i am a clarinetist for five years now,i am using a festival from buffet and i wan to try out new brands of clarinet,i target the peter eaton elite clarinet and i would like to know more abt them and the clarinets.thank you

my name is po liang from singapore,and my e mail is mukedude@hotmail.com. Feel free to e mail me.thank you

I, too, played a Buffet Festival, and I now play a Peter Eaton Elite (the larger-bore instrument). I have never played anything as responsive as this instrument! It makes playing easier. The dynamics are wonderful, the tone color warm and dark, and it rings nicely. Eatons are, as you know, hand made. The attention to detail in design and construction really shows.

All of this is not to say the Festival is a bad instrument. It's a fine instrument. But there is a difference. I think the heavy bell and barrels of the Eaton resonate with the air column to produce the distinctive Eaton sound.

Ont thing more: I have two mouthpices for my Eaton, one an Eaton V mouthpiece, no longer in production, the other one made by Edward Pillinger. Both are superb. The Eaton's a little freer blowing, the Pillinger a little easier to control.

Bradbunnin,

Do you still have the original pads installed?
Many people that get Eaton clarinets tend to have those replaced. - just curious what you think of it with those pads.

there's more information on the link on this page
http://www.saxmaniax.com/snclarinet.htm#Eaton

My Eaton (the Elite, large-bore model) was made in 1999, and it came with leather pads. The original pads are still working fine! I find the instrument to be very quick and responsive, and I actually like the placement of the thumb rest. The keywork presents no problems for me. I agree that the bore is not glassy-smooth, but it doesn't seem to affect the tone adversely in any way. I've been delighted with my Eaton.

in regards to the bore. after about 7 days the bore became actually very nice. It wasn't as rough as it orignially was. Normally i've noticed a 5 day process really makes bore respond well to being oiled. This eaton took 7 days and I wish i had before and after pics of the bores - you would swear that they weren't the same clarinet from the inside. Response and tone was greatly improved too, how much from the oiling vs the switch to leather pads - don't know.

interesting that yours came with leather pads. I wonder why they stopped doing that? The rubber pads with the mirror resonators are awful. With leathers it is quite an amazing clarinet.

The thumbrest was too high for me and my client - he had small hands too. We rectified this by a 3/4 inch cork on the thumbrest - he didn't want to relocated the thumbrest itself. The thick cork put the hand in a perfect position.

My bore isn't really rough; it's just not as smooth, say, as the Buffet Festival that I played before the Eaton. And both my teacher, who's a well-known clarinetist in the contemporary jazz world and an invenitve improvisational musician, loves the sound of the Eaton. I asked Peter Eaton about replacing my leather pads with the resonator pads he's currently using, and he said he couldn't make enough of them to put them on older clarinets. I'm now quite happy that's the case!

I might try padding the thumb rest to see if it makes a difference. On my previous instruments, I experimented until I found the sweet spot. Thank you for the advice!

Earlier you said that the current Eaton mpcs are made by Edward Pillinger? is this the case?

what is different from your V as the current production ?

Thanks

I have two mouthpieces for my Eaton: one is the model V made by Peter Eaton. It's a fine mouthpiece. The other is one made by Ed Pillinger, based on a particularly fine mouthpiece made for a Boosey & Hawkes 1010 in the early 1950s, as I recall. I like and use both mouthpieces.

I couldn't get Peter Eaton to tell me anything much about the model V. He did say that if he had time, he'd still be making it, because it was quite popular. I would say it blows a little more freely than the Pillinger, but I get better control with the Pillinger, and a bit more focus. The V is great for jazz!

Steve, do you live in Britain? And are you a clarinet technician?

Bradbunnin,

I live in the US, in Michigan. And yes, I'm a clarinet (and saxophone) technician.
www.ClarinetPerfection.com
www.SaxManiax.com

Steve