I bought a Hammerschmidt tenor last year. I've had the work done on it to get it in top shape. But as I've played it with a tuner, it appears I've got one with intonation problems. From the basic sax blog Hammerschmidt pages, I've seen that the neck is frequently the culprit. Has anyone found a good, relatively inexpensive solution? I've seen the Warburton neck system, but I'm not spending $1000 on a neck. Any advice from other Hammerschmidt owners would be appreciated.
Hammerschmidt tuning solutions
- Thread starter Ragnarokpc
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I'd wait for [MENTION=156]Helen[/MENTION] to RSVP before sinking too much cash into it. You also might want to look up milandro on SOTW or on Cafe Saxophone. He's owned at least two, if not more.
Nothing yet really. I just got a post up on the saxontheweb forums today; two responses, but nothing really definitive.
Helen, I actually just took the horn into the shop today and spoke to the tech at length about it. It's her opinion that the neck is flawed-the shape is a bit odd, and she thinks the cone is likely off as well. She noted the odd pip, but she's loathe to do a lot to the horn that's permanent without knowing if it will really fix the intonation. I'll try getting some blue painter's tape and try putting it inside the tenon end, but I'm likely not going to do much else with the horn since I'm not gigging with it. I was really hoping someone was going to say they had tried necks and that a certain make worked well as a replacement. But the custom necks systems that cost $1000 are beyond what I'm willing to spend.
Did you talk with milandro?
While I'm not necessarily saying it would help you in this case and I'm not a tech, nor do I play one on TV, I remember some extremely lengthy discussions on SOTW about the newish (like, produced this century) Asian-made C melody horns and moving around/changing the shape of the octave pip to improve intonation. That might be a cheaper alternative to ask a real tech about. I'd also wonder if you could try an (very specifically) H-Couf Superba neck -- if you could even find one. IIRC, Helen said Armstrong played with the Keilwerth design and actually had a better neck on the H-Coufs, as opposed to Keilwerth-stamped horns. And I remember, in a video somewhere, G. Keilwerth grousing about how Hammerschmidt kept copying Keilwerth designs, thus my suggestion.
While I'm not necessarily saying it would help you in this case and I'm not a tech, nor do I play one on TV, I remember some extremely lengthy discussions on SOTW about the newish (like, produced this century) Asian-made C melody horns and moving around/changing the shape of the octave pip to improve intonation. That might be a cheaper alternative to ask a real tech about. I'd also wonder if you could try an (very specifically) H-Couf Superba neck -- if you could even find one. IIRC, Helen said Armstrong played with the Keilwerth design and actually had a better neck on the H-Coufs, as opposed to Keilwerth-stamped horns. And I remember, in a video somewhere, G. Keilwerth grousing about how Hammerschmidt kept copying Keilwerth designs, thus my suggestion.
I really can't help you but if you know alot of people that have tenors, just try their necks. Might have to use some tape if they are too loose. It is hard to know what will work best. Might even be able to go to a dealer that sell used horns or even a pawn shop and maybe they will let you try out some. You could probably buy several old saxes for the price of one afer market neck and even if you spend the grand you don't know it will help. I have a friend that was touring with Dave Mathrews Band when all of his gear was stolen, I mean everything, they stole the entire trailer. When he got home the sax he had was an old Selmar Balanced Action he had planned on having restored. He put a silver Yamaha neck on it and it screamed. He is still playing it. By the way the same guy bought a Mark VI tenor at Unclaimed Baggage in Scottsboro AL.
I read the thread discussing this horn on SOTW, and yes FWIW, Milandro chimed in.
Since I have not seen or played your horn, I can't tell you if it suffers from exactly the same problem as mine. In my case the neck appears fine, as does the horn. The two unfortunately do just not play "nice" together.
After soaking over 2 hours of shop time into it with my tech, I reached out to Uwe Ladwig from Germany. He is a tech, saxophone historian, author, and pro player. I knew he had restored Hammerschmidt saxophones in the past. He is the one who told me about the neck issues, and advised me that there really no fixing it if I got a bad one. His suggestion was to look for another Klingsor neck that might, and he stressed might, be fine. The other option was to hang the horn on the wall and call it art.
Quite frankly, I was disappointed to say the least. I didn't understand how this could have happened, and how come no one had written about this anywhere, warning potential buyers that this could be a problem. (It turns out they had, only it was in a German music journal.) After doing my homework, I decided to write the article that I did for my web site's blog so that English-speaking/reading players would have the same info as German players.
This article does not sit well with potential sellers of Hammerschmidts, but I didn't write it for them. I wrote it so that potential buyers will know to ask the questions that I didn't know to ask.
The fact is, no matter how much saxophone knowledge you have, or how long you've been playing, unless you play-test a saxophone personally, the possibility always exists that you will end up with a dud. It's happened to me on 2 occasions, and on both of them, I bought from players who were supposed to know their stuff.
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Helen, your posts are where I actually learned about Hammerschmidt saxes. I played sax in college, I'm a decent player, not quite professional. But I hadn't played tenor since high school and am now 41. The Hammerschmidt was intriguing. And after getting the horn and getting it repaired, it sounds awesome and is fun to play. I'm not playing it professionally, and of course the intonation in the upper range would make that impossible. So that isn't an issue. But I'd rather not need another tenor if I do ever get a gig or even just want to play duets with someone. I think I'll try to get a good tenon measurement and try some other necks. Maybe there are some techs out there who know exactly what effect moving or alerting the pip will have, but I'd hate to permanently alter a vintage horn and have it do nothing, or even make it worse. I'll put a search on ebay for couf necks...but I live in the Sacramento area, and there isn't a designated "saxophone only" shop nearby. I think the closest ones would be either in Stockton or San Francisco. That's a bit far for me if I can't be sure I'll find a solution. And I'm not bad mouthing my shop, Tim's music; Scott Mandeville is an amazing repairman and I don't trust my horns with anyone else.
I appreciate the responses guys. For now, I'll keep some lines in the water on eBay for necks, and maybe try some blue painter's tape inside the tenon end of my neck. The techs did suggest some temporary stuff with the pip, like filling in the cup (no idea why the pip has a tiny aperture, but a large cup) with some putty. But removing the pip or re-sizing the aperture are scary if you can't be sure of the results. I'll play the long game and be patient for now.
And Helen...I would love to own a bass. I've played one in college and it was a lot of fun, even though the horn was a beast to play. But I could never justify that expense unless I were being paid a lot of money to play professionally. Love the sound, though.
Thanks again, everyone!
I appreciate the responses guys. For now, I'll keep some lines in the water on eBay for necks, and maybe try some blue painter's tape inside the tenon end of my neck. The techs did suggest some temporary stuff with the pip, like filling in the cup (no idea why the pip has a tiny aperture, but a large cup) with some putty. But removing the pip or re-sizing the aperture are scary if you can't be sure of the results. I'll play the long game and be patient for now.
And Helen...I would love to own a bass. I've played one in college and it was a lot of fun, even though the horn was a beast to play. But I could never justify that expense unless I were being paid a lot of money to play professionally. Love the sound, though.
Thanks again, everyone!
I can tell you a little about what pips do and don't do. What exactly are these intonation problems? Are we talking mostly about mistuned octaves? If so which notes? If there are consistent mis-intonational trends, such as getting progressively sharper or flatter as you go up or register problems, these can sometimes be addressed with pip alterations or mpc adjustments. You can also, depending on the problem, try some temporary things with the end of the neck. But what are the problems?
The main problem in trying to address is the upper register. I tune the horn to F# at the top of the staff. G one half-step above is 5 cents flat. A is 20 cents flat. B is 40 cents flat. And above it only gets worse, to the point of you have to lip up just to avoid going more than 50 cents flat and the tuner registers it as a different note.
Ragnarokpc, one thing that I don't remember trying--I might have but just don't remember anymore--is trying to see if any of my other tenors' necks fit into the Kingsor. If they do, I can check their tuning. Since I got the Klingsor, I have bought a number of other German horns, so at a minimum there will be a number of necks that I haven't tried.
The problem is that the key heights of my horn have been altered, and when we found out that changing them won't help with intonation, I stuffed it into its case at my tech's shop, and it hasn't seen the light of day since. That said, it might still be worth a try to see what I find out.
I know in this thread you mention you don't have other tenors to try necks from. Since I do, let me do some of the homework for you. Maybe I'll get lucky for both of us. Hey, stranger things of happened. It is the season of miracles after all.
The problem is that the key heights of my horn have been altered, and when we found out that changing them won't help with intonation, I stuffed it into its case at my tech's shop, and it hasn't seen the light of day since. That said, it might still be worth a try to see what I find out.
I know in this thread you mention you don't have other tenors to try necks from. Since I do, let me do some of the homework for you. Maybe I'll get lucky for both of us. Hey, stranger things of happened. It is the season of miracles after all.