Yamaha YCL-61

Thanks to Dan Farchione and his daughter for giving me the opportunity to review this clarinet.

Serial #003602

Barrel: 66.2mm

Bore LH joint top: 14.9 mm

Bore LH joint at bottom: 14.67mm This shows a greater variance than most poly-cylindrical clarinets, starting from almost a wide bore. I normally count 15mm as the wide bore category, so this almost starts there.

Intonation results taken when playing loud and not lipping. See how to interpret these results on the Model Comparison Page.

For this test, I pulled 0.6 mm at the barrel, and 0 mm at the center tenon.

Intonation summary: This intonation is very, very good intermediate intonation. I recommend getting a shorter barrel, because in most student bands, this clarinet will be flat compared to other the flutes and brass instruments. I am also going to undercut the A throat-tone tone hole slightly, which will help the last two throat tones to not be so flat. The A key is raising plenty high. If I didn’t test playing so loudly, the flat notes would not be flat. And it may be my set-up that makes the top two upper-register notes so flat. This clarinet came to me with a Vandoren B45 mouthpiece. If I used that mouthpiece, the throat tones would be way flat. That mouthpiece is probably not a good match for this horn.

Key work quality: Excellent silver plated keys. When I needed to bend one or two of them, I didn’t find them extremely hard, but certainly good.

This clarinet is most appropriate for: Any player. This is a very nice step-up horn for an intermediate to advanced student.

Quality of the wood: Wow, this is beautiful! There is a very tough plastic finish to the wood on the outside. It reminds me of the surface of a bowling ball. The bore doesn’t have this same finish. I wonder what color the wood would have been before this finish was applied.

Condition issues noted: None.