Intonation 1917 Conn Wonder baritone has tuning issues

[PigSquealer]

Yeah that was the measurement from the inside of the tone hole up to the key. I remeasured like in the picture it's about 9 mm.

Speaking of unique issues for the horn it had a large dent right under the left hand thumb rest but I worked it out smooth. I know the shape of the back wall of the body tube is important for intonation. Could that make the horn play shape? Or everyone still thinks it's a MP issue.
Thanks

A small dent isn’t going to cause the issues you’re experiencing. It’s pretty unanimous that everyone agrees to seek a more suitable mouthpiece. From there the fun begins. Small adjustments for best results. Play the character of the horn. Whatever the outcome is most likely exceeds the way it left the factory 100 years ago. Modern pads and a mouthpiece that were not available at the time will play differently.

 

[LostCircuits]

Yeah that was the measurement from the inside of the tone hole up to the key. I remeasured like in the picture it's about 9 mm.

Speaking of unique issues for the horn it had a large dent right under the left hand thumb rest but I worked it out smooth. I know the shape of the back wall of the body tube is important for intonation. Could that make the horn play shape? Or everyone still thinks it's a MP issue.
Thanks

Dents can affect the intonation but on a bari it would have to be a really big dent.
On a soprano on the other hand, the dent could be smaller to make a difference.

My money is on the MPC, just think of a cone with its tip missing. In order to get good intonation the MPC needs to substitute the missing tip but the smaller the chamber, the more acute will be the internal acoustic cone of the MPC.

Also, the more proximal tone holes (intonation) will be much stronger affected than the ones down the pipe.

So you can fake the correct intonation on the top holes by pushing in the MPC until the end of its acoustic cone matches that of the upper stack but the further down you go, you'll get progressively sharper.

It's really interesting science and you can find articles here by just searching for the reference "Benade" (sometimes misspelled as Bonade) whose work laid the foundations for a more exact understanding of the intonation of conical bore instruments.

 

[PigSquealer]

Dents can affect the intonation but on a bari it would have to be a really big dent.

He smoothed out the dent. I don’t think any small amount of residual not fully ironed out should cause any problems ?
“Small dents” like a car door dent.

 

[LostCircuits]

He smoothed out the dent. I don’t think any small amount of residual not fully ironed out should cause any problems ?
“Small dents” like a car door dent.

Unless he used Bondo on the outside only.

 

[PigSquealer]

Tech/maintenance - A new way to see a saxophone - the missing cone

Notice how the wavelength for the note Ab concert behaves as if it begins at the apex of the "imaginary" missing cone. What a cool instrument we play. The "missing cone" is also longer than the neck itself.

cafesaxophone.com

 

[r. giuseppe]

The question keeps coming back. The Conn players answering and the answers stay the same. 😉
I'll add my 2 cents/pence.

I own and play a 1936 12M (I know that is 20 years younger), which intonates perfectly (I mean really perfect!) with a "pickle-barrel" style mouthpiece. I have a copy that Clark Fobes makes or used to make. I added some baffle and eventually had Phil Engleman improve the baffle and make it permanent and also put another facing on it. It was kind of a detour, but the piece has some edge now added on top of this big sound you can't find on a modern setup, it has gained lots of power and is definitely the best piece I have ever played on an old Conn with original crook. Unfortunately it is unique, so it doesn't help anyone if I tell about it, unless you want to go a similar way.

All other pieces just don't work the same intonationwise for me. Long middle D and E are always sharp. With "normal" large chamber pieces like Links or the PPT it is certainly in a range that can be handled by a good player, but it's still not easy for me. What finally did the trick for me for more modern pieces is the Wilmington 12.5M neck by Music Medic. It is not quite cheap, but an impressive demonstration by someone who understands the "missing cone" thing. I can play any modern piece from paint peelers to "normal" large chambers with it easily on the 12.5M, the intonation is just right. I love the PPT, but having both a unaltered original neck and the 12.5M neck, I prefer to play it on the latter.

A neck extension is a "classic" option for the problem, almost every other old 12M I have seen has had the neck extended. But it changes originality and will likely not be perfect for reasons @turf explained.

If you are willing to play around and do some research, you will find an article about "tuning a sax" on the music medic blog which descriptions how you can tune the second octave on a sax and another blog somewhere where someone fixed 2nd octave intonation of a Martin baritone by soldering a piece of thread in the pig tail. I have played around with tubes in the crook and pearls on a wire and find it quite amazing, how intonation can be "tuned" for single notes. However, I never made permanent changes myself in this regard, fearing it would affect something negatively. But if you are good at this kind of work, I am sure you can tune the second octave to fit a modern piece on your horn...

Key heights are another nice rabbit hole to get lost in. But it is a different rabbit hole. Key heights will affect both the 1st and 2nd octave in a similar way. This is not your problem, although it might help with a compromise. Nevertheless, the key heights should be right in the first place, before you start messing with other stuff.

 

[Pete Thomas]

another blog somewhere where someone fixed 2nd octave intonation of a Martin baritone by soldering a piece of thread in the pig tail.

When I bought a Martin Handcraft I discovered someone had put various bits of blue tack in the neck and pigtail. Took it all out, put on an appropriate mouthpiece and suddenly not only was tone better, but it was in tune.

 

[r. giuseppe]

When I bought a Martin Handcraft I discovered someone had put various bits of blue tack in the neck and pigtail. Took it all out, put on an appropriate mouthpiece and suddenly not only was tone better, but it was in tune.

Yeah, that‘s the danger of it, that everything gets completely messed up.

 

[Grumps]

Can you make the RPC like @Grumps has with the extended shank ?

I have two. The first one I picked up on a whim... and I'm going by memory as I'm too lazy to measure it again... but it was a 120 Rollover that has a sort of two-step drop baffle into the chamber. I believe the normal ones are about a quarter inch shorter... and that's also going by memory from when this all came up years ago. But when Ron was alive, he made me a copy as close as I could describe to what I had picked up second hand. It's a bit more open as well, at .130", but with the extended length like my other.

I actually still have the Woodwind Co. You have to be careful with those however, as some feature a smaller, squarish chamber. I once found a K7 from Poland and was so psyched about it as mine was only a 5. When it arrived, the chamber was square and my horn rejected it like a bad liver transplant.

 

[Colin the Bear]

Don't SYOS make mouthpieces to order?

 

[Colin the Bear]

The Selmer concept is described as large chambered.

 

[r. giuseppe]

Selmer concept

There was a thread somewhere a while ago showing it uses basically the same blank as the tenor with a bigger bore and broader table.

Generally, large chamber pre 40ies seems to have a different meaning than large chamber post 40ies. With the exception of Rascher and Caravan pieces, which may not be the first choice for every player and every type of music…

 

[LostCircuits]

This is the Lamberson I mentioned. I believe Ron added the baffle but the tip was broken off on one side. I fixed it and it is a monster but very aggressive (compared to my Morgan GM). Because of the repairs (which I am very confident about) I'd be very hesitant to part with it but this is an example of what I believe would work.

 

[LostCircuits]

Reminds me a bit of Moby Dick, it can swallow the occasional bumble bee without a hiccup.

 

[Grumps]

Reminds me a bit of Moby Dick, it can swallow the occasional bumble bee without a hiccup.

Folks have used bass mouthpieces for them. Which is funny, because I knew a pro who used a Levelair baritone mouthpiece on an old Conn bass. There are always anomalies; and the ones who don't seem to have any sort of problem with vintage Conns of any stripe, tend to blow with a very lose lip.

 

[LostCircuits]

Folks have used bass mouthpieces for them. Which is funny, because I knew a pro who used a Levelair baritone mouthpiece on an old Conn bass. There are always anomalies; and the ones who don't seem to have any sort of problem with vintage Conns of any stripe, tend to blow with a very lose lip.

100% a relaxed embouchure is key to any of these instruments. Of course, this is conjecture but the MPCs of that era were rather close so any pinching would have completely choked/closed them and if you look at the instrument as an entire ecosystem, you would expect them to work best with "that" relaxed embouchure. One could argue that a more modern piece and a tighter embouchure will do the same but it won't.

 

[Ghr9204]

When I bought a Martin Handcraft I discovered someone had put various bits of blue tack in the neck and pigtail. Took it all out, put on an appropriate mouthpiece and suddenly not only was tone better, but it was in tune.

Just curious, but is there elsewhere that you describe your Martin and mouthpiece in more detail? It is information like this that helps one to get the most out of an earlier period sax (or clarinet).

Sometimes I think the lack of success on an earlier instrument may be related to simple things like a period mouthpiece or current day replica of such. Then, such becomes a joy to play.

 

[turf3]

When I bought a Martin Handcraft I discovered someone had put various bits of blue tack in the neck and pigtail. Took it all out, put on an appropriate mouthpiece and suddenly not only was tone better, but it was in tune.

Yes, many years ago I bought a Dolnet tenor with crescents soldered in the bell tone holes, palm keys raised to the moon, and a 1/2" long piece of pipe added to the neck. The root cause was the mouthpiece with tiny round chamber that I found in the case. I played it with a Meyer and all the mods reversed, and it played with fine intonation. That was my first introduction to this issue. The next one was when I bought a Holton soprano cheap on the grounds that "it's out of tune"; and I shoved the MP almost up to the octave key post and it played beautifully in tune. Then I bought the 12M I've written about extensively and struggled with it for 20 years before finally dragging the big SOB down to Rayburn and up to University Music and finally getting a mouthpiece properly matched to its scale.

So this is some of the experience that leads me to state that I believe, in saxophones made after 1900 and in production quantities, an actual "out of tune" saxophone is vanishingly rare; but bad mouthpiece to horn combinations are, I firmly believe, the root cause 99% of the time.

Something that's only recently occurred to me is that playing a saxophone with an MP that's well matched to its scale may also promote a generally more relaxed way of playing, less embouchure tension, less manipulation of embouchure and voicing just to stay in tune. It's now my belief that at least in my case, this progressively more relaxed playing has allowed my so called "input pitch" to get lower and lower over the last 20 years, so I've gradually been pushing in more and more, and intonation getting progressively better, altissimo getting easier, etc. It's hard to put energy and focus onto airstream, tone, improvisation, etc. when you're having to work so hard just to play the damn thing in tune.

 

[r. giuseppe]

So this is some of the experience that leads me to state that I believe, in saxophones made after 1900 and in production quantities, an actual "out of tune" saxophone is vanishingly rare; but bad mouthpiece to horn combinations are, I firmly believe, the root cause 99% of the time.

I’ve found the same thing true for all my four current Conns from Bari to Soprano, from 1925 - 1941.
Interestingly, the mouthpiece pickiest of them, the baritone and soprano, have the most perfect scale once the mouthpiece is right. The tenor and alto are less perfectly intonationwise, but I play a standard Link and Meyer on them, which may already be a bit smaller than what they were originally designed for. So from this perspective they are probably just more forgiving and work alright with smaller volume pieces.

Then I have seen advanced players who can play a 10M in tune with a small chambered step baffle Berg style piece and sound really good. I can’t. Maybe I will in many years. But on the other hand, I have actively been playing for almost 40 years and functioning for the music I play, so I might never get my airstream and embouchure to this point.

Regarding the OP I’d put it this way:
Not many people will actually still play a Conn Bari from 1917. So if a saxophone life is saved by keeping the horn active by musicians, any means is acceptable. If a matching mouthpiece is found and a way to intonate the thing, that's great. If not, or if the OP wants to play a slightly more modern piece, I wouldn't say no to modifications, as long as they work.

 

[Grumps]

Interestingly, the mouthpiece pickiest of them, the baritone and soprano, have the most perfect scale once the mouthpiece is right.

I've got a 1920 curved Conn soprano with a modern Selmer Super Session J mouthpiece that has never given me a problem with intonation. The same mouthpiece also works with my earlier Buescher curved soprano. If anything, the more open tip makes it more flexible for me to find the right pitch.