[turf3]

Well, you're playing an extremely ordinary setup. Personally I'd focus on learning how to play this setup. With only 7 months total, some of which was undoubtedly spent just flailing about, you don't nearly have a tenor sized airstream or a well developed embouchure.

What you need to be doing is learning how to control the dynamic level and timbre of your sound with your embouchure, voicing, and airstream.The good old long tones are a fast track to that, if you'll do them with ATTENTION and with INTENTION.

I will say that although tenor is not my main instrument, I've been playing it for 45 years now (baritone is my primary, alto a close second), I'm well known for having stong chops and blowing hard, and I wouldn't be playing a setup any harder to blow than what you're using. My tenor Link is a 6 but I'm using reeds that would probably be more like your #3s. So bumping up your reed strength, or fooling around with flavor of the week, is probably not going to HURT you but it will distract you from what you need to be doing which is building chops to have a rich compelling flexible sound. Your setup is extremely unlikely to be hindering you in that.

It's like the guy who can't get any distance off the tee so he keeps buying drivers, but what he needs is to straighten out his swing. Until he does that, the $100 set of clubs from the pawn shop is as good as the $2000 set.

 

[turf3]

You want some honest feedback?

1) Work on being more rhythmically solid.
2) Put some air through the horn.
3) Play long phrases, not just pecking at it. (getting good full size breaths will help you with this.)
4) The shallow fast vibrato makes it unclear whether you're going to do vibrato or not. Just like everything else in performance, effects have to be played in a way that feels exaggerated to you in order not to come across as tentative out front of the horn.
5) Put some air through the horn.

The basic sound is fine. It's just underdeveloped. A few months playing long tones outdoors will go a long way to getting rid of that "practice room sound". Sorry to call it the way I hear it, but there it is.

There's nothing here that some serious practice won't make a whole lot better. Equipment (reeds, mouthpiece, etc.) is not the answer.

 

[turf3]

Consider the two concepts presented here. Both putting tons of air through the horn, playing nice long phrases, and both sound like they have a real concept of what they're doing.

JOHN COLTRANE , STAN GETZ Autumn in New York - YouTube

Then here's kind of the epitome of tenor sax ballad playing, aside from Ben Webster. No practice room sound here.

Dexter Gordon - Autumn In New York - YouTube

 

[turf3]

Thanks for the feedback! But I don't quite get what you mean with "put some air through the horn"? Do you mean I should play with more air support? What would you recommend to practice it?

My go-to exercise:

Long tones from the lowest note on the horn to the highest note: play from pppp to fffff back to pppp, while paying careful attention to maintaining pitch and timbre constant. As often as possible do this outdoors away from reflective surfaces. If it worked for the Texas Tenors (Arnett Cobb, Buddy Tate, Illinois Jacquet, those guys) it'll work for you. Do that regularly for a year and your sound will be far more rich, flexible, and your dynamic range will increase.

 

[turf3]

pppp = pianissississimo. So soft it drops out and you have to come back and restart the tone.
ffff = fortissississimo. So loud you can't hardly keep it under control and it keeps wanting to break up.

When you're playing, try to feel that the air column starts down around your navel and goes clear through your mouth into the horn out the bell and up against that wall a hundred yards away. Use the muscles down in your gut to push the air. Don't think you're getting a good breath by hiking your shoulders way up in the air, introducing all kinds of tension in the upper back. Get your good big breath by feeling like you're putting the air down at the bottom of your rib cage. (This is not all anatomically correct, but what you're trying to do is to get a FEELING for how it feels to get a proper breath and push it through the horn properly.)

Do you have a qualified saxophone instructor working with you? A lot of this stuff will come faster with someone to guide. Honestly I'd say that the keys to getting a good sound out of the saxophone are something like 75% airstream, 20% embouchure and oral-cavity voicing, and 5% equipment. Yes, the equipment makes a difference and it makes it easier or more difficult to do what you want to do, but the stronger your fundamentals of tone production, the less it matters to have exactly that one perfect mouthpiece and reed.

 

[turf3]

OP, spend a few hours with this guy and you'll start to see what I mean...

Arnett Cobb Jumpin'at the Woodside (Full album) - YouTube

 

[turf3]

It's too early to be "trying for a darker sound" on tenor. I'm not even sure why this "darker! darker! darker!" thing became a thing amongst young players.

I suggest you put some serious time in the shed, then on the bandstand trying to play something compelling and interesting, and then see what your tone turns out to be. When I started out playing alto I thought I wanted to sound like Paul Desmond (I think every alto player under 20 goes through a Desmond period) - and now at 60 the biggest influences on my alto playing are Arthur Blythe, Sonny Criss, Hank Crawford and Lou Donaldson. All very far from that Desmond sound. On tenor I wanted to sound like Trane and I sound like Booker Ervin instead. Go figure.