Buffet Crampon’s flagship Eb clarinet with the RC Prestige bore, unstained Grenadilla wood body. Hand-selected by Rodriguez Musical Services, fully optimized, and shipped performance-ready.
$10,314.00
The Buffet Crampon RC Prestige Eb Clarinet is widely considered the most popular Eb clarinet among professional orchestral players. The Eb clarinet is pitched a fourth above the standard Bb and is called for in works by Berlioz, Mahler, Strauss, Shostakovich, Ravel, Bartók, and many others, where its penetrating voice needs to cut through full orchestral textures without sounding shrill or uncontrolled.
The RC bore is particularly well suited to the Eb. Where the R13 bore can emphasize the Eb clarinet’s naturally piercing quality, the RC’s warmer, rounder character helps tame that edge while maintaining strong projection. The result is an Eb clarinet that carries through the orchestra with focus and presence while keeping the tone musical and controlled.
An egg-shaped resonance cavity in the bell adds focus in the low register, rounding out the instrument’s range.
The RC Prestige Eb is built from unstained heartwood grenadilla with metal-capped tenons and Prestige-level craftsmanship throughout. Silver-plated keywork provides smooth, responsive action.
Every RC Prestige Eb that Rodriguez Musical Services sells has been hand-selected by our performing clarinetists. We play-test numerous factory instruments to identify the clarinets with a rich, resonant tone, a sweet core (one that ‘sings’), evenness of scale and resistance, a sound that exhibits a large spectrum of colors, and the most consistent intonation.
Each selected RC Prestige Eb then goes through the RMS 9-Hour Optimization. The instrument is completely disassembled, and every pad, bumper, and cork is removed until only grenadilla wood and metal remain. Custom leather pads replace the factory originals. Springs are adjusted, key heights are calibrated, and the entire mechanism is regulated so that the action feels effortless and the response is even across every register and dynamic level.
The result is what we call “performance ready”: smooth key action, rich and resonant tone, and consistent response from the bottom of the chalumeau through the top of the altissimo.
Professional orchestral clarinetists who double on Eb, military and service band players, and advanced graduate students preparing for orchestral positions will find the RC Prestige Eb the top-tier choice for this instrument.
The Prestige is made of Grenadilla heartwood with metal tenon caps. Its acoustic character is rooted in the RC bore, which delivers resonance and projection from the denser wood, along with the added durability of metal-capped tenons.
| Body | Unstained heartwood African blackwood (grenadilla); GreenLine composite also available |
| Bore | RC (polycylindrical upper, conical lower) |
| Key | Eb |
| Keys | Silver-plated |
| Features | Metal-capped tenons, egg-shaped bell resonance cavity |
| Pads | Custom leather (RMS-installed) |
| Springs | Blue steel |
| Includes | Original Buffet Crampon case, RMS certificate of optimization |
Contact for availability. Trial eligible; request a trial to play test in your home for 5 days.
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