Earlier this summer, a college student brought us a five-year-old clarinet he was sure needed a tune up. On the bench, it told a different story. The original pads and bumpers were deteriorating, and although the instrument looked decent on the surface, years of buildup had collected in the tone holes. What it needed was a clarinet overhaul: not a tune up, a complete rebuild.
His mother emailed us after he got it back:
“[He] immediately noticed how much better the key pads feel. They are so smooth and responsive, and he really loves the way the instrument plays now. To my ears, the clarinet has a much richer, warmer tone. The sound is deeper, cleaner, and much more resonant.”
Keep reading to learn how to tell whether your own clarinet needs a tune up or a full overhaul, what the work involves, and what to expect from it.
A clarinet needs an overhaul when its components have worn beyond what a tune up can fix. Worn pads, weakened springs, deteriorating bumpers, and buildup in the tone holes all change how the instrument responds, and those changes accumulate until no quick fix can restore it. On a regularly played instrument, that point arrives every 3-5 years.
The tricky part is that the decline is gradual. Most players spend a surprising amount of practice time adjusting around their instrument without knowing it: voicing around a note that will not speak cleanly, or pressing harder on keys that used to seal on their own. The response gets a little less even each season, and the player absorbs the difference. When “practice more” stops producing results, the instrument deserves a look.
Watch for these signs:
The RMS Artist Overhaul is a complete rebuild of your instrument over 10 hours of bench work. Every pad, bumper, and spring is replaced or recalibrated with premium materials, the keywork is regulated to respond silently across the full range, and a working symphony professional play-tests the finished clarinet before it ships home.
Most local shops spend about an hour on a quicker repair, enough to address the obvious problems. An overhaul addresses the entire instrument at once. Here is what that looks like in our workshop.
Premium materials throughout. After a full wood cleaning and key polishing, every pad on the instrument is replaced: Valentino Masters Series synthetics on the upper joint for durability and seal, premium leather on the lower joint for responsiveness and tonal warmth, and a beveled cork pad on the register key for cleaner airflow into the clarion register. All bumpers are swapped for high-end materials that outlast factory components.
A complete rebuild of the keywork. Loose keys are tightened through methods including swedging and teflon inserts. Every spring is checked, re-tensioned, or replaced. Key heights are balanced and mechanisms are regulated for silent action. Tone holes are resurfaced where needed to guarantee an airtight seal under the new pads.
A final play-test by a symphony professional. Alcides Rodriguez, Atlanta Symphony clarinetist and a Backun and Vandoren performing artist, play-tests every overhauled instrument himself. The adjustments he makes at this stage are the ones only a performer at his level can feel and correct.
It is the same process we apply to every new Buffet we sell, available for the clarinet you already own, whatever the brand and wherever you bought it.
The RMS Artist Overhaul is $1,295 for Bb or A clarinets, $1,395 for Eb clarinets, and $4,500 for low C bass clarinets, which require more than 30 hours of work. Older instruments in need of restoration may incur an additional fee, discussed before any work begins. Every overhaul carries a one-year warranty on craftsmanship and materials.
Repair shops do publish price lists, but a price list does not tell you what the work buys or when a complete rebuild makes more sense than another round of individual fixes. Players who take a worn instrument to a local shop for individual repairs typically spend $500 to $650 just to reach reasonable playing condition, and those repairs recur as the next component wears out. The overhaul replaces everything at once with materials built to last for years.
Cost is driven by the type of instrument (a low C bass clarinet has far more keywork than a soprano) and by the age and condition of the clarinet in front of us.
A professional clarinet in sound condition is almost always worth overhauling, because the overhaul costs a fraction of what a comparable new instrument does and restores the one you already know. The math changes for student instruments worth less than the overhaul itself, and for older clarinets, roughly pre-1980s, which often need restoration work beyond a standard overhaul.
We are candid with players when the numbers do not favor the work. A hobbyist player once brought us a clarinet she had been given, old enough that the restoration it needed would have cost well beyond the price of an overhaul. We told her so, and suggested she try a Backun Alpha Plus instead. She left with a new clarinet for roughly what the restoration alone would have cost her, and she was thrilled.
Age alone is not the deciding factor. Customers have sent us older clarinets that came back playing better than they did new, in their owners’ words. One wrote after his came home:
“They transformed my old, worn-out clarinet into an instrument that plays like new. The clarinet is now incredibly responsive, and I have much better control over articulation.”
If you are weighing an overhaul against a new instrument, we are happy to talk through both paths honestly. Sometimes the answer is a rebuild, and sometimes it is a new clarinet, depending on what the instrument in front of us reveals on the bench.
Every RMS Artist Overhaul is done by appointment, and the process starts with one form. Fill out our overhaul request form and tell us about your instrument. We will confirm scheduling and walk you through the rest.
Then ship your clarinet to us from anywhere in the country. Pack it in its case inside a sturdy box with plenty of bubble wrap, no packing peanuts, and send it via FedEx or UPS. Remove everything that is not the instrument itself: swabs, reed cases, cleaning supplies, pencils. Turnaround is approximately one week for most soprano clarinets. When it ships back, it will have been fully disassembled, cleaned, oiled, polished, rebuilt with premium materials, and play-tested.
Full details are on our clarinet overhauls page.
A tune up is routine maintenance: a light cleaning of the wood and keys, a check of the key tensions and pad seal, and a couple of pads or bumpers replaced if needed. It takes two to three and a half hours and returns the clarinet to the condition it was in after its last overhaul. An overhaul is the complete rebuild, about 10 hours, with every pad, bumper, and spring replaced or recalibrated.
A regularly played clarinet needs a complete overhaul every 3-5 years. In between, a tune up every 1.5 to 2 years keeps the pads sealing and the key tensions where they should be. Instruments that are played harder or stored in difficult conditions may come due sooner.
Most soprano clarinet overhauls (Bb and A) are completed within approximately one week of arriving at our workshop. Eb, alto, and bass clarinets, and older instruments needing extra restoration, may take longer. We give you a clear timeline when you schedule.
At a typical shop, a full repad runs several hundred dollars. Replacing pads is not simply a matter of pulling the old ones and setting new ones in place: a new pad seats and seals only if the keywork around it is adjusted to accommodate it, which a good technician does as part of the job. We fold pad replacement into the complete overhaul so the new pads seal against resurfaced tone holes and fully regulated keywork.
The difference is the scope of the work. The RMS Artist Overhaul is 10 hours of bench work with premium materials throughout, a final play-test by an Atlanta Symphony clarinetist, and a one-year warranty on craftsmanship and materials where shorter guarantees are common. A lower price usually reflects fewer bench hours and factory default materials, and often a less exacting standard of finish work. Very few shops in the country prepare a professional clarinet at this level, and the price reflects what that takes.
Yes. Players ship us instruments from across the country. Pack the clarinet in its case inside a sturdy box with plenty of bubble wrap, no packing peanuts, and ship via FedEx or UPS. We provide guidance when you schedule, and your instrument returns the same way, fully insured.
Yes. A low C bass clarinet overhaul is $4,500 and takes more than 30 hours, reflecting the amount of keywork involved. The process is the same: premium pads and bumpers throughout, full regulation, and a final play-test by a symphony professional who performs on bass clarinet himself.
If your instrument has been slipping and “practice more” is not the answer, a clarinet overhaul restores what the years took, and usually more than that, since the factory components come off and premium materials go on. For a fraction of the cost of a new professional instrument, the clarinet you already trust comes back performance ready.
Schedule an Overhaul. Tell us about your instrument and we will take it from there.
