The mouthpiece would have been a PPT. Not much more to say about the baritone, I think it was identified by the Martin Story memeber (can't re,e,ber hos name) as a Handcraft Committee. It had a cusom made aux F key added. Obviously the previous owner had tuning issues and had somehow got some Blue Tack where the sun don't shine. (The baritone pigtail).
The problem is that the only way to modify the horn that will actually work is to relocate all the tone holes (see "retuning Louis Lot A=435 flutes").
Maybe. But give the Wilmington 12.5M neck a try. It’s pretty remarkable, how this changes. If I want to play pickle barrel piece with it, everything is outright flat. And if I push in, middle D gets flat. 🙂
My own sop MPC has a tip opening of 0.070. All the other pieces I have in the range of 0.040 - 60 have intonation issues. I never attributed the tip opening but when I read your post, I thought, maybe he's up to something
I don’t see a reason for tip opening to affect intonation per se, but can affect the player’s ability to (sometimes subconsciously) lip into (or out of!) tune.
I think it’s more the mouthpiece shape. I had a Buescher curvy with a fixed neck that only went up to high Eb. I played a “soloist style” Selmer F on it for years. 0.059” tip, I think (I’ve never measured it). Super Sessions are very similar to the Soloist-style pieces. I still have the mouthpiece, but the horn is gone. The mouthpiece plays well, and in tune, on every soprano I’ve played. As does my Super Session F.
Interesting, in this case a cleanup and simple change to a quality mouthpiece, (and professional servicing?) I gather. Plus the skill of one who knows how to play the instrument in tune.
Not so much the quality but the design I imagine (along with quality of course)
Oddly, it seems that some kinds of chamber constriction have mor effect than others - it seems to matter WHERE they are. So a high baffle large chamber piece (let's say, chamber same size as cork bore) seems to affect pitch less than a modestly baffled piece with a smaller round chamber.
Totally agree. And different shapes affect different ranges within the whole range. Thinking about the tuning of tones in the 2nd octave by changing local volume at nodes, it probably makes sense that this game can be continued upwards the cone into the mouthpiece.
I used to work in acoustics. There aren't really any analytical approaches (I mean - algebraic expressions that you can derive by solving something like the wave equation in the presence of some known, or even known-ish, boundary conditions) for anything much more complicated than a horn with conical or exponential profile - and most of the solutions to those that I used to use, got written down in the 30s and then perhaps shone up a bit in the 40s and 50s. (I was no specialist in musical acoustics, but some of the stuff I did was adjacent...eg PA horns and leaf blowers!). To do more than that you need to discretise the horn into a load of small chunks and then append one to the other, which is the beginning of a computational approach like BEM or FEA for which you need...a computer, so 100 years after Sax. So I would say they did it by broad-brush calculation using some pretty big assumptions (perhaps plane waves only, maybe assuming a cone but perhaps even simplifying to a cylindrical tube) followed by a lot of experiments - iterative design improvements over a long period.
Yes, a bit of trial and error but also, the, let's call it intuition, of some of the old masters should not be underestimated. I worked with some old craftsmen and I could not even see the imperfections they pointed out and corrected. I could measure them but only after I was pointed to them.
IMHO those are risky if you don’t really know what your needs are. I see more of that maker on offer locally than any other. The quality is good, but buyers are clueless and order some funky stuff. I would rather see the OP opt for a PTT that’s proven or go with the second hand options listed here.
Yeah, you can stick them pieces in your mouth. And you can order them. But I looked at all their bari offerings and none of them seems to be what you'd want in this scenario. Pardon my perkiness but you'd need a really custom design which is not in their library.
These are particularly old ones with antiquated keywork where the octave pad mechanism for the neck isn't attached to the neck, just the pip; making even a neck replacement not economically feasible. Also, to distinguish them from later Conn baritone saxophones, they are only keyed up to Eb3 up top. There is no side E. There is no high F. They are VERY unique baritone saxophones and they are not just plug and play. Overall generally helpful advice... isn't going to be helpful. Take it from someone who spent a lot of time and experimentation decades ago in getting one back to working order to be used in modern settings. I followed tons of overall generally good advice and wasted money on mouthpieces that were never going to work. It was only when someone very experienced with these old beasts stepped in to help me (Thanks Paul L.!).
Everyone varies in their abilities for technical hands-on problem solving. Some have the "knack" for it: 😉
Yes, I can see one getting into trouble with a wide tip mouthpiece if not careful and not watchful of reed strength selection. It's an advance topic and better tackled by one who already mastered the basic fundamentals of play and are ready to move on.
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