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Do you care what colour the felt is on your sax?

  • Yes - it HAS to be green

    Votes: 10 17%
  • Yes - some other colour

    Votes: 7 12%
  • No

    Votes: 43 72%

Do you care about the colour of the felt on your horn?

12K views 89 replies 46 participants last post by  TheElusiveSaxTurtle  
#1 ·
Curious question; essentially, the felt used by my tech when overhauling my new BA alto happened to be absorbing too much ... wet... and, well, I'm quite a spitty player, always have been and have overactive salvia glands. Anyway, whilst talking about this and having the felt swapped for synthetic (black) felt, the conversation turned to the curious point that apparently a lot of players he services horns for will only have green felt. For me, I literally could not care what colour it is so long as it does it's job (unlike aforementioned green super absorbant expanding leak causing felt).

So: do you care about the colour of your felt?
 
#4 ·
No, I couldn't care less about the color of the felt. With that out of the way:
the felt used by my tech when overhauling my new BA alto happened to be absorbing too much ... wet... and, well, I'm quite a spitty player, always have been and have overactive salvia glands.
Just and aside, but the moisture that escapes from the tone holes is not 'spit'. There may be a few molecules, out of millions, of saliva in it, but mostly it's water (H2O), that has condensed out of the warm air stream against the cooler brass. If you get more than the usual amount of moisture, it simply means you are putting plenty of air in the horn (a good thing!), not that you are a 'spitty player'. It's possible you are putting a fair amount of saliva on the reed, but only an infinitesimal amount of that is getting into the horn.

This is a common misperception (you're not alone).
 
#20 ·
No, I couldn't care less about the color of the felt. With that out of the way:

Just and aside, but the moisture that escapes from the tone holes is not 'spit'. There may be a few molecules, out of millions, of saliva in it, but mostly it's water (H2O), that has condensed out of the warm air stream against the cooler brass. If you get more than the usual amount of moisture, it simply means you are putting plenty of air in the horn (a good thing!), not that you are a 'spitty player'. It's possible you are putting a fair amount of saliva on the reed, but only an infinitesimal amount of that is getting into the horn.

This is a common misperception (you're not alone).
Hah, well that's amusing. I'd always assumed the two (I.e. the overactive salivary glands) would be connected (and yes my reeds get plenty wet, and dribble on occasion; yuck).
 
#18 ·
For Selmer Paris horns I want green felt When my ref 54 alto needs new felt I will switch them to green but I don't mind the black felt that came on the horn but I'm the same in regards to any brand of saxophone I want the original color felt on the horn or the classic color felt on the horn. Yamaha purple, Yanagisawa blue or red if a T4, 5 or 6.
 
#21 ·
.... what colour, without looking, are the felts on your saxophones?
 
  • Haha
Reactions: JohnsonPowerSax
#28 ·
Right on, George. And please update us on the color of those felts after tonight's gig; we await your answer with bated breath!

I do know that the felts on my silver-plated 127 'Crat are red (and they do look pretty cool), on my VI they are green, and also green on my 156 'Crat. Had to check on that last one, even though that's the horn I've been playing lately.