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Borgani Curved Sop vs. Holton Straight Sop vs. King Saxello (Ave Maria)

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LostCircuits said:
I just got/restored a ~1970 Borgani curved sop and did a little recording / comparison of its tone vs. a Holton straight sop and the King Saxello. Enjoy!

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSbpRBoEM2A
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Just what your dogs needed. A nice little chewy toy sax:thumb: Nice job on the build:banana:
Great demonstration of three sopranos. Not many real side by side comparison tests of antique and classic‘s. You must enjoy torture. Other than being sopranos these have nothing in common. Are the pinky tables even close to each other ?
Same mouthpiece & reed on all ?
 
That’s a pretty hard-core test of one of your mouthpieces. That’s really impressive one would cover that broad of range. You my friend are a talented mouthpiece maker.
 
Nick Wyver said:
It was a King Saxello that got me playing sax in the first place. I was inspired by the playing of Elton Dean in Soft Machine 50 or so years ago.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svJxLrK-frg

I didn't get a King though. I started with a Buescher True Tone soprano from the 30s.
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I have a 1922 TT but it's a c-sop. But there is something about the tone of a saxello that is kind of magic. Thanks for the link to Soft Machine, I wasn't even aware of that.
 
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Thanks for nice recording.

The diffent shapes of the sopranos matters? Straight, tipped bell, "Saxello", perfect curved (semi curved) and fully curved have differnt voices? Or is it the players that matters? Or a combination between the player and shape of the soprano? A straight soprano have a diffent sound compared to a fully curved. The bell of the curved soprano is more aimed to the players ears so the player is adjusting the tone/sound. Modern mikrophones and PA (monitors/headphones) are good for the soprano.

I have four straigt Bb sopranos; Conn NW c -24, Buescher TT (LP-122 model) c-28, Kohlert modell 1927 and "Schenkelaars" c -52 (Keilwerth, Nauheim stencil), Same, same ... but diffent when it comes to tone/sound.

King Curtis didn't play a King Saxello. He was on a perfect curved Martin, Lyon Haley, Holton, Courtier .... ? In the hand of a good player these bastards sounded pretty good. After perfect curved King Curtis played a straight Selmer.
 
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thomsax said:
Thanks for nice recording.

The diffent shapes of the sopranos matters? Straight, tipped bell, "Saxello", perfect curved (semi curved) and fully curved have differnt voices? Or is it the players that matters? Or a combination between the player and shape of the soprano? A straight soprano have a diffent sound compared to a fully curved. The bell of the curved soprano is more aimed to the players ears so the player is adjusting the tone/sound. Modern mikrophones and PA (monitors/headphones) are good for the soprano.
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Thank you!

Yes, the different shapes of the sopranos matter quite a bit when it comes to the tone. You can hear it when you play and you can clearly hear it in the recordings.
For the recordings, it is very important that you adjust the position of the microphones, in the case of the curved soprano, the microphone needs to point downwards, in the case of the Saxello it has to be somewhat tilted and in the case of the straight soprano it is pointing straight at the bell.

Same player, same mouthpiece, same reed (the mouthpiece (plus reed) was moved from one instrument to the other "as is" without any other adjustments. Of course, there were the appropriate adjustments in posture etc. but what I am very happy with the capture of the tone of each one because that's what the typical tone of each one of the instruments is. Of course, there is the old adage that I will always sound like myself regardless of the setup but the differences are clearly there.

I finally treated myself to a better mic, Electrovoice RE20 but all it does is underscore the differences even more. In theory I should use a dual mic setup and I might try that at a later point.

Here is another good comparison:
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbXmQoWT0tQ
 
Yes, the shape of the sopranos matters when it comes to tone. A straight soprano in one pice sounds a little bit differnt to a straight soprano with changeble necks? Not much, and nost of us don't care or hear the differences.

Here is a short recording with a straight soprano vs a curved soprano. The first one is straight soprano. The straight and the curved is playing together in the end. I don't remeber if it was Conn NWII or late Buescher TT, but it was the same manufactor and model.

There is a differce but it not much. A good player can make the differnces bigger. How do you want your soprano to sound like? Lots of "Hokus Pokus".

View: https://youtu.be/FSVHKLH5_-E?si=6P79L3OYWu4z4-DT
 
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Nice recording Thomas! For me there is a very distinctive difference in the tone of the straight vs. curved soprano, the straight sounds "nasal" or what my first grade teacher always said "if you want to sound French, all you need is pinch your nose".
My preference is 100% the curved with its warm "transparent" (or spread) tone. I mean, I have a collection of sops, most of them straight and I love them all but force me to pick one or two, it won't be a straight one.
 
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