Curious if anyone had thoughts on this topic, I recently replaced my stock mark vi neck that was bare brass with a similar vintage neck with probably 90% lacquer left. I prefer the new neck but the resonance feels like it is less in front if the neck and more from the mid to low end if the horn. Wondering if others have explored delacquering a neck to open it up, this might be a brightness thing too, I am used to playing on the bare brass neck on this horn and another and wonder if I could improve the new neck in this manner.
lacquered vs bare brass necks
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I would believe that a lacquered (or not) neck would have the same effect of a lacquered (or not) sax body. Plenty of threads in regards to that here. I would suspect that it's not the lacquer but the actual neck itself that may be beneficial for you.
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Lacquer does not effect the sound or resonance in any large way (large enough to notice). However, variances in each neck absolutely can change how that neck plays.
A few months ago when I was trying out a modern (gasp!) tenor, I swapped out about a half dozen bare brass necks (all were bare because they were recently annealed)...and there were noticeable differences between all of them. And this is using necks of the exact same finish that belong to the exact same model.
A few months ago when I was trying out a modern (gasp!) tenor, I swapped out about a half dozen bare brass necks (all were bare because they were recently annealed)...and there were noticeable differences between all of them. And this is using necks of the exact same finish that belong to the exact same model.
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If you are thinking of getting something brighter, in my experience plating should do it, either silver or Nickel... because the neck would be dipped. I've further heard about triple plating with Ag that really makes a difference if you need to gain brightness. Else, I agree with the previous posters and don't believe outside lacquer spraying makes a significant sonic difference vs. bare brass, although some people swear it does.
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IMHO the inside of the neck is neither plated nor lacquered, and I feel that's where you should be looking for the difference whether it be in the taper/geometry or the smoothness of bore vs roughness... just a thot.
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I'm glad to see (for the most part) that people are realizing that things like lacquer and plating don't matter and I hope I had something to do with this. I don't know how many times someone said to me "well, I played two necks and one was (Fill in the blank) and the other wasn't and they were very different". And what they fail to see is that they are dimensionally different and that the quality control or otherwise known in manufacturing as repeatability isn't very good so that two necks or whatever are structurally different. Plating, lacquer just don't mean anything. Phil Barone
EXACTLY!!!!!! I damaged the neck on my Keilwerth lat year and got a new one for a very good deal, the catch was that it was in their 'vintage' finish which looked a bit odd on my gold horn.
Took some Nitro Morse to it and a light wire wool to loose the laquer and now it looks great and matches the horn.
I honestly believe that there are bigger differences to be made by reed selection than any possible minute change the finish of a neck or horn body could have. I mean, I know for sure that if I have to play when I'm either tired or hungover I sound awful!! Its tempting to blame it on the reeds or equipment but truth is I'm the single thing that can make a horn sound worse from one day to the next. Its the same with things like necks and finishes, we have a bigger effect on the sound (embouchure, diaphram, hangover etc) than a neck finish might have!!!
Peace one and all!!
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I removed the lacquer from the neck of a Selmer Super 8011 alto. It didn't improve the sound or the appearance.
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Sorry, but the inside of my silver plated neck has plating which should not be surprising if it is dipped. It still sounds the same as my lacquered neck.
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Well, this is a common misunderstanding. In clinical studies it's be conclusively proven that the sax does not vibrate enough, woodwind instruments in general, to influence the sound. That's why when Charlie Parker's played a plastic sax it sounded like any other sax. BTW, I stripped my whole Mark VI of it's lacquer and I didn't notice anything. I admits that I was expecting this huge difference but nothing happened at all. Phil Barone
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I'm not surprised by much of anything in sax finishes. I have a silver plated alto neck that is brass on the inside, so there ya go.
Correct, it has a bit of a spongey feel as the pads are very soft and it has coil springs. It is this, not the plastic, that makes it feel different. In fact the feel of the sound you get coming back to you from a Grafton seems more like any other more conventional saxophone than you would expect.
There are sound differences, I have a recording which switches between a Buescher and a Grafton, but the differences are so minute as to be very easy to be attributable to the different design than to the material. A Keilwerth would sound just as different compare to this Buescher:
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