The Complete Handbook of Clarinet Pad Savers

Chapter 1: Understanding Clarinet Pad Savers

A clarinet pad saver is a moisture-absorbing insert that you leave inside your clarinet case, typically resting against the pad surfaces while the instrument is stored. Its entire purpose is to dry the pads from the inside out, absorbing the accumulated condensation after you play and reducing the time that moisture stays in contact with the leather or synthetic pad surface. On paper, it is a very simple product. In practice, the difference between a good saver and a bad one is the difference between pads that last fifteen years and pads that start sticking and losing tone quality in three.

To understand why pad savers matter, you have to understand what happens to a clarinet pad the second you stop playing. A clarinet produces sound by a vibrating reed that sets the air column inside the instrument into motion. That air contains moisture, partly from your breath and partly from the surrounding atmosphere. As you play, that humid air travels through the tone holes and across the surfaces of the pads. When you finish playing and put the instrument away, that moisture condenses on the pad's surface, particularly on the thinner pads used for the upper tone holes, and soaks into the felt core of the pad. If that felt stays damp, it will begin to lose its spring, a process called compression. The pad surface can also degrade from repeated swelling and drying, and in some cases the pad will warp so