Tech/maintenance Saxophone tuning

[Tommy Ng]

Hiya

I am back!!!

I have a Trevor James Classic soprano. The lows are flat and the highs are sharp. There is no way that i can adjust the position of the mouthpiece to get it in tune. I am using a C* mpc.

Is this a common problem for cheap sop saxes?

 

[Pete Thomas]

Hmm, sopranos are not the easiest of instruments to intonate, but most modern horns should be OKish. Do you have a teacher or tech that could check it out, maybe some technical adjustments could be in order, sopranos have a smaller tolerance for key heights being wrong etc.

I'm not a big fan of TJs, but the make is not known for being out of tune.

 

[Justin Chune]

Welcome back Tommy.

Jim.

 

[Tommy Ng]

I do not have a tutor, i just have a tuner. 🙂

I tried a new Rico plasticover reed this morning and it did help with the intonation. Will "old" reeds cause intonation problem?

 

[Pete Thomas]

I do not have a tutor, i just have a tuner. 🙂
I tried a new Rico plasticover reed this morning and it did help with the intonation. Will "old" reeds cause intonation problem?

I have found that some reeds can.

 

[Steve M]

Throw the tuner away and adjust the mouthpiece so that the insturment plays in tune with itself. You'll need to adject the embouchure to get accurate tuning.

In fact all saxophones are out of tune. Acoutstically they go sharp at the top and flat on the low notes. It shows up more on certain instruments and the player has to compensate.

You may need to take in more mouthpiece to get better intonation.