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NAPBIRT Saxophone University

jbtsax

Distinguished Member
Distinguished Member
I just returned from the 4 day workshop at the NAPBIRT Training Center in Normal, Illinois. The clinic was given by Jeff Peterson from Yamaha, formerly at Horn Improvement in L.A. One of the dozens of tips that any one of which was worth the time and expense was this tool to accurately measure key height. They are called "small hole gauges" and are available on Amazon from Anytime Inc. You insert the gauge in between the outer tonehole and pad expand the ball end by turning the handle until it touches both surfaces. Then you remove the tool and check the diameter with a caliper to get the exact opening. How cool is that?

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How do they expand ??

I have miniture "T" gauges that I use. I also have those "stepped" tools that are generally used for an approx eyeball test.
The "T" gauges are not practical for measuring key height because their opening is spring loaded. To answer your question "a picture is worth a thousand words" and I will spare you the thousand words. :)

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Its interesting John, that you are just becoming aware of tools from general industry, hole / bore gauges have been around a long long time.

Why does anyone need to know exactly how open a pad is
 
I've owned a set of small hole gauges for about 20 years, and used them twice, i think. When measuring key heights, I cut triangles out of cardboard. They are about 1.5 inches long, and 5/8" high or sometimes a little more. Shove them between the tone hole edge and the pad until they stop. The tone hole leaves a slight imprint in the edge of the cardboard triangle that indicates the height of the open pad at the front edge.

Very cheap, very accurate.
 
Its interesting John, that you are just becoming aware of tools from general industry, hole / bore gauges have been around a long long time.

You may be interested to learn that not everyone has the machinist background that you have. My experience has been primarily in music education and saxophone performance, and so while I am familiar with the larger "T" gauges, I had not seen the small hole gauges before the clinic I attended.

Why does anyone need to know exactly how open a pad is


There are many answers to your question, but just let me give a few off the top of my head.

- When a proficient player's saxophone comes in for an overhaul or repad and the player is happy with the tone, pitch, and response of his/her instrument it is important to return the venting of the toneholes to exactly the same specs as when the instrument was brought in.

- When a proficient player comes in to have the keys opened more for whatever reason, and then comes back two weeks later and says he/she liked the sax better the old way, it is important to have taken accurate measurements and kept good records to restore the keys to their original positions.

- When experimenting with key heights for overall intonation and timbre as with any scientific study it is very important to have exact measurements to compare changes in venting with changes in pitch and vice versa.

- When a manufacturer such as Yamaha gives factory specifications for the key openings of its saxophones, it is important to have the correct tools to set-up a saxophone to those factory specs when asked to do so by the customer.

Certainly not all repair techs would find the above interesting or even necessary. I am one who does. I hope this answers your question.
 
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- When a proficient player's saxophone comes in for an overhaul or repad and the player is happy with the tone, pitch, and response of his/her instrument it is important to return the venting of the toneholes to exactly the same specs as when the instrument was brought in.

- When a proficient player comes in to have the keys opened more for whatever reason, and then comes back two weeks later and says he/she liked the sax better the old way, it is important to have taken accurate measurements and kept good records to restore the keys to their original positions.

- When experimenting with key heights for overall intonation and timbre as with any scientific study it is very important to have exact measurements to compare changes in venting with changes in pitch and vice versa.

- When a manufacturer such as Yamaha gives factory specifications for the key openings of its saxophones, it is important to have the correct tools to set-up a saxophone to those factory specs when asked to do so by the customer.

Ive never needed to measure the key height openings of a sax to date, so was surprised that you would be advocating such a process, Mmm manufacturers may quote a key height opening but they do not conform to that,

Interesting you mention yamaha here on this one, I am a Yamaha authorised warranty repairer I also do all the pre sale setups, out of the 20 odd new yamahas I set up a month not one has come close to manufacturers written specs, they are a guide probably designed by the engineers when they drew the instrument up on cad, nothing to do with the real world

I dis-agree with the need to measure for the other reasons you quote, but if you feel it works then we will leave it at that.

Steve
 
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The key height controversy is one of the most interesting things about saxophones. I first encountered it on a practical level when I was trying to get an old Conn bass saxophone to play its best.

I took a lesson from multi-instrumentalist Bill Prince, who played bass sax with Billy Maxted. The most important advice I received was, "Open the keys as much as possible."
On old bass saxophones, the tone holes are not large enough to be acoustically perfect. As a result, opening the keys as much as possible improves the instrument a great deal. the same can be said about very early saxophones of all sizes.

There is a famous egotistical repairman on the internet who often makes the blanket statement that keys should open 1/3 the diameter of the tone hole. If one were to measure the tone hole diameters and key heights of the Chinese instruments this individual sells, it would be apparent that he doesn't follow his own rules, especially for keys that have large tone holes.

At the opposite extreme, we have Benedikt Eppelsheim, who uses enormous tone holes. Why? For one reason, when the holes are oversize, the key heights can be lower on his bass and contrabass saxophones. Eppelsheim's giant saxophones therefore have the speedy action of a baritone sax with no sacrifice in tone quality.

Key heights should be dictated by the sound quality of the instrument itself, and not the arbitrary rules of a repairman.
 
"Open the keys as much as possible."

Exactly.

My repad process involves me removing all foot corks to maximise key openings, I test play the instrument connected to a wall tuner to show me the note whilst I am playing it, from there I reduce the key height opening until the notes start to suffer, at this point the optimum key height has been identified for each specific key, I cork each key to suit that height.

If the player wants a lower action we discuss this when they test play the instrument and I visually show them the impact that is made from the reduction of the key height from optimum.
 

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There are some horns that can benefit from a lower key height, other than Benedikt Eppelsheim's very special saxophones. King tenor saxophones had very large toneholes for a saxophone designed in the 1950s or perhaps even earlier. I usually set King key heights a little lower than Selmers. It depends on the mouthpiece, and ultimately, the player.
 
In the 1970s...

...Selmer went so far as to issue a bulletin to repair folks concerning the tendencies of some players to want to have their instruments set up so that the throw-height of all of the finger touches was exactly the same - to establish a "keyboard", so to speak. As the bulletin explained, Sax's efforts with the instrument included determination of the proper tone hole size/location on the tube, but it also included tuning of each key height when considered with a particular tone hole.

As a result, there was a rather ragged appearance of the final horn, something that offended some players. Selmer's position was that it was better to look ragged and be in tune, than to look sharp but play otherwise.

Uneven key heights have never bothered me - hell, I started out playing on an Albert bass clarinet; it's hard to get more ragged than the key heights on one of them - but I have heard plenty of comments concerning this issue over the years. I point out what the Selmer bulletin said, but I still get shove back as to the accuracy.
 
simso, suffice to say we disagree on many aspects of saxophone repair. Let's agree to disagree and just leave it at that.
 
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I just tried this situation out, with the bore gauge for curiosity.

A saxophone thats just been repadded
 

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close up of a pad prior to measuring, no pad impressions etc so its perfectly floated, in the non ideal world there would be impression marks to account for in your measurements, incorrect contact points etc
 

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Pad closed, no leaking happening
 

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Bore gauge inserted
 

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It doesnt work, how did the lecturer display this.

When I insert the bore gauge, the gauge is circular in shape that means to measure accuratley it needs to contact both surfaces of the gauge directly in the middle, this is not possible becuase the key opens and closes on a fulcrum, so you are contacting the leather face before you hit the middle section of the gauge against the tone hole

When you insert the gauge, the nose of the ball pushs into the leather on the opposite side of the ball, very in-acurate, if you wind the gauge so it is smaller then it will touch the side of the tone hole but it now touches the pad inside the tone hole area not adjacent to it.

You would be far better of if you wanted to measure the key height for whatever reason to use, a set of verniers near the key opening and do whats called a comparitor test, that is you visually site the gap and compare that to the gap between the vernier heads.
 
I've owned a set of small hole gauges for about 20 years, and used them twice, i think. When measuring key heights, I cut triangles out of cardboard. They are about 1.5 inches long, and 5/8" high or sometimes a little more. Shove them between the tone hole edge and the pad until they stop. The tone hole leaves a slight imprint in the edge of the cardboard triangle that indicates the height of the open pad at the front edge.

Very cheap, very accurate.

I've always used the more costlier method than yours, well, by only a few dollars :)

picture.php


same outcome
 
John, thanks for a helpful suggestion. Keep them coming. I always look forward to your posts. Suggest you let the mods sort this out.
 
John, thanks for a helpful suggestion. Keep them coming. I always look forward to your posts. Suggest you let the mods sort this out.

My intent was to have John show how they used the bore gauges and how they work (which he did admirably). Since this forum is used by a wide swath of amateur to pro players and amateur to pro techs and everything in between I assumed someone would find it helpful.

And I was curious to the Yamaha taught "technique". Though some may find it overkill it at least teaches the key opening impact. And the highly accurate measurement teaches how it varies in minute detail. Over time as one becomes more accustomed to it they can scale down their technique. As Randy stated he uses simple gauges (simplier then mine but the same concept) but we also use our ears for the sound quality for fine tuning (and customer requirements)
 
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