It was the first professional clarinet my parents bought me in 1982, and Katherine's parents bought her in 1983 (right K?). Back then that wasn't much of a decision. You got an R13 or you got a Selmer — and mostly you got an R13.

Robert Carrée drew up the polycylindrical bore design around 1950. (Fun fact: the "R13" name showed up in 1955, courtesy of Buffet's US distributor, who also had an R14, R15, and R16 in their catalog.) Before Carrée, clarinets were a tuning headache; his revolutionary design varied the diameter of the bore across the horn. That brilliant move fixed enough of the clarinet's problems to move the whole industry, and every pro clarinet built from 1955 into the '90s cribbed the idea. So when people say "benchmark," they're not exaggerating. Everything else got measured against this thing.

The R13 was revised up until the 1970s, and then development mostly...stopped. So the R13 is basically frozen in time. That's half of why people love it, and it's the whole reason I'm going to nudge you to play a few other clarinets before you commit to anything.

If you don't already know (though you probably do!), here's how it plays. See if this sounds familiar:

The good: The clarion speaks easily. Altissimo pops — though navigating the voicing up there while tonguing is a challenge, amirite? Tone is quintessentially French: pingy and light. Great focused core, with just enough grain so it doesn't sound like a synth patch. Warm down low.

The meh: Fairly monochrome color palette. (Admittedly a gorgeous one for most Classical rep. Contemporary music...yeah, not as flexible.)

The ugly: Throat tones run really flat. Twelfths run super-wide. (Don't believe me? Look at the dashboard below.) The silver lining: the flat notes are flat in the same damn spot every time. Learn the handful of places that need correction and adjust. Then you'll be just like me, Katherine, and everyone else who didn't have a choice, which is to say you'll come out of it with a better ear and a working embouchure.

But if you want to open the case and never think about pitch again, keep reading, because I'll point you somewhere else down at the bottom.

Resistance: 5/10, Medium

The R13 is, unsurprisingly, middle-of-the-road. It is the epitome of "French" clarinets in my opinion, with a tight core, medium resistance, and good response.

Want to hear how it handles air and dynamics? In the audio player below, listen to the Weber first (wide dynamics, wide color), then the Berlioz (wide dynamics, narrow color), then the Gershwin (narrow on both). You can hear how the timbre responds to me as a player... warts and all.

So why get it from me?

The R13 is available everywhere. Buffet's dealer network is big enough you can practically grab one next to the Slurpee machine. So why buy mine? Because every one gets a full teardown and setup before it goes to you (instead of coming, um, "factory fresh"), and you get seven days to find out whether it earns its seventy-years-of-peer-pressure reputation.

Important note about this clarinet's warranty.

These are new clarinets imported directly from France.

The catch: no Buffet Crampon USA warranty, since I'm not buying through their US channel. So I cover it myself — two years, manufacturing and material defects, and cracks (the thing everybody actually worries about), same exclusions Buffet USA's own warranty carries. Plus I've got a warranty-replacement path through my supplier, so covered claims get resolved at the source. You let me know, and I'll take care of the whole process. Full terms in the FAQ!

One more thing, and I mean it.

If you're stepping up from a student horn and the R13's the only pro clarinet you've heard of, you're in the right shop. But don't buy it on reputation. Yes, it's the safe answer, the one nobody second-guesses, which is exactly why it's worth the effort to make sure it's your answer. Play the Festival for the same Buffet character with a smoother break. Want cleaner, more predictable intonation? Yamaha CSVR. Warmer and more even, note to note? Uebel Rêve. And don't skip the Royal Polaris: same polycylindrical French idea, freer-blowing, darker, more in tune, and a fair bit cheaper than the R13.

Then come back to the R13 if it's still the one. Plenty of players do, and they're not wrong. That's what the trial's for. (All earspasm instruments come with a 7-day trial. Please read my trial policy before pulling out that credit card.)

How you might know it's the one

Buy it if you want the sound that's already in your head when you picture a clarinet, and you like a horn that doesn't pull any punches about your air support and voicing. Skip it if you want everything in tune the second you put the horn in your face. Because, there's a horn for that too, and finding it is a short conversation. (So call me.)