My final choice therefore was the Antigua Winds SS490LQ soprano. Once I add to that the hassle of getting it through UK customs, which their opaque pricing and procedures, I reluctantly decided that it was going to be too much hassle, and once I’d added shipping, VAT and customs tax, wasn’t going to be as cheap as it first appeared. My only problem with this instrument is that currently there seems to be no one importing it into the UK, so I would have had to get it shipped from the states. This is an American sax made by a family company in Las Vegas and the reviews of both the sax and the company were universally glowing. The one I looked at long and hard, before ultimately rejecting it, was the Kessler Model 2 Soprano. There are a quite a few different ‘student’ sopranos available and when researching them I didn’t really find any that no one had a good word for – however there were a couple which seemed to get consistently good comments from experienced players. Add to this the fact that I’m a good couple of hours from the store I’d want to go to and I preferred to take a punt on a single well researched instrument and never go back to look at what I might have missed! It takes a bit of time to get used to a new setup, so quickly moving between several saxes would require a long time – probably longer than my lip would hold out – and making objective decisions between more than 2 or 3 saxes would be extremely difficult. I did this before when choosing a new mouthpiece for my tenor – and ended up buying the wrong one. I toyed with the idea of spending a few hours in a shop playing with the various models to see which I liked best, but decided against this.
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Choosing the saxĪfter I’d decided to go for a cheaper soprano I spent a while deciding which one to choose. I therefore ended up spending far less than I might have on my new sax, and having just had chance to have a really good play on it I thought I’d write up a quick review. I was surprised to find a large number of people who seemed to be very happy with what might be considered ‘cheap’ sopranos (something less than £600 or so). Having got to the stage where I might have been prepared to spend a significant sum on a good soprano I started to do some research. Much less chance of it coming off the saxophones hook ring unexpectedly, and the horn smashing on the ground.I’d put off adding a soprano sax to my existing tenor and alto for a number of years since I had heard from a few sources that whilst it was possible to get a good sound out of a cheap alto/tenor that you really needed to spend a decent amount of money to get a half decent soprano. I also prefer a swiveling closing hook rather than an open, "J" style. The neck strap design is a personal thing, however I suggest a comfortable, padded wide strap such as the excellent NEOTECH brand. Use this sparingly, and wipe up any excess. The main cleaning components you will need are:ġ. You will need to play around with your setup to find what is comfortable at any given stage of of development, and yields the best results.
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Not only is this important due to the fact that I presume you to be new to the sax (or returning to it), and your embouchure and breath control are undeveloped, but in addition the facing/tip opening of the mouthpiece dictates to a large extent what reed strength is suitable. In the case of LaVoz, the strengths to look for are soft, med soft, and med. The LaVoz and Vandoren (Java and V16s are my favorites) brands are reasonably priced and pretty consistent for the money. Make sure that you experiment by picking up a few reeds in different strengths, say #2, #2 & 1/2, and #3. Hands on examination of the mechanical condition (and a play test by an experienced player if at all possible) by a tech will go a long way towards narrowing down your choice.Īre both horns in your possession, and if so, why must you eliminate one of them? The newer ones are CAD copies of Yanagisawa and Selmer designs, although concessions ARE definitely made to keep the costs much lower than those top of the line brands.
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Those are not as highly regarded in terms of design and intonation stability.
SOPRANO SAXOPHONE NECK ANTIGUA WINDS SERIAL NUMBER
While newer Antigua Winds horns out of Taiwan are actually pretty decent for the money, by the serial number letters, yours sounds like an older model. While not modern and fancy, if it is in good shape and adjusted by a competent tech, it will serve its purpose. The Reynolds is an older student model that is built like a tank. While this seems obvious, you would be surprised by how many forget this sage bit of advice when it comes time to select a suitable instrument.
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The real question is how does each sound and play? Cosmetics should take a back seat to those two prerequisites.Ī good, inexpensive, cosmetically challenged horn that seals, plays, and sounds nice and in tune is far more desirable than an expensive, flashy one that does not.