I'm planning to get my first tenor saxophone, having played alto in my school band. I want something that I can grow into, take to university, and won't have to trade up. I played a few recently, and really liked the sound and feel of both the Trevor James Signature Raw and the Seawind. My third choice might be the Yamaha 62III because it felt so familiar in my hands (one of my altos is a Yamaha). I would be grateful for any advice knowledgable players might offer concerning either option.
Buying my first tenor - Trevor James Signature Raw or Seawind?
- Thread starter Harley
- Start date
Whereabouts do you live Harley?
I haven't tried the Trevor James Raw, but I'm in the process of writing a review of the SeaWind. I've met the man who was involved with the horn's design, and who actually assembles them. I played on one for 6 weeks while I had it and their prototype baritone on hand for a big performance I did last month.
What would you like to know about the SeaWind?
I haven't tried the Trevor James Raw, but I'm in the process of writing a review of the SeaWind. I've met the man who was involved with the horn's design, and who actually assembles them. I played on one for 6 weeks while I had it and their prototype baritone on hand for a big performance I did last month.
What would you like to know about the SeaWind?
I'll mention something that both Helen and I have said: some schools require you to get a specific make/model. You should contact the sax or woodwind chair at the school you want to go to before purchasing anything. Or going to that school. 
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Putting all the prices into US $:
SeaWind: $2663
TJ Raw XS: $4076
Yamaha YAS-62 III: $2937
If price isn't a problem, though, there are other horns out there. A new Yamaha 82Z-II is around $4000, too, and I know folks that say those are the best Yamahas. Or you could get an Inderbinen. They're only $11K.
FWIW, the sax I took to college was a YBS-52. The 62 was considerably more expensive than the 52. The 62 was better, but not the couple thousand $ better the 62 cost. That's really how I look at it: the TJ may be better than the SeaWind or Yamaha (change the horn order however you want), but you have to ask if it's worth the extra thousand +. I'd much rather spend that cash on books (for college) or another pitch horn, if I needed/wanted one. You could even buy a nice EWI (electronic woodwind instrument) and some good tones for $1000. Or a used car. Or a laptop computer. Or some mouthpieces. Or more lessons, too.
For pro-level horns on a budget, I'm almost always going to point you to the used market.
If you're interested in new Asian horns, there's no reason not to look at Yanagisawa or even the Antigua Winds Pro One. You might also want to start looking at some Japanese websites that ship to whichever country you live in. They're sometimes a lot cheaper that way.
Finally, FWIW, I've heard some rumblings that the new TJ horns aren't as good as the slightly older ones. In other words, I recommend that you buy the horn you playtest or, if they're giving you a different one, playtest that before handing over cash.
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Putting all the prices into US $:
SeaWind: $2663
TJ Raw XS: $4076
Yamaha YAS-62 III: $2937
If price isn't a problem, though, there are other horns out there. A new Yamaha 82Z-II is around $4000, too, and I know folks that say those are the best Yamahas. Or you could get an Inderbinen. They're only $11K.
FWIW, the sax I took to college was a YBS-52. The 62 was considerably more expensive than the 52. The 62 was better, but not the couple thousand $ better the 62 cost. That's really how I look at it: the TJ may be better than the SeaWind or Yamaha (change the horn order however you want), but you have to ask if it's worth the extra thousand +. I'd much rather spend that cash on books (for college) or another pitch horn, if I needed/wanted one. You could even buy a nice EWI (electronic woodwind instrument) and some good tones for $1000. Or a used car. Or a laptop computer. Or some mouthpieces. Or more lessons, too.
For pro-level horns on a budget, I'm almost always going to point you to the used market.
If you're interested in new Asian horns, there's no reason not to look at Yanagisawa or even the Antigua Winds Pro One. You might also want to start looking at some Japanese websites that ship to whichever country you live in. They're sometimes a lot cheaper that way.
Finally, FWIW, I've heard some rumblings that the new TJ horns aren't as good as the slightly older ones. In other words, I recommend that you buy the horn you playtest or, if they're giving you a different one, playtest that before handing over cash.
There are so many excellent instruments to choose from now-a-daze that I'm loath to recommend any single horn to a good player. Most likely you will sound the same on any of the three you have selected, and here the mouthpiece changes the sound more than the maker of the sax. Pinging your school could save you a *lot* of grief, so I don't gloss over that. If you are in the Seattle area, let me set you up to play test 5 to 10 models/makers. If located elsewhere, play testing your favs is the only way to go. Cheers.
http://www.woodwindforum.com/forum/showthread.php?5993-SeaWind-Tenor-Sax-Review.
A lot of the newer Taiwanese instruments are sorta "boutique." The horns are designed by someone (famous musician, etc.), a factory in Taiwan makes the horn to those specs, then the horn is shipped to $country and assembled. Now that Taiwan has churned out a few generations of horns, the horns are now fairly high quality.
I would suggest a used tenor; there are a couple of lower priced professional horns with a great sound that wouldn't break the bank:
Conn pre-war II (great sound, but might have intonation issues)...they have a heavier alloy which is great for jazz
King and Buescher...find a good one and you can play it for life.
If you can't travel to the horn, buy from a reputable online seller...if I'm allowed to say; Saxquest in St Louis and Wichita Band frequently have horns that have been overhauled and play well.
Conn pre-war II (great sound, but might have intonation issues)...they have a heavier alloy which is great for jazz
King and Buescher...find a good one and you can play it for life.
If you can't travel to the horn, buy from a reputable online seller...if I'm allowed to say; Saxquest in St Louis and Wichita Band frequently have horns that have been overhauled and play well.
I'll also say that I think Wichita Band is a tad overpriced .
I really did my best to try to answer OP's question by (mostly) holding to the horns he asked about. I didn't want to get into the vintage instruments discussion, because I'd probably start talking about Yamaha 61s or Yanagisawa 880s and then waxing prosaic about other vintage horns. However, considering I didn't bring them up, I can safely say, "Well, it was fromsfca who started it!"
* "Pre-WWII Conn" is way too vague. New Wonders and I never agreed with each other and a Wonder Improved, New Invention, and "Worcester" are going to be a tad too old. Hey, pre-WWI. When was the Spanish-American War, again? Some Conns predate that ....
Anyhow, to be a little more exact, one of the best sounding and playing tenors I've ever played was a Conn 30M, which did start production before WWII. I don't think it'd be as flexible as the horns OP mentioned, though. I wouldn't want to go through college with one. I think I could make a very good case for a late-model Keilwerth, say Superba-era or newer, because they have a lot of the "Conn stuff" and are much easier to control ... but, as I said, I wanted to try to keep it focused on the horns the OP was looking at.
* Essentially the same thing as I mention about Conn applies to King and Buescher: you have to be specific. fromsfca is probably thinking King Super 20, Silver-Sonic, or Zephyr Special. Again, not necessarily bad choices for jazz or rock, but definitely not for classical -- and you will play classical stuff in college. I can also say that one of the horns with the worst intonation I've ever had to contend with was a King Vol-True. Really annoying keywork, too.
A Buescher "Big B" Aristocrat or 400 "Top Hat and Cane" (or Super 400) are probably the ones fromsfca is thinking of. Again, nice horns and if you're going to have a sax instructor that's a Sigurd Rascher fan, the "Big B" will score you some points. However, the keywork is a lot more awkward than the modern horns OP lists and no pre-Selmer Aristocrat or 400 has an altissimo F#. The intonation is very good and the tone is quite lush, though.
One of the things that Helen mentions in her review of the SeaWind tenor is that you don't have to adjust your embochure that much to get it to play in tune. That's a major disadvantage of older horns. Yes, I know if you spend enough time with whatever horn, you will start automatically adjusting to the horn's quirks, but that takes time -- especially if your ear isn't that good.
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I think that you can make an argument that some vintage saxophones really can't be improved on. That's a really difficult argument to get into, though. I'm interested in vintage horns because a) I think they're really pretty and b) a lot of them are cheap enough that I have a chance of buying one, if I wanted. Hey, the link I posted in my previous post is an article I wrote on good vintage pro altos under $1000 that I'd have no problem recommending -- and some I can recommend, but I have some reservations about. I might do an article on NEW pro horns, but I think that the average price is going to be much, much higher than $1000. Probably much higher than $3000.
I happen to know the neck of the woods where OP is actually from. I'm an admin, so I can see IP addresses. The very, very best suggestion I have is to contact Gandalfe, provided you've already tried the Trevor James and the SeaWind. He works with our other forum sponsor, QuinnTheEskimo, and can get his hands on a bunch of new and vintage horns (I don't think he has any TJ horns and SeaWind is only through two different dealers, IIRC). Gandalfe is a bit of a drive from where you are, Harley, but making sure your $3K to $4K purchase is really worth it might be worth the time.
.I really did my best to try to answer OP's question by (mostly) holding to the horns he asked about. I didn't want to get into the vintage instruments discussion, because I'd probably start talking about Yamaha 61s or Yanagisawa 880s and then waxing prosaic about other vintage horns. However, considering I didn't bring them up, I can safely say, "Well, it was fromsfca who started it!"
* "Pre-WWII Conn" is way too vague. New Wonders and I never agreed with each other and a Wonder Improved, New Invention, and "Worcester" are going to be a tad too old. Hey, pre-WWI. When was the Spanish-American War, again? Some Conns predate that ....
Anyhow, to be a little more exact, one of the best sounding and playing tenors I've ever played was a Conn 30M, which did start production before WWII. I don't think it'd be as flexible as the horns OP mentioned, though. I wouldn't want to go through college with one. I think I could make a very good case for a late-model Keilwerth, say Superba-era or newer, because they have a lot of the "Conn stuff" and are much easier to control ... but, as I said, I wanted to try to keep it focused on the horns the OP was looking at
.* Essentially the same thing as I mention about Conn applies to King and Buescher: you have to be specific. fromsfca is probably thinking King Super 20, Silver-Sonic, or Zephyr Special. Again, not necessarily bad choices for jazz or rock, but definitely not for classical -- and you will play classical stuff in college. I can also say that one of the horns with the worst intonation I've ever had to contend with was a King Vol-True. Really annoying keywork, too.
A Buescher "Big B" Aristocrat or 400 "Top Hat and Cane" (or Super 400) are probably the ones fromsfca is thinking of. Again, nice horns and if you're going to have a sax instructor that's a Sigurd Rascher fan, the "Big B" will score you some points. However, the keywork is a lot more awkward than the modern horns OP lists and no pre-Selmer Aristocrat or 400 has an altissimo F#. The intonation is very good and the tone is quite lush, though.
One of the things that Helen mentions in her review of the SeaWind tenor is that you don't have to adjust your embochure that much to get it to play in tune. That's a major disadvantage of older horns. Yes, I know if you spend enough time with whatever horn, you will start automatically adjusting to the horn's quirks, but that takes time -- especially if your ear isn't that good.
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I think that you can make an argument that some vintage saxophones really can't be improved on. That's a really difficult argument to get into, though. I'm interested in vintage horns because a) I think they're really pretty and b) a lot of them are cheap enough that I have a chance of buying one, if I wanted. Hey, the link I posted in my previous post is an article I wrote on good vintage pro altos under $1000 that I'd have no problem recommending -- and some I can recommend, but I have some reservations about. I might do an article on NEW pro horns, but I think that the average price is going to be much, much higher than $1000. Probably much higher than $3000.
I happen to know the neck of the woods where OP is actually from. I'm an admin, so I can see IP addresses. The very, very best suggestion I have is to contact Gandalfe, provided you've already tried the Trevor James and the SeaWind. He works with our other forum sponsor, QuinnTheEskimo, and can get his hands on a bunch of new and vintage horns (I don't think he has any TJ horns and SeaWind is only through two different dealers, IIRC). Gandalfe is a bit of a drive from where you are, Harley, but making sure your $3K to $4K purchase is really worth it might be worth the time.
The Yanko-Spanko War, aka the Spanish American War, aka "the last war we didn't really have a decent reason for our participation in, ending a tradition that started with the War of 1812 and progressing through the Mexican War" (we actually started seizing Spanish ships before the formal declaration of war occurred, and we actually felt so bad about our actions that we paid them for the Philippine Islands that we seized during the conflict) took place during the middle of 1898.
We lost more men (Army, Navy, state militia and Marine Corps) to disease than we did to action. The Navy suffered one man killed during each of the major battles fought, and the Army had more problems with death from disease incurred at camps in the US than they did during all of the battles in Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines.
And a saxophone, presumably a Conn product, was played atop one of the turrets of the battleship USS Oregon during the Battle of Santiago...
We lost more men (Army, Navy, state militia and Marine Corps) to disease than we did to action. The Navy suffered one man killed during each of the major battles fought, and the Army had more problems with death from disease incurred at camps in the US than they did during all of the battles in Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines.
And a saxophone, presumably a Conn product, was played atop one of the turrets of the battleship USS Oregon during the Battle of Santiago...
And a saxophone, presumably a Conn product, was played atop one of the turrets of the battleship USS Oregon during the Battle of Santiago...
Reason enough to play one...
I agree Wichita Band is overpriced, and any retail outlet is going to be more expensive than buying direct from a player...but, buying from a player there is a high degree of risk...especially if you can't compare to other instruments....the main reason it is sometimes worth paying the extra to a store (I've also met few stores where you could not negotiate prices down...I bought a vintage Selmer clarinet recently for a student recently and got the store to reduce price by 20%).
I also stand corrected on specific models; you are absolutely right some models were better than others...as they were originally intended for professionals. My alto (a Selmer BA) is from 1937...has been played in shows where it was demanded to balance as a classical sound to a jazz sound. I also had a 6M...great jazz horn... less so for other styles, but less than $2K. Mouthpiece and reed also has a great deal to do with sound and ability to blend.
There are older tenors around as well as other vintages; horns that play very well, in tune with good sounds adaptable to any style, and far less in price than a new horn....but could be quirky. If I were on limited budget and wanted a professional level horn, I would look further afield to the vintage market.
Reason enough to play one...
I agree Wichita Band is overpriced, and any retail outlet is going to be more expensive than buying direct from a player...but, buying from a player there is a high degree of risk...especially if you can't compare to other instruments....the main reason it is sometimes worth paying the extra to a store (I've also met few stores where you could not negotiate prices down...I bought a vintage Selmer clarinet recently for a student recently and got the store to reduce price by 20%).
I also stand corrected on specific models; you are absolutely right some models were better than others...as they were originally intended for professionals. My alto (a Selmer BA) is from 1937...has been played in shows where it was demanded to balance as a classical sound to a jazz sound. I also had a 6M...great jazz horn... less so for other styles, but less than $2K. Mouthpiece and reed also has a great deal to do with sound and ability to blend.
There are older tenors around as well as other vintages; horns that play very well, in tune with good sounds adaptable to any style, and far less in price than a new horn....but could be quirky. If I were on limited budget and wanted a professional level horn, I would look further afield to the vintage market.
I don't know if the OP is ever going to check back on his/her(?) post, or if we're just having this conversation amongst ourselves, but in any event, here is my take on all of this:
The OP stated:
I didn't bother checking the OP's IP address, since I didn't really see the need to. Both the Trevor James & SeaWind horns are popular here in Canada--specifically here, in the Metro Vancouver region. TJ happens to be the horn of choice at one of the region's universities that's known for its jazz program.
So since the OP has already play-tested both brands of horns, he/she(?) was asking someone's opinion about one or both of those instruments. I did my best to answer that question, and not go off on a tangent and talk about my personal preference of horns.
Given a choice, I personally will always choose vintage over new. However, my role here is to answer the questions that members post to the best of my abilities. The OP posted a valid, well thought out question that was based on play-testing. My personal view horn choice is really irrelevant to that question.
@fromsfca: You likely haven't read any of my posts here, but I own and play vintage horns exclusively. I am primarily a bari & tenor player, but do play soprano through bass. My horns range in age from 1886 to 1977. My only modern horn is a 2004 B&S Medusa bari--which is really nothing more than a B&S blue label with fancy engraving--so while technically new, it is more vintage in its build.
My primary tenor is a 1950 Zeph--which relegated my Mark VI into a back-up slot. I have been using my Toneking more in the Big Band I play in however, just because it's so pretty, and does blend nicely with the sax section. My bari choice varies between a Martin Committee III and a Mark VI--depending on what mood I'm in, and what band I'm playing in. My Medusa hardly ever gets the gig.
I'm glad to have another vintage horn player on the WF! It's always great to exchange ideas and experiences about some of the great horns people have played. I'm looking forward to exchanging ideas with you fromsfca.
The OP stated:
(emphasis added)
I didn't bother checking the OP's IP address, since I didn't really see the need to. Both the Trevor James & SeaWind horns are popular here in Canada--specifically here, in the Metro Vancouver region. TJ happens to be the horn of choice at one of the region's universities that's known for its jazz program.
So since the OP has already play-tested both brands of horns, he/she(?) was asking someone's opinion about one or both of those instruments. I did my best to answer that question, and not go off on a tangent and talk about my personal preference of horns.
Given a choice, I personally will always choose vintage over new. However, my role here is to answer the questions that members post to the best of my abilities. The OP posted a valid, well thought out question that was based on play-testing. My personal view horn choice is really irrelevant to that question.
@fromsfca: You likely haven't read any of my posts here, but I own and play vintage horns exclusively. I am primarily a bari & tenor player, but do play soprano through bass. My horns range in age from 1886 to 1977. My only modern horn is a 2004 B&S Medusa bari--which is really nothing more than a B&S blue label with fancy engraving--so while technically new, it is more vintage in its build.
My primary tenor is a 1950 Zeph--which relegated my Mark VI into a back-up slot. I have been using my Toneking more in the Big Band I play in however, just because it's so pretty, and does blend nicely with the sax section. My bari choice varies between a Martin Committee III and a Mark VI--depending on what mood I'm in, and what band I'm playing in. My Medusa hardly ever gets the gig.
I'm glad to have another vintage horn player on the WF! It's always great to exchange ideas and experiences about some of the great horns people have played. I'm looking forward to exchanging ideas with you fromsfca.
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Well, thank you...I'm looking forward to discussions as well. I thought you all answered the original question very well...I didn't mean to diverge or derail (especially as the OP is probably long gone); more my intent was to suggest alternates. I like discussing instruments and music, so started hanging around a bit more.
My alto is a Selmer BA from '37..and I have two clarinets; a '35 Selmer BT and a '52 full Boehm CT. My Bs Clt is a '62 Selmer Series 9....My flute is the youngest of the bunch...it's only 40 years old; a handmade Haynes (well, wait, I guess my piccolo is only 30 years old..an August Hammig).
I've been divesting instruments over the last few years so have gotten rid of most of my other horns (two pre-war Conns...a 6M alto and a 12M bari...great instruments)
Anthony
My alto is a Selmer BA from '37..and I have two clarinets; a '35 Selmer BT and a '52 full Boehm CT. My Bs Clt is a '62 Selmer Series 9....My flute is the youngest of the bunch...it's only 40 years old; a handmade Haynes (well, wait, I guess my piccolo is only 30 years old..an August Hammig).
I've been divesting instruments over the last few years so have gotten rid of most of my other horns (two pre-war Conns...a 6M alto and a 12M bari...great instruments)
Anthony