Klarinet Archive - Posting 000391.txt from 1999/12

From: Bill Hausmann <bhausman@-----.com>
Subj: Re: [kl] saxophones ?
Date: Tue, 14 Dec 1999 08:26:35 -0500

At 11:36 AM 12/14/1999 +0100, David Glenn wrote:
>Bill Hausmann wrote:
>
>> At 01:17 PM 12/13/1999 -0500, Don Longacre wrote:
>> >Someday an instrument manufacturer is going to go back into quality
>> >saxophones and get Mr Sax's instrument sounding right by putting
>> >some metal in it and stop farming out the work to the natives on
>> >Bora Bora or somesuch place. In clarinets, people like Eaton, Rossi
>> >and Patricola aren't setting the corporate world on fire but they're
>> >still building instruments the old fashioned way.
>> >
>> The pro horns, like the Selmer Paris models, Yamaha Pro Customs, etc., are
>> very heavily built, with annealed bells and such. The Selmers are the
>> R-13's of the saxophone world, the standard by which the others are judged.
>
>+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
>
>I think, what Don meant, is not only the quality of the instrument. I have
been
>told that the older saxophones were made with a *parabolic* bore as
opposed to
>the *conical* bore of the newer saxophones. Apparently, it is not (yet)
possible
>to make a parabolic bore by machine and so it would be prohibitively
expensive
>to produce those wonderful, mellow sounding horns in this pricey day and age.
>That's why firms like das Blashaus in Lucerne do things like putting modern
>keywork on old saxes. They put a front F and a G# connection for the table
keys
>on my old 1924 Buescher but they also do complete new keywork.
>
>The new saxes are great but they just don't sound quite like the old ones...
>
You'd like to believe they are made by machine now, but that is not the
case. One of the main reasons the prices of instruments likes saxes and
clarinets have gone up so much is that they require virtually ALL
hand-labor. Saxes sound different now because the prevailing popular sound
is now brighter and edgier (to boost the frequencies that can no longer be
heard by musicians standing in front of their amps?). If you want a
mellower sound, you have to get a vintage instrument. A vintage instrument
with modern ergonomically-designed keywork would be the best of both worlds
as far as I'm concerned!

Bill Hausmann bhausman@-----.com
451 Old Orchard Drive http://www.concentric.net/~bhausman
Essexville, MI 48732 http://homepages.go.com/~zoot14/zoot14.html
ICQ UIN 4862265

If you have to mic a saxophone, the rest of the band is too loud.

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