Finally, The Vibratosax Is Here

Unless you’ve been living in a cave for the last few weeks, or just woke up from a coma, you probably know that the long-awaited, Vibratosax is finally here. After years of waiting, saxoholics around the world are finally receiving their own white, plastic saxophones.

Vibratosax is much more than a simple, white, plastic saxophone however. According to the company’s website, Vibratosax is the world’s first polymer saxophone. The sax is water proof, has Polycarbonate rods, rubber pads, DIY replaceable parts, and an integrated octave vent in the neck.

Note: all the photos in this article are from Vibratosax’s Photobucket album.

     Source: photobucket.com

     Source: photobucket.com

     Source: photobucket.com

If you’ve been following the discussion about Vibratosax on any of the sax discussion boards, you know that this little horn has definitely been one very hot topic. On Sax On The Web alone, there are multiple threads, and some of these threads have upwards of 30 pages.

When the first production horns were shipped just before the holidays, people were eagerly awaiting them, and the anticipation was palpable through cyberspace. Once these horns started arriving, the reviews started to roll in.

These horns were not without their problems. However, this was only the first production run. We will have to wait and see what future horns are like.

The other thing that we started to see was that there were immediate comparisons being made to the other white, plastic saxophone of the past. People wanted to know how these saxophones compared to the Grafton.

Those players who did not order a Vibratosax wanted to know what they sounded like, and asked known players to upload videos or sound clips of their new polymer horns. Professional sax player and repair technician Randy Emerick, AKA Groovekiller, uploaded what, to my knowledge, is the first video of a Vibratosax being played with a band.

Randy played his Vibratosax at a jam session in Ft. Lauderdale only a few days after he received it. He was still getting used to the horn, and in his own words: “I was still hunting for pitch and I was really sharp, but you’ll get the general idea.”

Randy starts his solo around 1:05 in the video.

If you’d like to read Randy’s impressions about his new Vibrato sax, check out the thread he started on the Woodwind Forum. Randy also owns a Grafton, and in the thread he does mention a few of the major differences between the 2 horns.

I know Vibratosax says that you can customize your horn with different colour keys, but right now all they’re offering is orange. Although I realize that this one was only a prototype, personally, if were going to get a polymer saxophone, I’d want want one in this colour….

     Source: photobucket.com

Seriously however, while there may be talk of a tenor Vibratosax, one has to wonder just how deep the pockets of this company are. I do wish them well, but R&D takes time and money. Just look at how long the alto took to get out the door and into the hands of the consumer—and as these first consumers have noted, this first batch is not perfect.

I hope that Vibratosax does not go the way of the Grafton. However, if they do, these early day models may just be the collectors’ items of the future.