Thanks for the review. I've had a BD2 for a couple of weeks now. I have a range of vandoren and selmer mouthpieces but no custom jobs. I found that the mouthpiece felt more open than it actually was (like you) and especially when I compared it to a M15 and M13 lyre. For my embouchure, mouth/throat and clarinet, I didn't find the issues you described. It readily responded over the whole range and had a focused tone like the M15. I really really like it. I use vandoren 56 Ru le pic or d'addario classic reserve reeds on a full Boehm Leblanc LL clarinet.

Thank you! Educational and inspiring as always! 👍

One day they'll make it in HD material and I'll be interested to try it. Your information is very accurate!

Great playing and great video review! Thank you for sharing!👏👏👏👌🎶

John! great stuff as always! I have missed seeing you here in the interwebs. Glad you are back. I agree with you on everything you say here. I have often wondered (just from a thought experiment standpoint), what if there was no choice and we were issued a mouthpiece from some kind of state authority (yes a dystopian future in this thought experiment)? Part of your video illustrates this in that you sound great and very much like yourself on both mouthpieces. I have many of Ramon's moutpieces and have used them with great success as well as many Vandorens. I am currently using a BD4. I doubt I actually sound much different on any mouthpiece "in the ballpark" - BUT in direct alignment with what you say - what it takes to make that happen is the crucial and game changing difference. I am always glad to hear someone say what I think but a lot better than I say it for myself :)

Gracias por compartir ❤

I found it interesting that the BD2 is advertised to be the facing of the M13 Lyre on the BD blank. I didn't find it sounds or play even close. I found that I had to use insanely hard reeds to prevent it from getting quite bright and edgy. This isn't something that I've found myself doing with the M13 Lyre; I like that with the M13L I can keep the sound together with my corners and voicing as opposed to relying on the reed strength. The BD2 might just take a long time to get used to; it's an... interesting mouthpiece. I'm not a fan of how the BD2 is a lot more dull than the M13L. The M13 Lyre doesn't necessarily play easily, but I prefer that zing of the M13 Lyre. You make the BD2 sound much nicer than I was able to though. :) Regarding your hard reeds journey, I can definitely relate to that. When I started playing too hard reeds for myself, I was biting a lot, and while I prefer to play double lip as much as possible now for the smooth legato and how it prevents biting/choking off the sound, that came from a year of trial and error, injuries and recovery, and meticulously recording myself to find which sound I actually like. It also created a habit of trying to force too much air into the clarinet, distorting the sound. I find this review quite fascinating for a couple of reasons. If I played Vandoren mouthpieces, I'd definitely play the M13 Lyre, just for the flexibility and center it gives me as a player. I never really appreciated this until my lesson with Burt Hara, who pointed out that in my setup at the time, it required me to work too hard to keep the sound centered without biting. However, I now play a medium-open Kanter mouthpiece with a V12 4, occasionally a 4½ but really a 4 is what I've found works best for me. I couldn't play those reeds on any Vandoren mouthpiece; they're simply too hard for the way Vandoren designs their mouthpieces. But with the BD2, I even put a V12 5 on, and it sounded too bright and edgy and unfocused. Bright not in the protection/lively sense, but in that unnatural, unbalanced way that is quite difficult to control for me personally. I tried lighter reeds, different cuts, and couldn't personally find a balance. I'm sure there might be some people who find this mouthpiece to work well; I think Greg Raden plays the BD2 now, or at least he was trying it, and he sounded quite nice on it. Finally, your point about the unique sound; I spoke with Michele Zukovsky about this just this weekend. She mentioned how even just 20-30 years ago, everyone had their own sounds and nobody was trying to sound like the other. Everyone just sang through their instruments in their own unique ways. But now, it seems like everyone, especially in the younger generation, but I'd say it extends to much of the clarinet world, are trying to sound quite homogenous. The BD mouthpieces may have had something to do with that, as well as the "harder, darker, bigger" ideology, as Yehuda Gilad puts it. It kind of leads everyone down the path of everyone sounding like struggling clarinetists as opposed to singers with our own voices. Brilliant video, Mr. Kurokawa. I enjoyed it very much.

Gorgeous tone Could you possibly make a video on the clarinet excerpts in Daphnis and Chloe second suite?

Thanks! I learned a lot about the different aspects one can test for. There is just one that I don’t understand. What am I listening for in flexibility?

Thanks for this video. I've been curious about the BD2. Do you or anyone in here have any thoughts how it compares to the M15? Or the Fobes Nova? Those are my current mpcs, and I doubt I would be able to find a BD2 locally to try against mine. Thx

Did you try the BD2 with a somewhat softer reed? In general, the more resistance in the mouthpiece and/or instrument, the softer the reed to balance with this. Of course the facing of some mouthpieces might have a limit to how soft a reed you can use.

M13 (and lyre model) facing is without doubt one of the best facings out there. Donald Montanaro participated in the development of it, and plus the M14 and M15, based on one of their Chedeville. But the purpose of this model? Nobody knows. It has the worst of the HD series. It does not have good centering and the sound is dull. But it has none of the good things about the M series (colour, eveness, clear sound, inmediate articulation). It would be good for Vandoren to get back together with great clarinetists and develop something of quality...

Perhaps reed a bit heavy on the BD2? Ramon’s mouthpiece sounds better, has more’ping’