[SveinJo]

I am mainly a baritone player, but a couple of years ago a bought a Selmer SA80 II tenor in order to have a complete lineup. Since I used to play alto before I changed to baritone, I figured that the tenor should be fairly easy to master.

It turned out that I was very much mistaken. Playing LOUD was no problem, but trying to play the bottom notes softly was more or less impossible. After several weeks of experimenting with different mouthpieces and reeds, I gave up and put the Selmer on the shelf.

A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned this sorry state to the guy who has sold me the soprano and baritone, and asked him if he knew what I did wrong. His answer was: "There is nothing wrong with the saxophone or with your playing. Selmers are like that!" - and he proceeded to sell me a Yamaha YTS-82z instead. After just two days, the tenor problems were gone! What really made a difference was the Yamaha mouthpiece - free blowing and a great tone. Maybe I have been spoiled by the Yamaha alto and baritone....

 

[SaxTMan]

yamaha mpc suck... so that is kinda strange. And also, yamaha generally play louder that yamaha...i don't like louder horns imo.
but if you're happy it good =).

I can see you're a yamaha fan. I also had for many years a alto yas 62 and a tenor yts 62 and i don't like yamaha because of that...

 

[Super Action Man]

weird. the 82Z's i've tried gave all been fairly close to my series III tenor in just about everything, and i've never had troubles with the low notes on my series II alto either. the 82Z's are fantastic horns though! definitely my second choice.

 

[SveinJo]

As far as I know the main difference between Selmer (Paris) and Yamaha are:

* Selmer is a traditional maker of instruments, and they think in terms of handicraft and artisans. The advantage of this mindset is that you can get fabulous instruments when the everything is right, and mediocre instruments when the instrument maker has a bad day (or the instrument has been finished after the traditional french lunch).

* Yamaha is a large industrial concern, and when they started making saxophones they spent a huge amount of money creating an automatic production line for saxophone assembly. The advantage of this mindset is that Yamahas are almost identical. The disadvantage is, of course, that changing the production setup is very expensive.

Maybe my Selmer was put together after a very heavy lunch?

 

[JL]

Maybe my Selmer was put together after a very heavy lunch?

It's far more likely that it had some leaks (even a very minor leak high in the key stack will affect those low notes) and could have been easily fixed. Unless you had it thoroughly checked out by a good tech??

And yes it's true that the tenor is a completely different beast than either a bari or an alto. I think tenor is a bit more challenging than alto or bari on the low notes.

I will admit that my Buescher Aristocrat tenor plays a bit easier on the low notes than my MKVI, but the VI is no problem once you get used to it (and assuming it's not leaking).

 

[SveinJo]

It's far more likely that it had some leaks (even a very minor leak high in the key stack will affect those low notes) and could have been easily fixed. Unless you had it thoroughly checked out by a good tech??

I had it checked twice by a very competent technician, there was absolutely no leakage.

 

[Phil1]

I had it checked twice by a very competent technician, there was absolutely no leakage.

I've played bad Selmers and I've played out of tune Yamaha's that needed the new neck.

You can't judge an individual horn by a brand.

 

[hgiles]

Yep, the best you can do is evaluate the individuals. Apparently the particular Z you've got is better than the SA80II you had. It's a great thing to be able to play and not be at odds with your instrument. Good luck!

 

[1saxman]

Your SA80 II tenor could have possibly benefitted from a different neck, like a Series III for example. I also got rid of a perfectly good SA80 II before I learned this simple fact. The same is true for the Selmer USA tenor of the '80s-'90s. Generally these horns really light up with a MK VI-style neck (later style) like the Series III.