Royal Global MAX Pro Bb/A Clarinet

The MAX Pro is what you get when Royal takes the nearly crack-proof ECO wood body of the MAX and rethinks most of what's inside: a new polycylindrical bore, repositioned and more heavily undercut tone holes, and a left-hand Ab/Eb lever. Oh, and two barrels (I played the prototype and suggested they might want to consider two. They listened.), and a better case. While the MAX Pro isn't a Firebird, it's also not just a MAX with an extra key and a more expensive adjective.

Quick refresher on "ECO wood": it's the Grenadilla powder recaptured from milling Royal's wood clarinets, mixed with a little carbon fiber and some resin. Like Buffet's GreenLine, it captures most of the acoustic properties of wood but is virtually immune to cracking — which means a horn you can take to an outdoor gig in July or a freezing pit in January without holding your breath.

The big news (and the answer to “Yawn, another MAX. Who cares?”)

What makes this more than a line extension is that the MAX Pro also comes in A. Like the forthcoming Backun Alpha A, this is an A clarinet for people who otherwise couldn't justify owning one, because anything good usually starts at $4,000 and goes up from there. Put another way: a MAX Pro Bb and A together cost less than most single professional Bb clarinets, including Royal's own Firebird. I've played the A and it's really, really, really good. The Alpha A is also really good; like the choice between the Royal MAX and Backun Alpha bass clarinets, it comes down to personal preference.

The other tidbit: Royal designed the MAX Pro Bb and A together, as a matched pair, and voiced the A with less resistance so it feels closer to the Bb. Most A clarinets feel noticeably stuffier than their Bb siblings — anyone who's played an A knows what I'm talking about.

How it plays

I put the MAX Pro through the same fingerprint tests as the MAX, so this is about as apples-to-apples as it gets. In fact, I re-recorded the MAX in the same session: exact same mouthpiece (Vandoren BD6 HD), exact same reed (CARBEC #3).

The TL;DR result: same family, better manners.

Above all, the scale has had a major upgrade. It's better centered than the MAX, especially up top, where the MAX sags flat. It also holds its pitch when you push it, one of the best loud-dynamics profiles in the catalog. (The trade-off is pianissimo, where it rides a little sharp, so be aware.)

Articulation is quick and clean, a touch ahead of the MAX. The sound is the same medium-bright voice, but more even from note to note: the MAX's color jumps around the break are mostly gone. (See all of the data in the Dashboard below.)

Resistance: 5/10, Medium

Playing them back to back, the MAX Pro Bb is a little more free-blowing than the MAX. That's an interesting choice by Royal (if it was a choice), because it raises the bar for the A: to match this Bb, the A has to be even freer than it otherwise would.

As for Royal's goal of matching the Bb and A's resistance profile, well...sort of, kinda, maybe. The A is definitely less resistant than most of the A clarinets in our catalog, but I can't say it's like playing a MAX Pro Bb a half-step lower.

Don't get me wrong, it's an improvement. But physics is physics: an A clarinet's tube is about 1.5" (4 cm) longer than a Bb with essentially the same bore. So you get a proportionally "skinnier" column of air, with more air to get moving and more tube wall creating friction. It's a big part of why A clarinets sound darker and feel stuffier. Clever voicing can shrink that gap but not erase it.

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.

Before you decide

The MAX is still the value monster: same material, same basic voice, less money, and with its added resistance might be a better "first" clarinet. For a student, a doubler, or anyone who mostly needs a horn that doesn't care about weather, it's an easy call. Buy the MAX Pro if you want that same idea, refined: a better-centered scale, pitch that holds when you lean on it, more even color, the left-hand Ab/Eb lever, and a matching A.

The Backun Alpha is still the closest comparison: also synthetic, also weatherproof, with a matching A on the way, and about $500 less with the left-hand Eb/Ab key. Overall scale accuracy is a wash, and the Alpha's note-to-note color is dead even. But the Alpha's pitch sags as you get louder, which is exactly where the MAX Pro holds, and the MAX Pro articulates noticeably cleaner, especially in the clarion.

The Royal Classical Limited is the wood alternative, and only a few hundred dollars more. It's darker, with an even more accurate scale and crisper articulation, but it drops more when you play loud, and it's wood, with everything that implies. If you don't need crack-proof, play the two side by side before you decide.

Play or listen to all of these in the audio player and pull the dashboards up side by side. The graphs are useful. Your ears still get a vote.