Low Eh!

I added another low voice to my palette at the beginning of January…I bought a bass saxophone.

I had been shopping around for a while, and I knew that I wanted something modern – I’m not really a vintage horn-guy anymore. Finally, I took a chance and ordered the Thomas BB-150S.

After placing the order, it took a few days for the saxophone to get to a Thomann shop for set up, and shipping – the whole process from placing the order took ten days. It was packed really well. An outer shipping box, which was huge, with the boxed sax suspended inside. The delivery driver nearly dropped it while trying to put it on the hand-truck – I yelled across the parking lot for him to wait, and I went and helped.

I opened the packaging, and I’m really happy that I went with the silver-plated model. It’s stunning.

The sound is what I had hoped for – the low Bb vibrates the glasses down my nose, and it can rumble, but I can also play gently on it. The setup on the horn was done really well, even through shipping.

I’ve been experimenting with mouthpieces, and I really like my old Otto Link Super Tone Master 6, with a Gonzalez Local 627 #3 when I’m playing jazz or other material where I need to open up and rumble, but the stock mouthpiece that came with the horn works fine in the saxophone choir where I need to take the edge off – I play it with a Gonzalez Classic #3 or #3.5. It looks like a Vandoren Optimum with a larger chamber. I will upgrade this in the near future, but it’s worked well for the time that I’ve had the horn. The middle D was a little unwieldy at first – it liked to overtone to the A, but these mouthpieces, and some voicing work have that under control.

I should have bought the specific bass saxophone stand when I ordered the instrument, but I saw on various sites that a Hercules was being used, so I thought that one of my many Hercules baritone saxophone stands would work. It’s a stretch – literally…I would have had to pry the yoke open so far that I would worry that it would have snapped under the weight of the horn. Also, the newer version of the Hercules stands are more squared off instead of rounded, and I’m not sure that would have worked either. I bought the K&M stand, and opened the yoke easily to fit the bass. It’s also a little easier to play from if I need to with the shape of the base (Y-shape).

I’ve played this instrument quite a lot in the last few weeks in the saxophone choir (I even used the floor peg last rehearsal – saving my back!), and even was called for a recording of some “growly and rumbling sounds” for a film.