I'm a bass owner again.

I was going to say I hate you but after looking at the horn I feel better. I was waiting for the $600 buy it now project bass link.

I still have envy. bass envy.
 
That neck looks mighty short -- and it's got a pip right where you'd expect the octave pip to be on a bari neck.

I know they're good folks at Saxquest. If it isn't the right neck, talk to the folks at Gloger-Handkraft and then talk to the folks at Saxquest.
 
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I'm not as familiar with Bueschers as I am with Conns, but I think the neck might be original. The first thing I would do is oil everything with penetrating oil - even if you are having someone do a complete overhaul. It can't hurt anything, and it might be a head start for the restorer.

Sometimes a horn becomes unplayable early in its history, which eliminates a lot of problems that occur because old instruments get "played to death." This might turn into a great horn, if not a pretty one.
 
Congrats on your bass ownership again Merlin! Welcome back into the fold. We'll be calling on you for your club membership dues as soon as you take delivery of your horn. ;-)

BTW, Bueschers did not have an octave pip in the neck. The necks were clean. I know this for a fact. I'm looking at one as I write this. (Jim's, but mine's exactly the same.)

Would the stencils have been different? I don't know why. But I would be checking into it for sure.
 
One of the most famous bass sax players, Joseph Powell, for whom Sonatina Giocosa by Walter Hartley was written, performed exclusively on a bass saxophone with a baritone sax neck (with octave vent plugged.) He used a lot of alternate fingerings.
 
I'm not as familiar with Bueschers as I am with Conns, but I think the neck might be original. The first thing I would do is oil everything with penetrating oil - even if you are having someone do a complete overhaul. It can't hurt anything, and it might be a head start for the restorer.

Sometimes a horn becomes unplayable early in its history, which eliminates a lot of problems that occur because old instruments get "played to death." This might turn into a great horn, if not a pretty one.

Thanks for the tips, Randy.

I've played a Selmer Manhattan Buescher stencil, which was possibly the nicest sounding, most responsive bass I've ever tried. I'm hoping this horn will rank up there with it.

I plan to take the horn apart and do the basic cleaning myself, as well as look for specific areas I want my tech to focus on. It looks like there will be a reasonable amount of dent work. The missing F# guard should be easy enough to fabricate as well.

Any suggestions on pads/resos? I was thinking about 'roo pads with domed metal resos.
 
Ordinarily, I don't recommend domed resos on 1920s horns, because resonators like those didn't exist in the 1920s. Remember, a domed resonator makes an open key behave as though the key height had been lowered a bit. More importantly, a domed resonator actually changes the shape of the bore when installed on a key that is closed at rest. it makes the bore smaller, which is the last thing you want. Smaller bore = flatter pitch at that point in the horn, and these old basses tend to be on the flat side anyway. To their credit, Bueschers have better pitch up in the palm keys.

In the real world, big saxes are not as sensitive to resonator shapes as little ones. However, if it were my horn, I'd use flat resonators. If you want loud and bright, use big ones, and if you want dark (legit), use small ones. The term "flat resonators" is relative. on my own Conn stencil, I used standard plastic resonators, the biggest I could find, and the horn played great, loud and powerful. Those resonators were not flat, but they were not domed much, either. The closest thing to Buescher snaps is Prestini metal resonators without rivets. They (and the old Buescher snaps) were about the same shape as standard plastic resonators, but a little smaller.

I recently sold a wonderful Conn stencil with NO resonators. Not as loud, but it had its own charm and pitch was good. I don't think there is a big difference between metal and plastic resonators.
 
Ordinarily, I don't recommend domed resos on 1920s horns, because resonators like those didn't exist in the 1920s. Remember, a domed resonator makes an open key behave as though the key height had been lowered a bit. More importantly, a domed resonator actually changes the shape of the bore when installed on a key that is closed at rest. it makes the bore smaller, which is the last thing you want. Smaller bore = flatter pitch at that point in the horn, and these old basses tend to be on the flat side anyway. To their credit, Bueschers have better pitch up in the palm keys.


In that case, I'll go with flat metal resos. I had the Conn alto and tenor I used to use as my main horn done with flat metal resos, and quite liked the result.

The biggest problem I find on the Conn basses I've played is a tendency towards flatness on the low D, Eb and E. I use the low C# key to raise the D, forked Eb+Eb key for the Eb fingering, and also add the Eb key to the E fingering to raise the pitch of those notes.
 
I'm not as familiar with Bueschers as I am with Conns, but I think the neck might be original.
I'm hoping so, like the neck's got an extra-large amount of cork and/or that's a really, really long mouthpiece, but I do question it:

Teh auction pic
Random TT Series II bass (from Saxquest, via saxpics.com)
Random TT Series IV bass (from eBay, via saxpics.com)
Here's a random TT bari neck (from SOTW, via saxpics.com)
Here's an old-style CONN New Wonder bari neck (from Saxquest via eBay)

I really think the "pip" is nothing more than a pickup (doesn't have to be for the Varitone system) based on that bari neck, but the bari neck length looks very simular.

Best of luck!

===============

The Conn NW bass I played had no resos of any kind.

I think that because this is a stencil, it never originally had Snap-Ons -- but I could be wrong.
 
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In that case, I'll go with flat metal resos. I had the Conn alto and tenor I used to use as my main horn done with flat metal resos, and quite liked the result.

The biggest problem I find on the Conn basses I've played is a tendency towards flatness on the low D, Eb and E. I use the low C# key to raise the D, forked Eb+Eb key for the Eb fingering, and also add the Eb key to the E fingering to raise the pitch of those notes.

Get the keys as open as you can tolerate. Part of the problem of 1920s basses is, the tone holes are not as big as they should be. However, with the original mouthpieces these horns played in tune. First get the horn playing, and then try every mouthpiece you have. I have my own opinions on bass mouthpieces, but you may already have something that works well.
 
Get the keys as open as you can tolerate. Part of the problem of 1920s basses is, the tone holes are not as big as they should be. However, with the original mouthpieces these horns played in tune. First get the horn playing, and then try every mouthpiece you have. I have my own opinions on bass mouthpieces, but you may already have something that works well.

I'd love to hear what your thoughts are on them.

I'm using a Buescher trutone bari mouthpiece (from the looks of it, one of the later ones) that I opened up to .090". I have a Rovner 4R on it, and use Vandoren ZZ #3.5 bari reeds.

When you talk about key heights, are you referring just to the lower stack, or to the entire instrument?
 
To make the mechanism feel really good, the right and left hand keyheights must work together to avoid lost motion. I'd open up everything. If the left hand gets sharp, use crescents or other tone hole inserts to lower pitch in that location.

The Buescher mouthpiece is the approach I would take, especially if you don't need barn-burning volume. For a Broadway show, the Buescher mouthpiece should be ideal, but again, try everything.
 
To make the mechanism feel really good, the right and left hand keyheights must work together to avoid lost motion. I'd open up everything. If the left hand gets sharp, use crescents or other tone hole inserts to lower pitch in that location.

The Buescher mouthpiece is the approach I would take, especially if you don't need barn-burning volume. For a Broadway show, the Buescher mouthpiece should be ideal, but again, try everything.
I think I've mentioned this, elsewhere, but the mouthpiece I used on the Conn bass was a Sigurd Rascher bari piece, which is patterned after the vintage Buescher 'pieces and was bigger than the cracked Conn bass mouthpiece that was in the case.

It was also cracked *exactly* the same way as the one in your Selmer NY's case, Merlin.
 
I think I've mentioned this, elsewhere, but the mouthpiece I used on the Conn bass was a Sigurd Rascher bari piece, which is patterned after the vintage Buescher 'pieces and was bigger than the cracked Conn bass mouthpiece that was in the case.

It was also cracked *exactly* the same way as the one in your Selmer NY's case, Merlin.

Oddly enough, the Buescher m/p that I'm using on the Conn I'm playing right now has a cracked shank. I could fix it, but haven't yet.
 
Is that as bad as cracking it at the tip? One would think that if the crack is on the part of the mouthpiece that's going over the cork, it's not gonna cause any problems.

I'll sell you my Rascher, cheap. Seriously.
 
I'm not as familiar with Bueschers as I am with Conns, but I think the neck might be original.
I found a Buescher with a short neck.

Caveats: it's a custom horn and at least one of the two necks is also custom. And the seller says the horn doesn't play in tune with a bari mouthpiece.

Your mileage may vary.

Still, I have dozens of pictures of TT basses and they all have long necks -- and a couple are in the same serial number range of the bass linked, above. Intriguing.
 
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Got the horn today!

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The neck does look slightly short, even without the mouthpiece. However, it IS a good fit in the tenon, and cosmetically matches the horn, so I'm going to assume it's correct for now. What looks like a pip is indeed a pickup mounting. I'm tempted to keep it in place!

I'm just waiting to hear about contracts for next year before I send it off to get done up.
 
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