Saxophones KB sax necks

[Colin the Bear]

A different neck isn't an easy change. Apart from all the faffing about getting it fitted to your socket, it won't make much difference to a relative newcomer to saxophone or many an experienced player .

The difference will be subtle and nuanced and is for the discerning ear and educated embouchure of an advanced player looking for that je ne sais quoi and may be beyond the perception of most of us.

The difference between reeds from the same box is greater.

Do run a brush down it now and again. That can make a noticeable difference if neglected.

 

[lydian]

@cappers
At your stage, a different neck is a complete waste of time and money. Differences are very subtle and completely lost on a new player like yourself.

The only time I was compelled to change necks was on a Yamaha whose stock neck was literally out of tune. But stock necks are usually perfectly fine most of the time.

 

[cappers]

Thanks @Colin the Bear @lydian et al.

Wasn't going to change necks (unless everyone said yeah go for it, best thing...)

I was just curious ..... (I know )

 

[cappers]

Do run a brush down it now and again. That can make a noticeable difference if neglected.

I swab the sax, neck and mouthpiece with a chammy-type cloth after every session. Then a final dry with a fluffy pad saver.

Rinse the mpc in cold water every so often, gentle rub with a toothbrush and toothpaste if required but rarely that cruddy.

 

[skeller047]

Weird reed issue today. The Selmer Classic 2 reed I used yesterday was fantastic, all notes were clean and lowB and low Bb popped out as easy as any other note 😎 Today same reed, same position of reed and ligature, same spot on mpc etc and the low notes needed far more effort to sound or to sound cleanly?

Play a different reed every day. Let it dry out. Rotate among 3-5 reeds. Each day is different, and deserves its own reed.

This is good both for the reed and for you. Because with a different reed you have to remind yourself of the fundamentals of playing to get the best sound. This keeps you focused on the fundamentals. And the poor reed - vibrating hundreds of times a second for hours, it’s needs a good lie down!

Your reed today may have warped somewhat, which will add resistance, and make low notes especially hard. If you store it for a few days in a good case, let it dry flat, it will play fine the next time.

 

[cappers]

Thanks @Skeller

I swapped the Selmer for a Rico Royal I gave up on a few days ago - flabby - and today it was great?! As you say time to rest and dry. Hopefully the Selmer will be back on form after a couple of days.

I do rotate but had such a good time with the Selmer yesterday I wanted seconds

 

[Grumps]

I wonder if this is subjective like mpc and reed choices?

Which is exactly what the marketers want you to wonder.

Admission time. I have a Buescher True Tone alto from 1928. It has its orignal neck with a "1" on it. A known quirk for these horns was a sharp top end above A2. To fix it, Buescher offered its next model, The New Aristocrat, with at least three different neck choices. A "3" neck is highly prized, simply because Rascher played it on his. But it was the "01" neck that became the stock neck for the Aristocrat line.

I had the intonation issues with the "1" neck, but thankfully could correct them with a looser lip up top. So I was happy with the horn. Then one day I find an alto neck on Ebay that had been spray painted gold and looked to be a mess. Upon closer inspection of the photos I could make out "01" at the base of the neck and bid it up to about seventy-five bucks. Sure enough, it was a New Aristocrat neck and it cleaned up nicely (and was even stripped and silver plated by my tech to match my horn). It also cleaned up those known intonation quirks nicely; reinforcing my belief that the New Aristocrat is simply a True Tone with a different neck. That's another thread, however...

Bottom line, if a company offers a neck to fix a problem with their horns, like Buescher did almost a hundred years ago... then by all means. Give a different neck a go. Or if you lose your neck or damage it... or foolishly buy a horn without a neck... then give a different neck a go. That's all.

And if anyone's wondering, the two times (years apart) I compared both necks switching them to hear the difference... I heard none. Just one was easier to play in tune.

 

[cappers]

And if anyone's wondering, the two times (years apart) I compared both necks switching them to hear the difference... I heard none. Just one was easier to play in tune.

That was the basis of my question, not would it make one sound any different but would it make it easier to play in tune and generally. e.g resistance etc.

Any out of tune-ness on the stock YTS-25 neck is down to me not the neck
I'm happy with my set up.

 

[Grumps]

That was the basis of my question, not would it make one sound any different but would it make it easier to play in tune and generally. e.g resistance etc.

No "and... resistance etc." Just as I said, "easier to play in tune"; meaning I don't have to loosen the lip up top. It wasn't easier to play in any other aspect and had nothing to do with resistance or anything else. There was absolutely no difference in sound of the two Buescher necks other than the intonation. The reason? I wasn't just putting on a different neck to see what happens, which in my view is a complete waste of time, effort and money. I was using what Buescher provided to better their own product. Big difference there, and I got very lucky. My True Tone is basically a New Aristocrat.

 

[lydian]

@cappers,
Grab just the neck and blow through it as hard as you can. Is there any resistance? No matter what minor differences exist among necks, all have essentially zero resistance. But a bad fitting, leaky neck can certainly create acoustic resistance, which is what a player typically feels when the horn doesn't play right.

In my case, with the intonation issue, Yamaha admitted that particular neck wasn't in tune and actually produced a different model to fix it. I think it was a model V1 versus G1, I forget which is which. One played perfectly in tune without any special effort. The other was very sharp in the upper-mid range and was very difficult to correct with embouchure/voicing changes.

I've also had horns that came with more than one neck. Yes, minor differences between them existed, but nothing compared to the difference you get from a different mouthpiece or reed.

Unless your current neck is damaged, any issues you may currently have cannot be fixed by a different neck. You're about 15% of the way to your optimum sound in your development as a player. Necks start coming into play when you're 99-100% of the way to your optimum sound. With practice, you'll be in that place in a few more years. But right now, you've only just left the parking lot.

 

[turf3]

I believe the correct term is "impedance", not "resistance". How much energy do you have to expend to set the air column into resonance at the pitch and amplitude you want? I believe, but cannot prove or demonstrate, that this has to do with the response versus frequency curve of the horn. It is my impression that for (let's say) the note A, 440 Hz, a horn whose air column resonance pattern with A fingered, would show a single tall peak at 440 Hz and everything else dropping off a lot from there, would be a horn with "less impedance", i.e., if you get the driver to 440 Hz you're going to have a LOT of response. A horn whose air column resonance pattern with A fingered shows a lower peak at 440 and a lot of sideband resonances, would, I expect, be "more impedance" - less response per unit of input.

Certainly we all know that certain fingerings of a given note will sound "duller" and some "more resonant" - again, I'd suggest that this is due to the nature of the air column resonances with the different fingerings. An incompletely vented note will typicallly sound "duller" - because if you only open one tone hole, the resonances from the longer tube are still present, not predominant, but they suck up input energy - whereas if you open the whole lattice of tone holes below the desired point, the resonances of the longer air columns are far less present. And this is why low Bb is usually a wild note - because everything's closed, so there's no "extra tube length, cut off but not 100% by the open tone holes further down". It's my understanding that this is why there's a bell flare, that it acts like additional tube length to spread out the resonances a bit.

Again, just gut feel, but if we look at what can actually be different about a different neck, the main thing that comes up is taper. (By the time they're formed, necks are pretty far from a true cone, by the way.) So my gut feel is that you're going to experience tuning changes with a different neck taper, tuning changes that'll be more significant in the short tube notes; I wouldn't expect much change in acoustic impedance; BUT if you've been having to voice and lip notes into tune and now you don't, that would SURELY result in a feeling of "more free blowing" - because bending a note takes energy.

 

[skeller047]

Even though I am not as down on different necks as @Grumps and @turf3 (I have different experiences), I agree that you are too soon in your journey to worry about this. If you get a chance, it might be fun to try something different, but don’t go on a big search unless there is a cogent reason.

 

[mizmar]

I believe, but cannot prove or demonstrate, that this has to do with the response versus frequency curve of the horn

In the same spirit; I think you can look at an instrument as a pile of coupled oscillators; with the tube being the dominant one; and every deviation (MP, neck, tone holes, bell etc) being bigger or smaller oscillators. The reed/MP being the driver - but still more or less efficient depending on how it's matched.
If they're all perfectly matched the fundamental and overtones will be big and clean (and probably quite boring). That's not possible. Any mismatch - being out of phase - will absorb energy which'll show up in partials, produces impedance and adds colour.

 

[cappers]

Thanks again for the replies to my hijacking of KB sax necks post

As said, I won't be changing anything. I was just interested after reading on here and elsewhere people talking positively about neck changes, particularly the later Yamaha necks on earlier models.

One horn, one mpc, one reed set up (and one neck!)