[jcarter]

I have a student with a bari sax that is cursed.

Part of the problem is that the neck and body are in 3 pieces and are supposed to be in 2...

Fixing it the best I can, when F# is in tune, and everything else is relatively correct (as in tune as you'd expect a saxophone to be), her B is playing about 40c flat. I currently have her playing any held B's by pushing the octave key and the G key to bring the pitch up to about 20C flat then lipping it up.

Is there anything I can possibly adjust or a key height that I can move so that she won't have to do this anymore? I mean, other than the obvious getting the saxophone soldered together again...

 

[Merlin]

Start with getting the horn fixed. Anything else is meaningless at this point.

 

[spike421]

I'm trying to figure out what the 3 pieces are. Neck, body in 2 pieces? Please elucidate. What is the brand, age, etc. of the Bari? Vintage Bari's often don't match well with modern mouthpieces. More details would help.

 

[soybean]

Probably the wrong neck. Post some photos of the "pieces" and we'll try to help you.

 

[soybean]

…as in tune as you'd expect a saxophone to be…

Well, they can be perfectly in tune or horribly out of tune, depending on the player's ears and equipment.

 

[BOPITY FUNK]

Sounds like the top bow has come 'adrift'-somehow. Whatever, get it fixed otherwise it's a waste of time -and a waste of air. Nothing worse and more tiring than a Baritone that leaks. Remember too that the closer a fault -wrong neck or leak- is to the 'thin end' the more affected the intonation will be.

 

[JayeLID]

Yup...so the upper bow came off ? Or the lower ?

As noted by others...why would you bother making further adjustments on a horn to compensate for a disconnected body piece ?

It can be done, but ...it's sorta like this:

I once bought a Noblet Low Bb Bari....it played up and down and sounded decent, it had some intonation issues just outside of the 15-20 cent range which made it certainly still playable, but I had to massage it, lip-wise; but the upper bow and crook had some significant denting. After playing her for around 6 months, I had some $ so had my tech do a proper repair on the upper bow/crook - this entailed disassembling it to properly get at the dents and dings and slight twist.

It looked great when I got it back, really the geometry was excellent.

BUT the intonation was sh#t crazy all over the place .

Turns out I had to completely re-regulate the keyheights. etc. to bring intonation back to a nice place; because the horn had been previously regulated to cover for the damaged bow/crook. With that damage gone, the horn had no need for the band-aid regulating it had gotten to make it reasonably playable w/ damaged bow.

All you'd be doing is moving the horn further astray from its proper setup/regulation.

A few mm's off in how the ferrule joints sit can wreak havoc with a sax. Or as Bopity posits, a solder joint which has failed may be leaking, even though you were able to slip the sleeve back in the ferrule seemingly OK.