Although the saxophone hasn’t changed a great deal since Adolphe Sax invented it in the 1840s—it is after all still a conical bore that uses a key system to cover the tone holes in the body—different designers have attempted to use different materials to build the instrument.
While by far and away, the majority of saxophones built are made of brass or other alloys, the 1950s, British-made Grafton was the first sax that utilized something other than metal for its body. The Grafton was an injection moulded, plastic saxophone made of acrylic, that had a metal neck and keys.
Grafton Serial #: 11355 Source: eBay.co.uk
The Grafton proved to be too fragile, and nothing further was done with plastics until Vibratosax released its polycarbonate saxophone into the marketplace, in the winter of 2010. It was nearly a year ago to the day that saxophiles everywhere got their new, white, plastic saxophones.
Vibratosax Model A1S Source: vibratosax.com
This morning I happened to come across something interesting: a polycarbonate saxophone neck for alto and tenor saxophones. These necks are the brainchild of Zen Composites, a company founded by Dr. Larry Lessard. Dr. Lessard is an engineer, and professor of Mechanical Engineering at McGill University in Montreal.
On the Zen Composites website, they describe the necks as follows:
Custom-made high-quality saxophone necks, made of top quality carbon fiber and water-resistant epoxy resin coated with ultraviolet-light-resistant polyurethane, are designed by musician/engineer Antoine Lefebvre and Zen Composites. For any wind instrument, composite materials may replace copper to produce stiffer, lighter and shock resistant bodies, which may be particularly attractive for large brass winds and saxophones. A fabrication process based on machineable wax for the development of prototypes or water-soluble mandrel material casted in CNC machined mold for production runs allows the fabrication of arbitrary shaped tubes with precise inner dimensions and smooth finish, which are requirements for proper operation of wind instruments. The determination of the geometry is calculated with acoustical simulation tools and may be tailored to the specific needs of existing or new instruments to greatly improve intonation and response. Prototypes of carbon fiber composite alto saxophone necks have been successfully built and blown.
Alto saxophone neck: 750$
Tenor saxophone neck: 850$
The geometry of the neck of the saxophone greatly influences the tuning of an instrument and must, therefore, be adapted to each specific model of instrument. Any order must specify the instrument brand. Intonation of the instrument can be modified through small modifications.
This is an interesting concept. Harry Hartmann has been using carbon fiber for some of his reeds for years. I quite like the alto Carbon Fiberreed I’m using. I know I’ll be buying more.
Carbon Fiberreed by Harry Hartmann
Now the question is, could this concept of carbon fiber necks be taken a step further, and could the material be used to build the body of the saxophone? Sure, why not? Zen Composites already makes ukuleles in carbon fiber, why not saxophones? It just takes a whole lot of R&D.
Hi
I Just started a very interesting project to convert traditional keywork of a saxophone (this one an alto) to contain a lot of carbon fiber rods. Almost every single rod will be replaced with carbon fiber rods. I predict that it will reduce weight with about 300-500 grams total. Carbon is 4 times stiffer than brass and weighs 1/4 of brass.
More to come… and pictures you can find on FB SAXWORKS.DK
Hi Anders. Welcome to my website. I’m sorry I’ve taken so long to reply to your comment. My website was being moved to a new server, so I couldn’t reply to any comments until the move was complete.
What an interesting project. I would like to talk to you about this. Maybe do an article?
Unfortunately your website wasn’t online when I tried it, but I’ll see about finding you on facebook.
My new english website is currently being completed and hopefully will be online in a few months…
You are much welcome to do a piece on the rebuild- and I you send me a mail to reed@saxworks.dk I will make sure to provide you with a lot of photos as the project moves forward.
I will be converting a SML gold medal alto serial 16.xxx.
I will try to record the sound of the horn before and after
make audiable measurements to the changes in sound to dokument any improvements in terms of harmonics.
The main advantages of carbon fiber is its strength to weight ratio and its stability over a wide range of temperature and humidity. This has made it a very attractive material for flutes, especially the bass and larger flutes.
The main drawbacks are cost of the material and the process itself, as well as the tendency to crack or shatter on impact. This is one reason I suspect that Vibratosax will not get involved with any materials that can’t be manufactured by injection mold process like thermoplastics. Plastics can also be shaped and tuned after assembly much more readily than carbon fiber, so the whole prototyping of the design is that much more expensive as well.
For aftermarket sax necks, I would think the stability might be something of a handicap. Unlike brass, there is no easy way to make fine adjustments in the bore to compensate for any faults in the body tube once the neck has been fabricated. Even the best saxes with mass-produced bodies need to be fitted and set up. Instead, making the body tube out of carbon fiber, especially for the larger saxes, bassoons, tubas, etc. would seem to me a much more useful application. Also, a neck designed to a body of known consistent dimensions is much more likely to give predictable results, so a full on CF sax would make more sense than a CF replacement neck.
The ways that material can affect the sound are stability of the bore and by influencing how the player perceives the sound, that is, the feel of the instrument. Since the player gets little to no feedback from a sax neck, that really leaves the shape of the bore itself.
my exact words.well almost.well said
There is a minimal advantage to a combination of a new CF neck on a new brass body to the present 19th century technology saxophone.
The neck requires a higher level of accuracy than the body for a well tuned altissimo.
When you can reach the required accuracy on the body, but not on the neck, than the combination has a theoretical advantage. The advantage is theoretical as the people who could use this advantage rely mostly on proved 19th century technology.
The same argument can be used for injection molded saxophones only the stability of the CF material is here another very small advantage. Small deformations in the neck can change the altissimo.
Still a complete CF sax makes more sense, but is also a bigger step for people who rely mainly on 19th century technology.
That’s all very interesting Paul. Then in that case, I could really see the application of carbon fiber in larger saxophones—such as baritone and bass—since that would greatly reduce the weight. However, the material’s tendency to become damaged upon impact would be rather problematic, since the larger horns tend to get banged around more.
I can’t remember where I read this, but doesn’t carbon fiber have Kevlar fiber woven into it? Wouldn’t that make it stronger, and more resistant to impacts? I can see it now, CF bass saxophones with bullet proof vests. Now there’s a cartoon I wish I could draw. 🙂
CF is typically applied, much like fiberglass, as a woven fabric in a resin matrix. Both have similar problems with regard to manufacture and repair, the main difference being that CF is typically under a lot more stress when it fails. Weaving a blend of different fibers or changing the matrix are possible ways to balance rigidity with brittleness, but I don’t know enough about it to say whether that is practical or not.
Hello Helen:
It is great to read a discussion about carbon fiber saxophones. I have a US patent (6,852,917 – 2005)and foreign patents and/or patents pending for composite woodwind instruments and organ wind pipes. Our company, Waveonics, is a start up that has been receiving research and development awards for the development and fabrication of a carbon fiber saxophone. We expect to have a prototype available for alpha trials in about 14 months, beta trials follow before we will have a product ready for the marketplace. As we get closer to a final prototype, I hope to be able to provide pictures and provide more information as to the benefits and performance of a carbon fiber sax.
Sincerely,
Mike McAleenan
Hello Mike. Welcome to my site.
This is very exciting news. Congratulations on this project. It sounds very interesting.
Yes please keep me in the loop about this project as it progresses. I would like to write about it. Photos are always helpful for that purpose.
Funny that you should post a comment today, just yesterday I read this article in Curt Altarac’s new site NeoSax. It’s about another carbon fiber saxophone designed by Rob Gandara, a CF wind instrument designer from Oregon.
Thanks for the visit Mike. I’m looking forward to hearing more from you. Best wishes in the CF sax race.
Regards,
Helen
Hi Mike,
It’s great to read from someone who actually has some practical experience with this.
Now that the patent is public, would you comment on my understanding of the process and the problems you are working through?
My inner nerd is fascinated by the engineering behind my instruments and would appreciate any corrections.
paul
guess my question would be why would you want the sound to change?750.00 or 850.00 guess im old school,but i can change sounds with a reed mouthpiece combo .the medusa tenor i have has 3 necks ,raw brass ,silver,and gold brass.i will admit to the necks making a difference ,not 850.00 worth and also the resistance changes,also key height pad material,man we could drive ourself crazy,some of us already are(me)keep these articles coming please and i know its food for thought
your sax bud
sam 🙄
another thing ,intonation why not have a neck for the soprano ? if anything needs help i would go in that direction.wow man my tenor sounds just like a trumpet,is that what we want,eddie harris carried a lot of things to the max ,sorry i get carried away,mabe someone can explain the concept.please forgive me for rambling,anyone want to buy my horns?i give up
still your sax bud
sam
Don’t tempt me like that Sam. Otherwise I’ll make you an offer on your Medusa. 😈
helen,i am really thinking about selling everything,at 74 im just not doing the horns justice so make the offer,you will not affend me and hope you would not be if i turned it down 😮
I use an aftermarket neck on my Mark VI, and it changes the sound considerably. When I play my stock neck, it sounds like Mark VI. When I play it with the Masterpiece neck (first generation Steve Goodson neck) it sounds like a Selmer on steroids. I guess it all depends on what you’re looking for.
Without actually being able to hear what these carbon fiber necks sound like, it’s impossible to tell what they might do to the sound of the horn. The company makes claims of “better response and intonation”. I’d like to hear some horns that have these necks, and then hear the same horns with their stock necks. That would be the only way for me to judge what the difference might be.
Helen,
I’ve actually seen some of these- really neat, but not quite ready for prime-time. Definitely going to be an interesting product to watch mature, though.
Hey there Matt. How’s it going? Thanks for stopping by.
I was actually wondering about how good—or not—these necks were. The price was what rather shocked me.
While I understand that these are obviously not be mass produced, and they are likely more one-ofs, I still couldn’t help but think that I would be hard pressed to turn over $850 of my hard earned cash for a tenor neck. It would be one thing if I knew exactly what I was getting (eg: a solid sterling Selmer neck for my Mark VI, or a Gloger-Handkraft), but for an unknown, that seems a bit risky for me.
In principle though, I think it would be really interesting to see a company like Vibratosax, take on a carbon fiber horn. I wonder if there would be any sonic differences evident. We know it would sound like a sax anyways because of the conical bore. But would the neck, and perhaps other subtle differences, create a better/different sound.