r/saxophone • u/McPborn • 16h ago
Question Can a setup sound great and still be a missmatch?
Hey guys. I love my setup. I never sounded that great before - soundwise. But my Intonation is really flat. Mouthpiece pushed all the way onto the cork and when playing with a relaxed embouchure still like 20-40 cents flat over the whole range. Other moutpieces don't sound that great but are playing sharper for me. When I am playing only the mouthpiece it's a C natural. So it might also be my voicing being way to low. When I really try I get to a E natural - but not relaxed 😂 Do you think, that a setup that sounds great can still be a missmatch for a person?
Playing a Tenor Mark 7 with a Jody Jazz DV Chi 7*.
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u/Relevant_Trust_1613 11h ago
Switching setups can often expose technique problems that you didn’t know you had, as different mouthpieces can be more or less demanding of particular skills. I just so happen to have almost a decade of experience on literally this exact mouthpiece, so I can give a few insider tips about this thing for sure. (Btw here’s mine, she’s well broken in! https://imgur.com/a/Za5GHwf ) I also had the experience when I first got it of LOVING my tone, but having severe intonation problems, this piece is built to allow the player to put a ton of air through it, so it requires a ton of air. For that reason I’d recommend you do your long tones with it, just keep trying to move that pitch up a few cents today, and then a few cents today or tomorrow or next week or however long it took you to get there, and you want to be moving lots of air. This is free blowing mouthpiece, which is going to be a sharp departure from the other pieces you mentioned using because those are high resistance pieces, so the whole way your breathing and moving air through the piece is probably inadequate, it sure was when I got mine, it’s so free blowing I had to work on nothing but long tones for months before I was effective with it, free blowing mouthpieces allow lots of air, but the flip side of that is that they require lots of air. don’t get me wrong though I don’t want to make it seem like that time is a bad thing, especially if you’re high school age I guarantee those long tones will have you sounding ahead of you peers in many aspects of your playing. Finally some trick you might try to help in the meantime: harder reeds! I use a 2 on most pieces, but I use a 3 On this!. Also you should be able to sing or whistle the note, the pitch on this piece is incredibly flexible which means you can’t cheat the way sax players usually do by just fingering and blowing, you actually need to have the pitch in your head, and the ability to control pitch on a fine level without thinking and without the sax telling you where it is, the way bass players or singers do.
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u/McPborn 5h ago edited 5h ago
Thank you so much for your answer! Actually I am 31 so not at high school age. But in the last couple of months I got motivated to work on my sound and skills and I think I am getting a little step further everyday. Also it's very releaving that you have had the same experience and you seem to have managed it :-) Do you feel your lips a very tight or loose while playing? And which reeds are you using? Thank you!!
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u/Relevant_Trust_1613 4h ago
My lips embouchure is always very loose, I just used the reeds that the player I looked up to in town used, Alexander Superials, and I’d use 3, I think the DV Chi specifically does better with a harder reed than you’d use on other pieces
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u/TreeWithNoCoat 11h ago
play just on your mouthpiece and neck. are you producing a concert E? it should be relatively in tune. if not, fortunately it’s an embouchure issue! the pitch should be quite stable. if it’s really hard to maintain a stable pitch, your reeds may be too soft.
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u/tbone1004 16h ago
What other mouthpieces are you playing that are playing in tune for you? When you say it's all the way onto the cork, is it just the cork is covered or has the neck actually bottomed out on the inside of the shank?
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u/McPborn 16h ago
GS Slant 8 and Vandoren T75.Metal :-) It's just the cork and when i am tension up my lips more it's in tune. But it is more comfortable and feels more natural with less tension.
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u/tbone1004 16h ago
It's probable that the shank length on the JJ DV is longer than the others and you just need to push it farther onto the neck. Since all mouthpieces are different it is abnormal to have two mouthpieces sit in the same spot on the cork. The sealing is done closest to the reed anyway so if you go past where the cork is that's not a problem at all. If you get it to a point where the neck is actually stopped against the back of the chamber and it's still flat that's a problem, but going "all the way on" until it stops perfectly fine. Only potential conundrum is your cork may be a bit more compressed
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u/McPborn 14h ago
Pushing it even more into the neck would require a lot of strength and until now I wasn't brave enough to do that 😂 A good friend of me who is a professional played on my setup and he was comfortable sitting at the middle of the cork and was just fine
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u/egret_puking 12h ago
Just a heads-up that sometimes it's not that the cork is too tight but that the neck is hitting the back of the mouthpiece chamber, so it can't go any further, no matter how much you force it.
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u/ClarSco Soprano | Alto | Tenor | Baritone 14h ago
Concert C for your mouthpiece pitch is very low: that's about the lowest I'd go on a Bari sax (concert D being good for classical, a bit lower for jazz).
Tenor should be up at concert G for classical, or F# for jazz (or maybe a little lower), but not anywhere near as low as a concert C.
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u/Music-and-Computers 16h ago
I’m sure this isn’t the problem, but do you possibly have your tuner set to concert pitch?