Saxophones Selmer no longer supreme!

[Tonehole]

Okay so I was saddened when I saw this video today and a little shocked but not all that surprised.

Introducing our newest BetterSax artist, Eric Alexander!​

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9PYOU5SgysM


One of my favourite players Eric Alexander has moved to a Chinese brand saxophone. Can I blame him? No as I have done the same and most of my playing buddies have cashed out of the high end French and Japanese horns. They cannot justify the investment on return and these are gigging musicians who say it just doesn't matter!

I just booked a friend and a killer alto player for a gig this past weekend. He now sells insurance, he gave up gigging a few years ago but jumped at the offer of $400.00 for an hour wedding gig. Insurance sales are not paying the bills. He has sold off all his expensive Yamahas and now has Eastern music horns.

How many young players are on Chinese or Taiwan horns these days?
The times they are a changing - sell your VI's because the up and comers won' be lusting after them. 😎

 

[Pete Thomas]

I was trying to say this at least 15 years ago. (So maybe a bit closer to when I was up and coming than now).

 

[dexdex]

Other sad symptom, Selmer announces job cuts at their Mantes-la-Ville plant.

Tuesday, October 6, management announced a job protection plan (PSE) that calls for 60 job cuts at its Mantes-la-Ville site. See link below.

Speaking of the Supreme, I can say l’ve never seen/heard any of them played real life out there.
Eric Alexander had moved to an Asian « funny name » before, the « YouTube brand » is just one step further.
He’s on tour this winter here on the continent, looking forward to hear how better he sounds.

« On est au pied du mur » : 60 postes menacés chez le saxophoniste Selmer - Temps Réel 78

Ses saxophones font vibrer les scènes de jazz du monde entier. Mais pour les salariés de Selmer, le prochain virage pourrait mener à une impasse. Le mardi 6 octobre au matin, la direction a annoncé un plan de sauvegarde de l'emploi (PSE) qui prévoit 60 suppressions de postes sur son site de...

tr78.fr

 

[jazzdoh]

How many young players are on Chinese or Taiwan horns these days?

Probably a lot.
I'am not young, close to 70 but for the last 14 years have been playing Taiwanese horns, Signature Custom RAW and Viking M60, and i am happy with both, have owned many of the top brands over 50 years, including Selmer's, Yani's and Yam's so it's been going on for a while.

 

[JayeNM]

Sorry, folks, but I am not gonna go with the ostensible stream here...

For goodness sake, there IS A DIFFERENCE between playing a Yama 62 and an Eastern Music horn, now really....

It's not as if THE LATTER WILL PERFORM just as well as the former.

They can 'get you thru the gig' or give you something usable, but honestly....

This 'momentum' is more about the imploding global economy than it is about 'these cheap horns can do everything a grail horn can'

Alexander got $$$ for this....

Good players unload their $4-5g horns because they HAVE TO due to life circumstances....
Musicians are in a tenuous position. Pay scales are stagnant while our govts seem perfectly fine with doing nothing to counteract inflation and service cuts.

So folks do what they need to to get by.
That's ALL this is. To read further into it or assign it some other significance....isn't really accurate.

To suggest a VI or SX90 or 82z or 52nd St. is NOT going to still be sought after....may only be true due to the necessity of trying to survive. Not because a cheap asian horn really serves the purpose well or provides what's desired just as well

 

[turf3]

Well, it's been more than 30 years ago that I went and tried out the BIG FOUR tenors, back in the days when music stores would actually have four top grade professional tenors on hand to try. (And no, I don't mean yet another group of essentially fungible Chinese-made Super Action 80 copies engraved "Professional!")

Keilwerth SX90R
Yanagisawa - whatever their top model was at the time
Selmer Super Action 80 (no idea if it was series 1, 2, 3.14159...
Yamaha Custom

I thought they were all great horns.

I preferred the Yamaha hands down. Great action, great responsiveness, great tone.

If I were going to buy a new top line horn, I'd very likely just order a Yamaha and declare victory.

Selmer have been running on fumes ever since the point when everyone who really wanted a Super Action 80 had bought one. Let's be honest - Selmer haven't had a new idea since the Mark 7, and we all know how that turned out. The Super Action 80 is just a return to the Mark 6 with minor technical improvements. (I remember when the ads came out - "Selmer's Back!" - that's what they said!) Now they've moved to Private Equity Engineering - which basically consists of firing all the engineers, experienced technicians and lead assemblers - hiring a bunch of contract marketeers to design a never ending succession of "Special Editions" with ever more grandiose names (Supreme, Superlative, Ultrabeyondcompare, Zeus, Omnipotent, who knows what's coming next...) - and desperately trying to buff the books for resale at a profit.

 

[jazzdoh]

For goodness sake, there IS A DIFFERENCE between playing a Yama 62 and an Eastern Music horn, now really....

It's not as if THE LATTER WILL PERFORM just as well as the former.

Well I can say my Signature Custom RAW and Viking played as well as my Selmer mark VI, that's why i sold it, what i can't say is how long those two would last compared to the Selmer, but my RAW is close to 15 years old and is holding up great.

 

[Stephen Howard]

Well I can say my Signature Custom RAW and Viking played as well as my Selmer mark VI, that's why i sold it, what i can't say is how long those two would last compared to the Selmer, but my RAW is close to 15 years old and is holding up great.

There's absolutely no reason why your RAW shouldn't last as long as a Selmer. In fact it's likely to last a bit longer given that Selmer keywork tends to wear rather faster.
It's a bit of a moot point though because when you boil it down you're basically dealing with brass, steel and solder - and assuming no-one's done anything incredibly stupid, even a cheapo horn will see the average human out (economics aside).
Even the most mediocre horns (Weltklang et al) are gonna hang round one's neck like the proverbial albatross for quite some time yet.

I had all this bs back in the '70's when folks in the trade told me my Yamahas would fall apart in ten years. 50 years later and I'm still waiting...
Both my 'vintage' Yamahas are gig ready - and I haven't had to tweak them in years.

As for 'Eastern' horns not being up to snuff - I've seen a number of pro clients in recent years opting to eschew the 'big three' and go for something rather more off-menu. I've even had a couple switch from Borgani/Rampone to TJ. Who'd have thunk?
Eastman seem to be doing quite well on the workbench, Mauriat not so much - but Thomann's own pro range seems to pop up a lot.

It's going to get a lot more interesting in the next few years because some of the stuff coming out of China these days is eyebrow-raising in terms of build and playability. If you're one of the big manufacturers, now is not the time to be complacent.
And no, it's not sufficient to slap a once-revered name on a Chinese horn (cough...Elkhart) and call it a day.

 

[Tonehole]

Never had the VI or S20 bug. I started on a Conn 10M tenor and was fortunate to move to a Series III tenor in my teens. So I never had the lust as I was playing equipment way above my level as a teen. Advantage was I had no excuses, I could not blame my gear but grew into it. Still have my III and YBS 62 cherish them more than I play them.

I have sold my YSS 61, YSS62 Purple Label, Borgani Jubilee sop and a S20 tenors, MKVI's, SB alto.
All Tiawan horns now save a YSS 475 that I may cash out on soon.

 

[JayeNM]

Well I can say my Signature Custom RAW and Viking played as well as my Selmer mark VI, that's why i sold it, what i can't say is how long those two would last compared to the Selmer, but my RAW is close to 15 years old and is holding up great.

Glad it is working out for you. Having serviced both Vikings and VI's, from a tech's perspective they really are vastly different in a lotta categories. That is not to dis' any brand nor player, just saying...

There is a little bit of an intimation in threads such as these that price/value points 'get you nothing' from a player perspective.

Just pointing out that this depends on yardstick employed is all.

There ARE actual qualities and attributes which are present in a more precisely engineered horn, from a company with very good and consistent QC.

Whether those attributes are deemed 'important' to a player, or on their shortlist of priorities, is another matter altogether.

I am glad folks find their horns doing the job for them, truly, tho.

 

[JayeNM]

As for 'Eastern' horns not being up to snuff - I've seen a number of pro clients in recent years opting to eschew the 'big three' and go for something rather more off-menu.

BIG clarification needed here.

"Eastern horns'....was not a reference to 'horns made in Asia'. See below.

(Agreed. Some killer Chinese horns out there. But the BEST of them are not Cheap, usually. The good model Eastmans.... aren't particularly cheap....new.

Although some new Chinese brands are quite reasonable. Allora Paris and Viennas are, in my book, one of the best buys out there, considering their prices vs. what you get in a horn. A used Paris or Vienna is around 60% the price of a used Yama 475 or 52...can sometimes be found new or a floor model quite cheap too.... and are, dare I say....better, period).

******My comment referred to the Eastern Music brand. That's why the E was capitalized.

An absolutely below-mediocre sax brand (unfortunate because they are the nicest people and one can actually have their factory build semi custom parts for you...but when they put all their parts together...they just aren't good. Yet folks buy them because they look great and SEEM to be an amazing deal).

 

[Tonehole]

🤔 Hmmm! I will check what brand my buddy bought I did not pay attention but he did a mix and max custom build and is having all types of intonation issues. An alto player a Vandoren sponsored player at one time a very picky player so to be expected! LOL
He kept all his custom Yamaha necks and is struggling to get to where he is happy.😎

 

[Stephen Howard]

BIG clarification needed here.

"Eastern horns'....was not a reference to 'horns made in Asia'. See below.

(Agreed. Some killer Chinese horns out there. But the BEST of them are not Cheap, usually. The good model Eastmans.... aren't particularly cheap....new.

Although some new Chinese brands are quite reasonable. Allora Paris and Viennas are, in my book, one of the best buys out there, considering their prices vs. what you get in a horn. A used Paris or Vienna is around 60% the price of a used Yama 475 or 52...can sometimes be found new or a floor model quite cheap too.... and are, dare I say....better, period).

******My comment referred to the Eastern Music brand. That's why the E was capitalized.

An absolutely below-mediocre sax brand (unfortunate because they are the nicest people and one can actually have their factory build semi custom parts for you...but when they put all their parts together...they just aren't good. Yet folks buy them because they look great and SEEM to be an amazing deal).

Eastman....Eastern...much the same thing.

I noted in my review of a 52nd Street tenor that it's was sub-par on the build front on some issues - but had a notable amount of promise for the price. Spend the extra getting it properly sorted out and it still comes in at a very good deal.

But they (and all the other 'boutweaked' resellers) are right in the frontline when it comes to what the Chinese are starting to turn out these days. TJ's Chinese-built Evo II is a killer for the price - and Conn-Selmer aren't resting on their laurels.
The market is changing incredibly fast these days.

 

[JayeNM]

Eastman....Eastern...much the same thing.

I noted in my review of a 52nd Street tenor that it's was sub-par on the build front on some issues - but had a notable amount of promise for the price. Spend the extra getting it properly sorted out and it still comes in at a very good deal.

But they (and all the other 'boutweaked' resellers) are right in the frontline when it comes to what the Chinese are starting to turn out these days. TJ's Chinese-built Evo II is a killer for the price - and Conn-Selmer aren't resting on their laurels.
The market is changing incredibly fast these days.

I don't disagree. I have not serviced any current high end Conn Selmers but the non-Taiwanese 'intermediate' ones I have done (seem to be of stretch when they moved fabrication to China) were unimpressive in a variety of ways...again estimating these were around 7+ years old based on some threadbare timeline info I quickly looked up....

But yes, I have been impressed with several Chinese made models over the last couple of years...