Thank you! This fixed my intonation issue! I'm a late sax beginner but not new to music and I started with cheap china sax. As I progress, I started to know more about my instrument. My open C# is very flat so my teacher told me to push the mouthpiece further( claude lakey original 6) and so I did. And it fixed my C# problem but as I started using more and more of the higher notes, I notice that my sax is sharp starting from high A to high F#. It gets worse as it gets higher. The intonation is widely spaced. I can get away with blowing hard and droping my jaw but it suffers when I try to play soft hight notes where I need to put a little bit of pressure. I'm not into real jazz but more of a classical pop style sound/smooth jazz guy. I used tape and made trial and error then I found the right length,shape and thickness. Its not perfect but it made it more manageable. Thank you very much! This just did not fix my instrument, but also gave me knowledge on how the neck kind of work in some ways.
This is great! I have a Yanagisawa tenor neck that I would like to use on my Guardala Earth Tone (B&S factory), but I stopped using it, because the low Bb is 30-40 cents sharp, and the middle line Bb is 20 cents flat! Can you do anything for me?
So, what model 62 is this horn? And, what model neck is being tweaked here. Also, what would the typical cost be to re-vamp a neck like this VS buying a replacement neck? Don't you think that these questions would be relevant?
What would be done to fix an individual note that is very sharp or flat? My E (low and middle) is 30-40 cents sharp, and my A (low and high) is about 20 cents flat. (Yes, it's a vintage horn, in case you were wondering)
He did not use any liner. He took some material off from the neck enough to reduce the diameter the neck. ( The tape is just to measure how much material to be taken off. Then to close the gap ( material that taken off ) we silver solder it . I'm a repairer. Hope I answer your question
I have exactly this problem with a new Selmer AS42, which has a custom handmade-in-france neck. It goes 50 cents sharp at high C# and above. it's crazy out of tune. (how does this leave a factory like this?) . Anyway, i "tuned" it with little corks around the palm keys to lower the height, but that then leaves high C# as the lone note on the horn that's whack, lol. Where do I get something like this done?
Because everything is sharp you can use crescents. This article that our owner Curt Altarac wrote many years ago has the solution to your problem: www.musicmedic.com/tuning-a-saxophone-with-crescents
I would have a hard time not changing my bite to pull the note in tune. Are there any artificial sax blowing machines used so the human play doesn't obscure the tuning problem?
There are. Or were. I saw a scholarly paper once about experiments with a sax-blowing machine. Obviously the experiments in this video are not exactly double-blind. To put it mildly.
Hi, I can't seem to tune my alto saxophone. when i press the first button, it plays a C instead of a B. Tried adjusting (increasing and decreasing) the length of the neck and the mouthpiece but it plays the same throughout. What should i do?
4 years late, but it sounds like your horn might be tuned to something like A=455. Many vintage horns are tuned this way. It is usually marked with "high pitch"
In this part of the video Curt is referring to his method of tuning the instrument with crescents, which should shed some light on your question. You can read that article here: www.musicmedic.com/tuning-a-saxophone-with-crescents
That's weird and I would rather exchange the horn than have to have a major operation of the neck that came with it. For the price of this procedure surely a custom neck could have been had that played more in tune. Some reviewers have said that the neck of the original 62 played more in tune than the G1 neck that came with the MK 2 so this might be a more common problem with the later 62s.
Ryan Merlino you're wrong. The intonation can be effected by the height of the pads in relation to the tone holes. If the instrument isn't set up properly the instrument won't be in tune.
So if you do this when the horn is cold - won't intonation change after the horns' been heated up? Also he needs to play that horn as loud as he possibly can because when a horn is played louder with more volume it sounds flatter --this test is a bit skewed and may actually make the intonation worse. Most pro players tune their saxophones at A442-A445 for the studio and live performances. I know newer Selmer saxophones sound best at A442
He said he warmed up before he played. Also, you should tune at like a regular volume that you would practice at. And most horns that are sold in America are made to be tuned at 440
well done men :), I also have this problem with my saxophone neck, cuestions!, what is this line or liner? (sorry, I don't speak english and I barely understand what you say), I mean, is made from tape?, what kind of tape?, could you please explain to me the liner part. thanks
LOL Sorry 7yrs later someone replies. I just watched this video like 20 min ago. It was just a piece of tape to change the taper of the neck. You can try it yourself, just make sure you swab your neck dry first or the tape wont stick. Originally I thought that making the bore smaller would make it sharper, but I suspect that when you manipulate higher to the air source(player and mouthpiece) you are actually slowing the speed of projection. Slower is lower and faster is sharper. The tape is just slowing down the air flow.
Will Ridley So the lower you get on your instrument the more your throat opens. It just happens so keep your embochoure firmly in place and try closing you throat a bit to raise the pitch. And vice versa for the upper range and palm keys. Your throat tightens because the pitch gets higher. Just keep your embochoure firmly in place and try to close your throat a bit to lower the pitch.
Hi Curt, personally I haven't understood, why this worked. Why is the tone getting flatter, when you reduce the diameter. Isn't the the pitch of a tone detrmined by it's lengthts? So why does reducing the diameter (and so the volume of the air column) makes the pitch go down, I would have guessed that it makes the town sharper. And also, how could such thing happen, that at a yamaha the neck doesn't fit the horn. I thaught a today process the neck geometrys is a thing the brands can do exactly. I would be very thankful for an answer.
The issue is the taper of the whole sax tube. For some reason this neck was too straight/open at the end. It didn't continue to taper all the way to the end. For one thing this affects the air resistance when playing the palm keys (where you are only putting 10 inches of air into motion). Too little resistance = faster air speed = sharper pitch. Also when playing a palm key - that 10 inches is vibrating in two identical 5 inch nodes (that's the purpose of the octave key). So having the correct taper over the two nodes in relationship to the position of the octave key is even more critical. If the sax was based on a straight tube (like a clarinet) then length of air column would be a more critical factor. But the sax is a flared/tapered tube so pitch is a fine balance between - length of air column, diameter of air column, position of tone holes, size of tone holes and the laws of physics. That said. Whomever made this neck (and I believe they are still made by hand on pro instruments) screwed up and ruined the taper from the octave key to the tip of the neck. Seems like it would have been a lot simpler (but less profitable) to just try a batch of necks and keep the one that played most in tune.
Tobias, I know it is a mind bender, but it just works like that. Here is something you can try and you will see it first had how this works. If you have a clarinet, stick a long shoestring down the clarinet to the full length of the instrument. Hold the clarinet horizontal (so the shoestring won't fall out). Now blow an open G while some else slowly pulls the shoestring out of the bell. The note will slide up a full half step. Give it a try.
Hallo Tobias, im Prinzip haben sie dadurch den Konus geweitet und ein erweiterter Konus überbläst in weniger als eine Oktave. Wenn man den Konus, anders herum, enger machte, dann überbläst ein Saxophon in mehr als eine Oktave. Das geht bis zum Zylinder, der in die Duodezime überbläst (Klarinette). Zum Viedeo ist zu sagen, dass sie das Instrument leider kaputt gemacht haben. Der Spieler bläst am oberen Limit seines Pitch Centers. Hätte er das Mundstück weiter drauf geschoben und den Ansatz gelockert, stimmte das Instrument nämlich genau. Allein durch das Draufschieben des Mundstückes nämlich erweitert man den Konus. Physikalisch ist so die Position des Mundstückes für jedes Horn exakt festgelegt.
Hey Steven! We would most likely charge the shop rate for this. Over the years Curt has gotten faster and faster at evaluating and correcting these problems. We went through this recently with an alto neck and it took about 2 hours to get it close for the player (more in tune from out of tune so it functions with the horn). That was before we made a permanent modification to the neck. So if the shop rate is $100/hr my guess is it would start around $200 not including the labor to fabricate and install a permanent modification, which can vary.
Is the horn cold or hot?? Is that the volume that this guy plays with live on stage? Or did he just take this horn out of its case? Probably not - this horn should be played for at least an hour at room temp. before the intonation test is done--THEN--check the intonation
Hi Curt, You mention briefly that in case d2, e2 is sharp that you manage not by changing the neck. How is this done? By adjusting key height of c1? Thanks in advance.
My opinion is that it would have been more cost effective to replace the neck with a new one. Also if you have to start altering the size and shape of toneholes, you've got serious case of " return the complete saxophone as a defect". By the way I'm a retired repairperson with 30 years of experience.
These are likely problems that exist across the entire model. Besides, what if similar problems were to be rectified on a vintage sax where replacement necks are not available? I think Curt's research is invaluable. I struggle with sharp top notes on my Couf Superba alto and I might try experimenting with inserts. I know I sure as hell won't find a replacement neck.
I find this to be extremely unnecessary. Mainly because the lower you go in a range on almost any instrument the flatter the tone gets. And the higher you go in a range on almost any instrument the sharper the tone gets. I'm a sax player myself and the lower range is extremely easy to tune and the higher range only gets sharp like that because your throat constricts and gets tighter the higher you go. It just happens and can't be helped unless you know about it. People think that out of tune notes are the instruments fault even after they've tuned to an a or an f# in the case of alto sax. In reality you just need to keep your embochoure firmly in place and try to open your throat to lower the pitch. This repair isn't needed and will lead to the student who owns it to have realized they wasted their money once they get better.
I think the idea of “auto correcting” is more applicable for small adjustments all over the horn. A couple cents sharp or flat. Plus they were dealing with a newer Yamaha, those horns, comparably are way more consistent then the typical vintage. That Yamaha had an entire section of sharp notes, if intonation varied throughout the horn then the “auto corrections” would be more applicable. As you go down the horn, the body of the horn decides more of the intonation(tone holes and tube). Plus some of the sharps were way way sharp, so it was just some neck tinkering. My King 20 silver sonic has sharps and flats throughout the horn, as does my MK7. That would cost nothing short of the price equivalent of a heart transplant and years of psych counseling to fix, I just “auto correct’ and press or open alternate keys.
Hi, a little strange with a Yam 62 so out of tune, should not be in need of this kind of adjustment. They're famous for playing really well in tune, used to own one myself a few years back.
how about developing a great tone on the sax FIRST via regular methods and this will also solve your intonation ,student sound always sounds bad and bad tuning.Yamaha 62 is one of the most in tune saxophones ever made ,just another way to burn $
It's not. I have an 62 alto, and I've been playing for years. On my 52 tenor, my tuning is spot on. In other altos, also, have no issues. My issue is on the 62 Neck, just like this instrument. I'm actually thinking about getting a new neck, as it would be cheaper than a fancy repair shop. If it doesn't fix, I might even sell it to the next victim.
Something is very wrong when a beginner at violin can be better in tune than what's shown here. Good work, but all saxophones are out of tune, and the manufacturers design the instruments to have intonation as good as can be and is a compromise of what they want to achieve wrt intonation and tone. The rest is up to the player. Saxophones will be an impractical mechanical nightmare if the saxophone did manage to play itself in tune for all notes and registers.
Coltrane probably not, Brecker most likely. If you have two signature Dave Guardala mouthpieces named after you and you have no major drug and/or life saver candy addictions you’ve probably spent some heavy cash on your horns. I’m pretty sure Emilio Lyons spent a good chunk of his life working on Michael Brecker’s horns.
That is the strangest thing I’ve ever seen done to a sax. I find it hard to believe that Yamaha would be so incompetent to make a neck so poorly. You cut a huge gap from that tube. I hate to say this, but it looks like you’re preying on intermediate skilled saxophonists and their struggle to improve by getting them to cough up money for needless mutilations of their horn. Practice and a good instructor is probably a much better solution.
SkylersRants I’m quite confident they tested the horn with other skilled players, and then the sax passed by the maintenance. I guess the video is only for demonstrative purposes.
You guys jazz/rock/fusion players? I’m pretty sure the person getting their horn repaired was probably a classical player. Those people are born with a stick...I probably just would’ve purchased a new neck. Classical players are very rigid, probably doesn’t want to mess up his/her setup.
Wow, what a pain, just send that horn back to Yamaha and say "I want a new one" ! The Americans will always find a way of making a buck $$$ :-) nobody does this anywhere, is it really neccessary? are Yamaha horns so badly out of tune? I don´t think so.
