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Metal resonators, all sizes, cheap?

The recording technique also improved. Later it was possible to hear the bari or tenorsolo in a better way. I wonder: If the Six Brown Brothers had the opportunity to choice between a Buescher (pre TT ?) or modern saxes with resonators and modern mouthpices. Or would they prefer Rufus Thomas "Walking The Dog". Just a reflection.
View: https://youtu.be/GOHofU8CQYs
 
jbtsax said:
As part of the discussion of resonators and tone quality, I think it is important to remember the "concept of sound" of the saxophone when the vintage saxophones were produced. From early recordings one can hear that the tone quality was sweet and mellow, especially compared to the sound we are familiar with today. Mouthpiece design, pads without "reflectors" and the player's concept all played a part in what saxes sounded like in that era---not to mention the vibrato. :)
As jazz bands got louder, in order for the saxophone section to be heard, mouthpiece design changed and "resonators" became standard on saxophone pads.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xHoYZDImpIc&ab_channel=bsgs98
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You hit the nail on the head. The reason I repad some of my vintage horns with rivets. “Original sound”
 
DavidUK said:
So, would it be desirable to have the reso (and pad) centred over each tone hole instead of offset (with the key cup)?
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An offset keycup, pad and resonator shows that your horn is suffering from a damage or bad quality control. If you have a saxophone with oversized reonators you can the reso can be too close to the tonehole rim. Some keycups on a saxophone can be much bigger than the tonehole. Not so important when it comes to the pad and keycup but the reso must be centered over the the tonehole.
 
DavidUK said:
I'm stripping down my 23 Vito soon so I'll see if that's any better than the Jupiter where many pads were off centre to the tone hole. Perhaps @Stephen Howard and @jbtsax Could confirm if better quality horns have better centered cups to tone holes?
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Not necessarily - it also depends what you mean by better quality horns. I've seen more than my fair share of new saxes - seeing as I set them up prior to sale. Some Chinese manufactured horns have had better centred key cups than some new Selmer, Keilwerth and Yamaha horns I've worked on, and to some small extent Yanagisawa's.
 
DavidUK said:
So, would it be desirable to have the reso (and pad) centred over each tone hole instead of offset (with the key cup)?
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A while back someone was advertising resos that attached to the pad with adhesive so they could be placed anywhere. The main criticism if I remember correctly was that attached to just the leather covering they would have a tendency to vibrate.
 
jbtsax said:
A while back someone was advertising resos that attached to the pad with adhesive so they could be placed anywhere. The main criticism if I remember correctly was that attached to just the leather covering they would have a tendency to vibrate.
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Why not fit new, slightly smaller, pads with their edge aligned to the tone hole rim instead of the key cup rim? It would leave a crescent shaped gap in the key cup but so what? Then the resos would be centered to the tone holes and the nodal points, IF it's so important.
 
DavidUK said:
the exact centre of the tone hole is the nodal point at which the sound wave bounces
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As I said in an earlier post, this is complete nonsense. I am on record as saying, "whenever someone mentions nodes and resonance" speaking about saxophones you should put your hand on your wallet and back slowly out of the room. In almost every instance those who don't know what they are talking about use the term node when they really mean anti node.

There are two types of nodes present in standing waves: pressure and motion. At a pressure node there is no change in the pressure of air molecules. At a displacement node there is no change in motion of the air molecules.

There are also two types of anti nodes. At a pressure anti node there is a maximum increase in pressure of air molecules. At a motion anti node there is a maximum increase in motion of air molecules.

The illustration on the right of a conical shaped bore represents a saxophone. The first is the fundamental, the second one down is the first overtone, the third is the third overtone, and the fourth one down is the fourth overtone. Every note played on a saxophone has these harmonics and many more. It is easy to visualize how many nodes and anti nodes are present. Now imagine if every closed tonehole had a node at its exact center or an anti node which would make more sense since the pressure or motion would be at its greatest. Think of how many different frequencies (notes) are present when a saxophone is being played and the large number of harmonics of each frequency.

There are instances where there is a pressure anti node in the vicinity of a tonehole where a leak in a pad has a greater effect upon how a note responds, and if played loud enough can "blow open" a spring closed pad with a weak spring.

columns.GIF


This moving animation gives a representation of what is happening with air molecules in a sound wave.

Standing Sound Waves
 
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DavidUK said:
Why not fit new, slightly smaller, pads with their edge aligned to the tone hole rim instead of the key cup rim? It would leave a crescent shaped gap in the key cup but so what?
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It's a fantastically terrible idea.

Conventional pads aren't flat across the surface - there's a 'roll-off' at the edge. For a pad to seat reliably over a significant amount of time the tonehole impression needs to be as far away from the edge of the pad as possible.
There are many horns that have quite large toneholes in relation to the size of certain pads (as found on the low D on a Yamaha) and these are prone to leaking quite early on in the pad's life...and require a lot of extra care to seat properly.
Reducing the size of a pad will compound this problem.

And you have to consider what will happen now that there's a partial gap between the key cup wall and the pad. Moisture will find its way into this gap - and will have a direct route to the base of the pad. That's going to cause complications over time. At best it'll result in uneven shrinkage/expansion - at worst it may allow for rapid deterioration of the glue.

By far the best way to avoid tonal anomalies generated by off-centre reflectors is...to practice more. About 30 seconds a day ought to do it.
 
@jbtsax said earlier that re-centering a key cup to align with a tone hole isn't so difficult when moving sideways to the key arm but impossible lengthways. If there's, say, just 1.5mm between the edge of an off centre pad and the cup edge does he or @Stephen Howard look to reposition the cup by bending the cup arm or does this present worse repercussions?
 
DavidUK said:
@jbtsax said earlier that re-centering a key cup to align with a tone hole isn't so difficult when moving sideways to the key arm but impossible lengthways. If there's, say, just 1.5mm between the edge of an off centre pad and the cup edge does he or @Stephen Howard look to reposition the cup by bending the cup arm or does this present worse repercussions?
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If the key is off-centre side-to-side then it can be repositioned with ease.
If it's your own horn, knock yourself out. If it's someone else's you have to consider whether moving that key will alter the position of the finger pearl...and what effect that may have on the feel of the action.
And in some instances moving a key in this fashion will result in a collision with an adjacent one (sopranos are notorious in this respect).

Of course...bear in mind that if you move a key in its sideward plane, you also alter the front/back relationship (because you're effectively moving the key in a circle).......
 
jbtsax said:
This moving animation gives a representation of what is happening with air molecules in a sound wave.

Standing Sound Waves
Click to expand...
Those animations are way better than those on the UNSW pages. They are correct in representing pressure / density. But it's a bit wrong in that air molecules don't really slosh back and for over that kind of distance for sound waves . They are in thermal motion colliding, elasticity, with each other very quickly (< 1μm) and transmitting energy / momentum. I mentioned it because they also collide with the instruments walls, very nearly elastically for brass but with greater loss on softer materials like leather... Hence, IMHO, why putting disks of hard material over the leather makes a difference.
 

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