Hisonic Signature Series 2610 Bb Clarinet with Case

I asked my daughter’s music teacher if he could give me some suggestions on which clarinet to get for her and I chose this one. I brought it in for him to look at. He assembled it and said everything looked good he also played it and said that the sound was good as well.

You will have some difficulties putting it together especially the first time because it has not been broken in and the cork needs needs to have time to absorb grease.

CONS:
It did not come with any instructions on how to pack or assemble or guides on how to care for the instrument. Which I find extremely important when it comes to musical instruments, they are not cheap and the least they could have done is provided the basic information. Shame on them! Use the first picture as a guide on how to repack your clarinet.

I’ve noticed there has been a repetitive complaint about the latches on the case. As you can see in the second photo it is a very poorly designed locking mechanism and I can completely understand why there are so many complaints regarding this.

It came with cork grease one read a pair of white gloves and a weighted cleaning sham. I threw the gloves out they were very poorly made and did not fit properly.

If I have any future problems regarding quality, durability, Etc. I will update my review. At this point, overall it appears to be a safe purchase and even with the cons it appears to be a good value for your money .

I already own a Buffet E11 wooden clarinet. Bought this plastic one for my daughter to bring to school for band lessons. This clarinet compares very favorably against E11 in sound, playability and keywork mechanics, for a fraction of E11 cost. I don’t feel like missing much from E11 if I have to practice on this clarinet myself. Highly recommended, especially for the price.

For those complaining the clarinet is hard to blow, it’s true if you use the stock mouthpiece and soft reed (e.g. Rico 1.5), as the opening is small and the reed tends to close up when you try to blow hard for high register. Here’s the cure: buy a Forbus Debut (about 20 dollars) mouthpiece, which has wider opening and is very easy to blow, then use Rico 1.5 reed. It makes a *world* of difference. The high register should be as easy to hit as the low. If not, the mouthpiece/reed combination isn’t right. No need to blow too hard for high register either. Make sure all tone holes are fully covered when playing. With some tweaking of reed placement, I can play 3 full octaves (4Es) plus the F and G above with little effort. That’s in the altissimo range, and for what I know, high enough for all known Bb clarinet classical repertoire. The tones up there sound clear and crisp, hardly thrilling. Quite impressive for an inexpensive plastic instrument!

— Update after two years ownership.
Finally, I put this clarinet to rest after two years of hard playing. It has started to go out of adjustment as I can tell. Hitting a note becomes on-and-off affair, not what it used to be. I’m getting more frustrations over time. Normally, I would bring the instrument to store for tuning but unfortunately, nobody will take in this model. That’s the down side of owning a no-name brand. For this clarinet itself, it’s the best 100 dollar I’ve ever spent. I actually bought two, switched the upper and lower joints about six months ago when one key went out of shape and became leaky at the hole. Overall, it’s well worthy its price but does have limitations, most notably: 1. Tone: I purchased half dozen Vandoren mouthpieces and more than a couple dozen boxes of different reeds trying to get the best tone, it still has the “plastic” sound no matter what, so set your expectation accordingly regardless how others rave about its tone quality. 2. Response – pretty good for an inexpensive clarinet, quite free blowing with good volume and projection. Little effort going up to altissimo though volume up there does decrease quickly. Not responsive enough for fast articulations at higher register, such as in chromatic runs. A true trial on your tonguing technique to pull off gentle soft legatos. The Buffet E11 I have does obviously better. The Lyrique RCP 576 I recently acquired as upgrade is superb in comparison. Little problem with slower or less nuanced playing, though, so not to worry too much. 3. Durability – I can live with the first two shortcomings as amateur player but it’s the durability that finally killed the horn. It does have life expectancy which in my case, is about 1.5-2 years. I almost play it daily, sometimes for hours each day during weekend, to put things in perspective.

Still five stars, just keep in mind the limitations. BTW, the price has gone up a fair amount in past two years. 🙂

This clarinet is actually pretty good for the price. There are some things to keep in mind before buying, though

Pros:
– Solid, durable clarinet. Since this clarinet is made of ebonite, it can be scratched, dented, etc without you needing to worry about super bad damage.

– Keys are responsive and work well. I received a ready-to-play, fully functional clarinet. There weren’t any loose or broken keys, and it worked the first time.

– A few small trinkets are included, like cork grease, some white gloves, a reed, a cleaning cloth, etc.
> Great “Starter pack.”

Cons:
– This clarinet’s keys are a little slippery, which takes some getting used to.

– It may not be great for someone looking for a lower, deeper clarinet. Especially in the low end, it was higher than I expected, but it functioned just fine.

– The high end wasn’t as great – tonguing into the higher register was challenging but still possible.

(Just preference in the sound)

Note: In my experience, I had to place the mouthpiece further into my mouth than I expected to get any sound to come out.

This is a perfectly functional clarinet and would 100% work for any student learning the instrument.

Purchased for my son. He loved it. Great sound and even sounds better than his school clarinet. Only downside was the case. It is sturdy but he prefers a soft shell case over the hard case that it comes with.