$169 Yinfente C Clarinet Unboxing and Demo

I needed a C clarinet for a pit orchestra, to cover some flute and oboe parts in a pinch. Will a no-name $169 C clarinet I ordered on Amazon be up to the task? We'll find out...

[@spidarmanhaloween]

I never touched a clarinet/sax (or really any instrument) since high school and basically forgot everything about it, but I unexpectedly really enjoyed watching this. Back when I did play, I always wanted a clarinet of my own and nearly bought a super cheap one for $120 off of Amazon before everyone told me how stupid that was, but all these years later I guess I finally get to see an actual player try one and give their own two cents. Appreciate the little explanations/lessons on instruments you gave throughout for someone less knowledgeable like me, got me more interested in the video and your channel as a whole

[@KyubiwansMusicTheory]

Very underrated instrument!

[@kharmaviv]

This is the best clarinet unboxing/review I have seen. It was interesting and informative. I have had good and bad luck with Chinese made instruments sold on Amazon, but I was never stuck with a bad one. I was always able to return them(through Amazon and had a clarinet replaced direct from the company). I do also see that the quality has gotten better over the years. I hope your E-flat clarinet is also a pleasant surprise. I definitely enjoyed this video. Thank you.

[@JeffreyLByrd]

So I’m a retired multiple woodwind player, and now I just play clarinet as a hobby. I want a c clarinet because I like to play along with my favorite pieces, especially operas, but I could never justify giving several thousand dollars for one. I think I may go ahead get one of these since no one but me (and my neighbors) hear me play it.

[@room34]

That sounds like a perfect reason to buy one of these. It's certainly not a pro instrument, but very playable. After I made this video, I ended up buying the E-flat version as well, to use on Holst's First Suite which the community band I'm in is playing in concert next week. I will say this: it is definitely worth buying a better mouthpiece, ligature and reeds than what comes with it though. But since the C clarinet uses a regular B-flat clarinet mouthpiece, you may already have what you need!

[@brothergoodfoot]

I super support C clarinet making a comeback, and affordable being available. However, for your situation, maybe one of those fipple head joints for flute would’ve been the best solution? Then you could sound like a flute when the score calls for flute!

[@room34]

My problem wasn’t so much flute embouchure though as it was getting comfortable with the fingerings. This clarinet did the job when I needed it, but when I found myself playing in another pit that required flute six months later, I did take the time to work that out and actually play the parts on flute. (It helped that they were much easier flute parts!)
As far as having the flute color in there… yeah, you’re right about that, but it also depends on the nature of the show. For the one I used this C clarinet in, there were five (!) reed books, and two of the others had most of the flute bits. For the show I actually played flute in, there were only two reed books and mine was the only one with flute.

[@mal2ksc]

@@room34 If the flute parts are really high and technically demanding, consider faking them on piccolo. The second octave of a piccolo is way easier to navigate than the third octave of a flute. If I were the arranger, I'd consider this an acceptable trade if the part isn't going to be played cleanly on flute. Wrong notes stick out a lot more than the wrong timbre.
I had someone on a cruise gig complain that I was doing this, despite the fact that he didn't have a bass clarinet and faked it on bari sax. We're playing to a click track and a tape anyhow, who gives a hoot? Just get the notes right and the timbre mostly right. Then I went on to use piccolo in place of charanga flute in a salsa band for over a decade (for maybe five minutes a gig).

[@mal2ksc]

I don't understand the need for white gloves in a clarinet case. Trumpet or saxophone, I can see the point of asking people to test-drive it in gloves. You can't even play a clarinet that way so why bother? But I was surprised to see that they were adult-sized gloves, I don't think I've ever seen that be the case before. They're usually tiny kid gloves.
Another advantage to synthetic reeds is that although they may never be your 10 out of 10 dream reed, you can count on them to be a completely usable 8 out of 10 under every set of conditions, including being played "dry", and they'll stay that way for many more hours than a cane reed. They also give about 30 seconds of warning before catastrophic failure, which cane reeds generally don't.
The flatness of the low register is completely irrelevant on this particular gig because the flute parts _can't_ be written any lower than B♮. Altissimo may require experimentation and alternate fingerings, just as it does trying to use tenor sax altissimo fingerings on bari. It works to a point, and then suddenly, it's a quarter-tone flat.