Buffet Festival Clarinet
$4,746.00
Financing Starting at $107.96 per month
Based on 60 months and 12.99% annual percentage rate
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Buffet Festival Professional Clarinet
The Professional Clarinet Refined!
The Buffet Festival was designed in 1987 to meet the needs of the world’s finest clarinetists. Based on the R13 bore, the Festival offers arguably the best combination of professional performance, features and price in the entire professional clarinet market! The Buffet Festival, like the R13, is also a versatile and customizable platform. Using different barrels and/or bells, a player can transform the Buffet Festival platform in to their perfect, custom clarinet!
Dave Kessler’s Comments about the Buffet Festival
The Buffet Festival Clarinet is my overall favorite Buffet professional clarinet. I find that it possesses the best of the R13 & RC families with the refinement of the Prestige series instruments. It offers a tonal performance that is in line with the R13 family but a more precise response like the RC. Its design is also very bell & barrel friendly allowing players the best “canvas” on which a player can “paint” their sound on. This has lead the Buffet Festival to be our best selling Buffet professional clarinet when players come in to test instruments in our store.
Additional Information
Festival vs. R13
The Buffet Festival is actually based on the R13 design. In 1987, 2 years after the R13 Prestige model debuted, Buffet designed the Festival with input from 3 professional players: Jacques Lancelot, Guy Deplus and Michel Arrignon. Together, they took the design concepts of the R13 and manufacturing improvements of the Prestige and modified them to form a 5th professional Buffet clarinet (3rd based on the R13 bore). Compared to the R13, the Festival includes the same set of improvements that the R13 Prestige does but with the “French” register tube for more precise tuning:
- Unstained, Premium Grenadilla Wood
- GoreTex Pads
- Left Hand Eb/Ab Lever
- Metal Capped Tenons
- 2 Barrels (65mm & 66mm)
Barrel for a Buck!
Get better value from your Buffet Festival clarinet with the KesslerMusic “Barrel for a Buck” program. Any professional clarinet barrel that we sell can be added on to your Buffet Festival for only $1 more!
Click on the barrel names to read more about each barrel’s performance on the Buffet Festival:
This is one of our best sellers as it stays very much in line with the modern Buffet Festival style of sound. It is a bit more open than the stock barrel which helps produce a bigger & richer tone throughout the whole range of the clarinet. It requires very little difference in terms of additional breath support which makes it ideal for the heavy majority of players. The wood on the Chadash is unstained so it will be slightly different in appearance than the stained wood of the Buffet Festival.
Similar to the Chadash in terms of tonal improvement, but simply bigger in sound. The Moennig barrel is for the player who wants as BIG of a Buffet sound as possible. However this means that the player needs more air and extremely good breath support as the upper register’s performance is more difficult due to the increased air requirement. Unstained wood.
Released in 2013, it has quickly become our best selling Buffet barrel for the Buffet Festival as it offers a new style of performance not commonly found on Buffet clarinets. The ICON barrel brings in an additional focus & center to the sound (also sometimes referred to as “core”) that is somewhat reminiscent of the vintage Selmer Paris clarinets but maintains the Buffet style of sound. Many players find the ICON barrel gives impressive intonation and response throughout the range. For more information, read the blog post that professional player David Blumberg wrote for Dave Kessler’s Music Blog.
This is Dave Kessler’s personal favorite in tone on the modern Buffet Festival. The MoBa barrels were designed in collaboration with Morrie Backun and Ricardo Morales. We find the MoBa barrel design to give the feel and response like the Chadash but with a sound that is bigger, more in line with the Moennig; an impressive blend of tone, projection and response. The MoBa barrel is available in either Grenadilla or Cocobolo wood.
The Grenadilla version gives great core and warmth to the tone. More reminiscent of the early Buffet models from the late 50’s & 60’s.
The Cocobolo wood is lighter in weight than the Grenadilla which yields excellent response. The downside to this is that it does give a lighter overall timbre to the sound of the clarinet.
The Backun Fatboy model offers excellent tonal center and incredible control throughout the range of the Buffet Festival! Tones come out clean and quick but with a richer tone than other similar performing barrels. It is more focused than the MoBa barrel but still more open with greater tonal presence than the stock Buffet Festival barrel. Available in either Grenadilla or Cocobolo wood.
The Grenadilla version gives a richer core to the tone. More in line with the “Buffet Sound” concept.
The Cocobolo wood is lighter in weight than the Grenadilla which yields excellent response. The downside to this is that it does give a lighter overall timbre to the sound of the clarinet.
Bell Upgrades
Like the barrel, the bell offers another opportunity to upgrade your new Buffet Festival clarinet’s performance! The bell can impact the clarinet in all of the range, not just the lower end of the clarinet. The bell is responsible for regulating and maintaining compression to your clarinet’s air column and especially when paired with an upgraded barrel, yields huge performance benefits!
Click on the bell names to read more about each bell’s performance on the Buffet Festival:
The ICON bell is significantly lighter in overall weight than the stock bell (about 30% lighter). It has a tighter mid section to the bore of the bell which will improve the compression to the air column in the body, forcing more air out of the toneholes of the clarinet. This leads to improved response. However, we really only recommend this bell when paired with the ICON Barrel. The combination of the ICON Bell with the ICON Barrel is truly greater than the sum of their parts. It greatly amplifies the overall performance characteristics from the ICON Barrel.
This is Dave Kessler’s personal favorite in tone on the modern Buffet Festival. It brings in more resonance throughout the whole range of the clarinet and helps improve intonation and response throughout! A shorter bell with a more open throat, the MoBa is rich and full in the lower register while helping with low F intonation. The voicing groove design helps improve compression in the instrument yielding better response and power over the break and in the upper register.
The Grenadilla version gives great core and warmth to the tone. More reminiscent of the early Buffet models from the late 50’s & 60’s.
The Cocobolo wood is lighter in weight than the Grenadilla which yields excellent response. The downside to this is that it does give a lighter overall timbre to the sound of the clarinet.
The Backun Traditional model bell offers excellent tonal center and incredible control throughout the range of the Buffet Festival! It is more focused than the MoBa bell (more in line with the stock Buffet style of tonal presence) but still gives improved response and attack throughout the Buffet Festival range. Available in either Grenadilla or Cocobolo wood.
The Grenadilla version gives great core to the tone.
The Cocobolo wood is lighter in weight than the Grenadilla which yields excellent response. The downside to this is that it does give a lighter overall timbre to the sound of the clarinet.
Professional Setup
Every Buffet Festival clarinet we send out to a customer is not released from us unless it has been completely setup in our shop first. This is because the setup on the Buffet Festival clarinet is of the utmost importance! Sometimes, a clarinet (regardless of who the manufacturer or the price point is) comes in needing 20 minutes of adjustments and then the very next one can require 2 hours!
This is why we perform our setup (in our www.ClarinetRepairs.com ProShop) on your clarinet before delivering it to you. You trust us with your purchase and we want to make sure that you are rewarded by giving you your new Buffet Festival clarinet setup flawlessly!
Buffet Festival Specifications
| Bore | Buffet-Crampon Polycylindrical R13 Bore w/Under-Cut Toneholes |
| Pitch | Bb |
| Material | Premium, Unstained Grenadilla (GreenLine Composite also available) |
| Pads | GoreTex Pads |
| Key Style | Silver Plated – with Left Hand Eb Lever |
| Barrel | Buffet Festival 65mm & 66mm Barrels Included |
| Case | Premium Festival Series Pro Case |
| Warranty | Buffet Warranty & Kessler 1 Year Shop Warranty |
Financing Available
Bell Color & Bell Ring
You will notice on the Buffet Festival (as well as all of the Buffet clarinets with unstained wood) that the bells will generally have more coloration to them than the bodies. This is normal as Grenadilla is not a pure black wood. Since the bell is cut from a larger piece of wood with a larger cross-section of the wood visible, the bell will tend to show more of this coloration making it look lighter overall than the body joints. Also, Buffet does not plate the lower bell ring on their clarinets, so these are left bare nickel-silver.
Special Notes:
Buffet officially changed their company logo design in 2016 and shortly thereafter, started to use the new logo on their clarinets. Our photos depict the newest production with the current Buffet Logo. For reference, the original Buffet logo on a Festival clarinet can be seen by clicking here. Also, Buffet no longer includes a mouthpiece with their professional clarinet but instead includes an upgraded ligature with fitted cap.
Buffet Festival Special: 12 Month Same As Cash Financing!
Purchase your new Buffet Festival Clarinet from Kessler & Sons Music using First Mutual Finance and receive special 12 Month Same As Cash financing!
Click Here for more information on financing program details and to apply!
12 Month Same As Cash Option Available on New Instrument at Advertised Price Only. Cannot be combined with “Barrel for a Buck” or any other bundle special. Full details on financing page. Does not apply towards Store Used Demos or Used Instruments. Demos and Used models can still be financed under standard terms.
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