I noticed a Selmar USA for $900 and I haven't seen a lot of info on the horn. I don't know if it is a school horn or a professional.
I'm new and I want to get to know people who have good knowledge on the Sax.
- Thread starter Mmayoff683
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Our school used Couf (Keilwerth) saxes as school horns.
They still have the same ones when I was in school too though not in as nice of shape anymore.
At my old high school there is Vito, a Buescher, and Cannonball. I always thought the Buescher was a better horn than the Cannonball. The Cannonball was always having problems I hated playing it.
TrueTone
College Student who likes wind instruments & music
Here in terms of Baris it's a 70s Buescher 400, a Vito Stencil Yanigisawa B6, and a Yani B901.
I'm terms of other saxes, my school has a Buescher TT, two YTS-52s, and a few Vitos; all Tenors.
Sadly, the schools around here mostly all have cheap, Asian junk baris that fall apart regularly--and spend lots of time in my tech's shop. (He and I have had lots of conversations about the state of bari saxes in the current public school environment.) Each HS usually has 1 or maybe 2 Yamahas, the rest of the horns are cheap, horns that don't maintain their regulation, and don't withstand the rigors of student/school use. They get dented and banged up all the time, and parts fall off, with replacement often impossible to get. (Depending on the age and manufacturer/distributor of the horn.)
There are still some of the original Bundy baris around--circa 1970s--from when Selmer USA made them, and they are decent enough, but they too have seen better days. Pro level baris were and are not generally found at public schools here in BC, unless a generous benefactor gifted them to the school.
Sadly, this leaves bari players at a severe disadvantage, since they are constantly fighting their instruments in order to play them.
Years ago Paul Coats and I had a discussion about student horns, and how those of us who have been playing for decades, can play through the poor regulation and leaking, but for a student just starting out, this can be enough to have them quit the instrument altogether. That's one of the reasons I always tended to recommend Yamaha instruments to my students--regardless of what voice of saxophone they played.
Yamahas, even the 23 models, could take the rigors of student life, but didn't lose their easy-blowing nature. All in all, they were quite stable instruments.
Getting back to the bari issue raised by the OP, there are lots of good baris that can do the job, but all these ultra cheap, new baris for <$2,000 new that you can buy on eBay, (like this one) raise a red flag in my mind. The old adage "you get what you pay for" has never been truer than when it comes to the larger saxophones.
There are still some of the original Bundy baris around--circa 1970s--from when Selmer USA made them, and they are decent enough, but they too have seen better days. Pro level baris were and are not generally found at public schools here in BC, unless a generous benefactor gifted them to the school.
Sadly, this leaves bari players at a severe disadvantage, since they are constantly fighting their instruments in order to play them.
Years ago Paul Coats and I had a discussion about student horns, and how those of us who have been playing for decades, can play through the poor regulation and leaking, but for a student just starting out, this can be enough to have them quit the instrument altogether. That's one of the reasons I always tended to recommend Yamaha instruments to my students--regardless of what voice of saxophone they played.
Yamahas, even the 23 models, could take the rigors of student life, but didn't lose their easy-blowing nature. All in all, they were quite stable instruments.
Getting back to the bari issue raised by the OP, there are lots of good baris that can do the job, but all these ultra cheap, new baris for <$2,000 new that you can buy on eBay, (like this one) raise a red flag in my mind. The old adage "you get what you pay for" has never been truer than when it comes to the larger saxophones.
I get frustrated by people who ask for help and then ignore the advice. What's the old sayin', you can't help those who will not help themselves?
I went to 5 different high schools, so I had a bunch of horns I played with, until I bought my own (first a Keilwerth-made Bundy, then a brand new YBS-52).
One school had a Buescher 400 from the first Selmer days. Someone eventually dropped said bari on the pigtail. That turned it into a permanent parts horn.
I played an older Bundy with the "marching band tan" finish, three different Yani Vito B6s (none played well, which is why I didn't research Yani until a couple years ago), and the school that had the Buescher 400 break bought a brand new Selmer USA bari. I think it was called a Model 1244 or some such. Looked and played like the older Bundy.
The Mark VIs were tenors. There were actually a few schools in the Western NY area that had Mark VIs when I went to high school in the 1980s.