[eddie reeds]

I recently purchased a "Fortisimo" student model straight soprano sax and find that in order to tune it properly, I have to push the mouthpiece deep onto the neck so that I have only 5 mm of cork left

As the cork wears and I have to re-tune it seem that I wont have much left to play with

Can anyone give me any ideas, it seems to me that the neck is too long
I am using a curved neck , a straight one was provisded as well

regards eddie

 

[Dave Dolson]

eddie: In over 55 years of soprano playing, I've found that every horn I ever played or owned required that I shove on quite a bit. The remaining visible cork is of course, subjective because of the way manufacturers and repair-techs apply the cork in the first place. But on my vintage sops (e.g., currently a 1928 Buescher straight TrueTone) some pieces go all the way up to the rib that holds the upper octave pip - and that puts me barely in tune at A=440. I've had several longer soprano pieces cut off at the bottom of the barrel to accommodate tuning.

On my modern sopranos, I usually have about 1/8" of cork visible when I'm in tune with a known source. It is common on sopranos to have the mouthpiece on quite a ways. Lastly, some pieces have barrels that are too short internally - with those, you will never come to pitch. Best to get another mouthpiece then with an internal measurement longer than the flat pieces. DAVE

 

[JohnGalt]

Does it more or less play in tune throughout the registers when you shove the mouhpiece so far in? If so, then who cares how much cork is showing? Maybe the strip of cork was especially short because who ever put it on was cheap. In my area, many students rent the same high quality horns from the same company and 95% of them need to push their mouthieces in to the point where it is flush with the cork.

Don't sweat it.

 

[SveinJo]

Ten years ago I bought this beautiful curved Taiwanese soprano. It sounded beautiful in the shop - but when I tested it against my tuner, it was half a tone flat. The shop had to sand most of the cork away in order to get it in tune.

The trouble with this solution is that the high notes are more sensitive to mouthpiece placement, so bringing the low "C" in tune this way made the highest notes way too sharp.

My final solution was to trade it in for a Yanagisawa. Problem solved.

 

[hakukani]

Play low 'b' with the octave key, making it play the middle octave 'b'. Tune that with first finger lh 'b'. That's where the mouthpiece needs to sit on the cork. When the cork wears down, have it replaced.