Buffet Prestige Green Line Bass Clarinet

The Buffet Prestige Green Line Bass clarinet is part of Buffet’s professional range. It is a high specification model with Eb/Ab lever, low G resonance key, double D spatula and a triple D Spatula. It is made, using GreenLine technology, from African blackwood and carbon fibres, which gives it a rich and warm tone through its entire range. The neck of the Buffet Prestige is adjustable for intonation and offers a highly comfortable angle for the bass clarinetist. A real contender as an industry favourite, it’s one you need to try.

The Green Line Process

The Green Line manufacturing process is a relatively new technique that has good implications both for the environment and clarinet durability. Traditionally, wooden clarinets are made almost exclusively from Grenadilla, an African Blackwood, locally called Mpingo. The main problem with instruments made from wood, like clarinets, is that they require pieces that are free of flaws; a flawless clarinet is less prone to cracking and warping. But the blackwood trees grow in a twisted pattern with lots of flaws. This means that when the wood is harvested – after 80 to 120 years of growth – much of it goes to waste because of imperfections. Then, even more goes to waste once the acceptable, un-flawed pieces large enough to make a clarinet are put through the shaping and manufacturing process.

While replanting efforts are underway, supplies of this wood are diminishing, fast.  So, Buffet Crampon has come up with a way to use both imperfectly shaped pieces of wood and the scraps from the manufacturing process. With their Green LinE clarinet models the imperfectly shaped and scrap wood is ground down into a powder and mixed 95%/5% with carbon fibres. It is then pressure formed for the needs of instrument makers, in other words, moulded to the shape of a clarinet. It’s still 95% Grenadilla wood, but it’s pure and solid!
The result is a massive reduction in consumption of blackwood while also making a clarinet that is more durable, less prone to cracking, and with a sound that is indistinguishable from a solid wood instrument. Many Buffet clarinets are now available in Green LinE models.

• Key : Bb
• Pitch : 440 Hz / 442 Hz
• Pressure moulded African blackwood and carbon fibre
• Two piece adjustable neck
• Silver plated German silver bell
• Adjustable thumb rest
• Silver-plated OR gold plated keywork
• Double register mechanism
• Blue steel springs
• Eb / Ab Lever - Low G resonance - Double D Spatula - Triple D Spatula
• Metal capped tenons
• Leather and cork pads
• CITES Appendix II Wood