Clarinetquest FAQs

Our mission at Clarinetquest is to make sure that your clarinet feels and plays to the highest standards. Every clarinet that is in our inventory is professionally set up by our clarinet specialist, Audrey Denny. Clarinetquest set up includes

• All new key material to give the clarinet a more positive feel
• Dressing tone holes and leveling pad cups where needed
• Address any key fitting issues
• Leveling or changing of any pads that may need to be changed
• Adjusting spring tension to allow for evenness throughout the clarinet
• Adjust key heights for optimal intonation and response
• Over all inspection of clarinet and professional play test

Yes! Audrey Denny is our clarinet specialist at Clarinetquest and she can help you with any of your selection needs. Each individual clarinet has its own unique sound, focus, intonation tendencies, projection and response qualities. With years of professional experience performing in both chamber music ensembles and major symphony orchestras, Audrey can help guide you in the right direction to get the perfect instrument that fits your playing personality!

While we offer replacing the pads in the upper joint for FREE with any new clarinet purchase, the option whether to do this or not is really a personal decision. We respect each individual’s choice and we’re always happy to help talk you through this decision at the time of purchase. For example, there are stability advantages for using cork pads in the upper joint, but some people prefer the feel and like the quite action of the skin or synthetic pads. When purchasing a new clarinet from our shop, we allow you as the customer to decide if you want your clarinet repadded. We include cork pads or any other pad that you would like in the upper joint free of charge with a purchase of a clarinet. This option is open to you for a full year after purchase if you’re not ready to decide right away. An additional fee will be added if you would like the bottom joint repadded.

We provide several different pad options for customers. We believe that our customers should have a choice in the selection of their pads.

The pads we use include

• Cork pads
• Lucien skin pads
• Straubinger clarinet pads (*Price adjustment based on market rate)
• Valentino
• Valentino Master pads
• Omni pads (per request)

Helping you to choose the best equipment is important to us. For that reason, we have a 7 day trial period for instruments, mouthpieces and barrels. We ask that you provide a credit card for any equipment you choose to play on trial. Your 7 day trial period starts on the day you receive that equipment and must be sent back to us on that 7th day. NO EXCEPTIONS, unless you contact us by phone or email. We will be able to tell you then if we can allow an extension of your trial period. A 3% restocking fee will only be charged if you do not purchase from us.

Clarientquest has a large selection of refurbished clarinets. We are always happy to look at a customer’s current clarinet as a potential trade-in. The clarinet must be in relatively good condition for us to consider a trade. As estimate trade-in value can be given by photos but we can’t guarantee a trade-in value until we’ve had the opportunity to inspect an instrument in our shop. In additional to accepting a trade, we can also consider your instrument for consignment as we have a very competitive consignment policy.